Category: Gustav Mahler

Sydney Symphony Orchestra presents MAHLER 9: ANOTHER WORLD in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. After a heavy diet of good but depressing nihilistic theatre experiences of late (MUCH ADO… at Bell Shakespeare being the exception) and to help me to gain courage to attend BAAL at the Sydney Theatre Company, I decided “If music be the food of love”, what better way to drink in a whole fountain of love, then to go to hear the Sydney Symphony under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy to a Mahler drowning in sound/music/ love. I love music but am simply…

Australian Chamber Orchestra present: Tour One – TEDDY TAHU RHODES at the Sydney Opera House. Songs with and without words. The Mahler Adagietto (from Symphony No.5.) (1902), familiar to those of us who remember the Visconti film DEATH IN VENICE was our first offering in this concert. It is a beautiful and melancholic experience. Whether it was written as a wordless love declaration by Gustav Mahler to his future wife, or is related more to the sombre setting of a Ruckert poem, “Ich bin der Welt abhanden recommend” (1901): I have lost touch with the world where I once wasted…

\Music, as I have declared elsewhere, this year in this blog space, is a late appreciation for me. As I matured I began to attend and appreciate Concert going. My experience is that of a growing “lover” rather than a “knower”. In my concert going Mahler is a relatively new acquaintance. The San Francisco Orchestra under the guidance of Michael Tilson Thomas, both concert and recordings, was how I was first drawn into the Mahler spell. The extremely erudite introductory essay in the program notes by Gordon Kerry will be responsible for any knowing that I write here. I decided…