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Frequently updated, always lively, a music blog that's actually about music ! Orchestral, chamber, opera, song. Good for new music, modern opera, Messiaen, Chinese music, European festivals - different and provocative. Emphasis on live performance re
Recent Posts Tagged With 'mahler'
Mahler 4th Stein not a miniature
Why a chamber transcription of Mahler's Fourth Symphony when the full thing is so good? Because transcriptions are made as study materials, to explore the basic structure of the work to better appreciate how it functions. That was the aim of the Vere...
The Mahlers go to America
Here's a copy of the original shipping document which shows who sailed from Hamburg to New York on 12 November 1908. The family Mahler : Gustav aged 48, Alma aged 29 and Anna aged 4. Home city Wien. Click photo to enlarge....
Why greedy kids in Mahler 4th?
Why is the Das himmlische Leben, the final movement of Mahler's Fourth Symphony obsessed with images of food? It's a perceptive question because it's a path into Mahler's imagery that runs throughout his work. Many thanks to the person who emailed ...
Mahler 6 Prom 28 2009
Listen to the discussion in the interval between the first and second halves of the broadcast of this Prom. Extremely good discussion on ideas and literature in Vienna and Mahler's awareness of what was around him. David Marks and Karen Leeder know w...
Mahler 9 as abstract art - Haitink, Prom 5 2009
Conductors should not treat Mahler as a "free for all", says Bernard Haitink. "Mahler's symphonies should not be treated as fantasies, rhapsodies. They are very carefully structured. He was a conductor, he knew very well what he was doing. Emotion i...
Mahler, Freudian pioneer - Salonen's psychologically astute Mahler 7th
Mahler’s Seventh Symphony doesn’t quite fit in with the usual Mahler fascination with metaphysics, and is something of a Cinderella compared with blockbusters like the 5th,, 6th, 8th and 9th symphonies. Yet it has unique charms. Clues to performa...
Prof. Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler 's greatest biographer
This day, 26th May, marks the 85th birthday of Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange. Prof. de La Grange is the world's foremost authority on Gustav Mahler. Last year he published the fourth volume of his monumental biography of the composer. It's prob...
Mahler 8 Boulez Berlin
“So far I have employed words and the human voice …….t o express symphonically only with immense breadth”, said Mahler of this symphony. “But here the voice is also an instrument ……. used not only as sound, but as the bearer of poetic ...
Mahler sequence Carnegie Hall NY Boulez Barenboim 1-5
It's interesting, how the Carnegie Hall publicity for the Mahler symphonies series makes it sound like a Barenboim cycle with Boulez guesting. True, Barenboim conducts the Berlin Staatskapelle, so it's his orchestra. But even he credits Pierre Boul...
Mahler Cycle New York - Boulez and Barenboim bring Berlin to NY.
Surprisingly there are are very few genuine Mahler cycles. Most are compilations put together by marketing people to sell fancy boxed sets. But Mahler, more than any other composer, wrote with surprising consistency. It's been jokingly suggested tha...
