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The OSO’s music director Carlos Kalmar has demonstrated an affinity for the music of Gustav Mahler throughout his tenure with the orchestra, usually opening or closing a season with a major work of the Austrian composer. This year, at his other gig, Kalmar began the home stretch of the season of the Grant Park Music [...]
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Oregonian classical music critic David Stabler has posted a follow-up on his review of last Saturday’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. You can find it here.
What I find most interesting is the discussion that has apparently begun about the efficacy of the stage extension that we use for large works for choir and orchestra. Carl [...]
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We’ve got two out of our three performances of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony out into the ether, and the reviews of the first performances have been mixed.
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In one of my recent posts, I happened to say that I didn’t care for the Ode to Joy from the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. Well, I’ve reconsidered that stance a bit.
I still don’t do cartwheels over the long initial statement of the theme in the celli and basses, then the violas. I think [...]
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We had our first rehearsals on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony yesterday, and it was one of those days where I was tired from the very beginning, but I thought I could at least dredge up nine observations about this well-loved work from an insider’s perspective. In the spirit of full disclosure, I cannot vouch for the [...]
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That’s how I feel this morning. If you’ve played Mahler’s Ninth twice the previous day, plus ridden the 9 miles to work and 9 miles back home before and after the rehearsal – it leads to a healthy sense of fatigue!
The performance last night was memorable – this orchestra has truly come of age. We’re [...]
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We’re at the final movement of this great symphony, and what a movement it is! If you mention Mahler 9 to almost anyone, they’ll invariably start to talk about the first time they ever heard the slow movement, and how it affected them at a critical time in their life.
In the orchestral parts, the [...]
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Stuttering, arrhythmic, heartbeat rhythms in the horn and cellos, hesitant fragments of a melody in the distant french horn, then the rocking of the harp, and the first ineffably sad song of melancholic longing in the strings accompanied by restlessly rustling sextuplets in the violas. It’s the opening of Mahler’s massive, elegiac Ninth Symphony, [...]
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What would a Mahler symphony be without a sprawling, hectic, and by turns achingly beautiful scherzo? Well, quite a bit shorter, for one. Mahler is often in the habit of taking a huge movement in cut time and making a huge journey out of it, and the Ninth Symphony is no exception.
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