A Birthday: Gustav Mahler
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
We begin with a short Mahler Serenade as tribute to his birthday (1860), but Mahler’s monumental Eighth, the “Symphony of a Thousand,” is our featured work this evening.
An intriguing orchestral take on Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet in E Minor is presented by the Vienna Philharmonic under André Previn. Several venerable conductors have orchestrated versions of this Quartet, which sounds good both as originally notated and for bigger forces. This evening’s version was conceived by none other than Maestro Arturo Toscanini.
Now, for the magnificence of the Mahler! “Symphony of a Thousand” was coined by the impresario Emil Gutman to promote the original performances, which involved 858 singers and an orchestra of 171, plus Mahler himself. (He should have called it “Symphony of a Thousand Plus!” Mahler intended this work, which unites the Latin text Veni, creator spiritus with the final scene of Goethe’s Faust, to embody the concept of Eros as Creator of the world. This remarkable performance is molded by Claudio Abbado, who commands the Berlin Radio and Prague Philharmonic Choruses, the Tolzer Boys Choir, the Berlin Philharmonic, and a distinguished roster of singers: Cheryl Studer, Sylvia McNair, Andrea Rost, Anne Sofie von Otter, Rosemaire Lang, Peter Seiffert, Bryn Terfel, and Jan-Hendrik Rootering.
An intriguing orchestral take on Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet in E Minor is presented by the Vienna Philharmonic under André Previn. Several venerable conductors have orchestrated versions of this Quartet, which sounds good both as originally notated and for bigger forces. This evening’s version was conceived by none other than Maestro Arturo Toscanini.
Now, for the magnificence of the Mahler! “Symphony of a Thousand” was coined by the impresario Emil Gutman to promote the original performances, which involved 858 singers and an orchestra of 171, plus Mahler himself. (He should have called it “Symphony of a Thousand Plus!” Mahler intended this work, which unites the Latin text Veni, creator spiritus with the final scene of Goethe’s Faust, to embody the concept of Eros as Creator of the world. This remarkable performance is molded by Claudio Abbado, who commands the Berlin Radio and Prague Philharmonic Choruses, the Tolzer Boys Choir, the Berlin Philharmonic, and a distinguished roster of singers: Cheryl Studer, Sylvia McNair, Andrea Rost, Anne Sofie von Otter, Rosemaire Lang, Peter Seiffert, Bryn Terfel, and Jan-Hendrik Rootering.
