Prom 22 (30.7.12): Mozart, Mahler & Knussen

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Monday 30 July at 7.30 p.m.
Royal Albert Hall

Mozart: Don Giovanni – overture (6 mins)
Oliver Knussen: Symphony No. 2 (17 mins)
Mahler: Symphony No. 7 (78 mins)

Gillian Keith soprano
BBC Philharmonic
Gianandrea Noseda conductor

The BBC Philharmonic and their Conductor Laureate Gianandrea Noseda open tonight's Prom with Mozart's famous Don Giovanni Overture and celebrate Oliver Knussen's 60th Birthday with his second symphony. Gillian Keith is the soloist giving stratospheric voice to this setting of poems by Georg Trakl and Sylvia Plath.
Mahler described his Seventh Symphony as 'light-hearted' and it is said to be the work that convinced Schoenberg of Mahler's greatness. Although one of his least performed symphonies its rich orchestration and imaginative use of unusual instruments, like guitar and mandolin, make it a compelling listen.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I do have a problem with Mahler 7. As a rule I greatly admire this composer, but find no. 7 to be quite tedious. I know I might as well admit to being an axe murderer, as to say this on this forum, but...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One might forgive an axe murderer, but ...

[salymap]

Was Oliver Knussen's father in one of the London orchestras? I remember a small boy running around at one or two rehearsals and the dates are right.

Sorry, off topic

[subcontrabass]

Was Oliver Knussen's father in one of the London orchestras? I remember a small boy running around at one or two rehearsals and the dates are right.

Principal double bass, LSO.

[salymap]

Principal double bass, LSO.

Yes I thought so but my memory is not what it was. A group of us always sat in G block stalls, at the side of the platform and he was running around as I said. He has changed a bit though

Many thanks

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One might forgive an axe murderer, but ...

I know. I feel very guilty.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Actually, a number of Mahler enthusiasts find this the least sympathetic of his works. I've always enjoyed it: the Midsummernight's Dream after the King Lear of the Sixth. A bit creepy, with a lot of Hoffmannesque spooky humour - the sort where you're never quite sure when (or even if) to laugh.

[heliocentric]

I think a lot of people have a problem with the Seventh because it doesn't allow itself to be pinned down in terms of expressive categories as easily as most of the others do; it isn't "tragic" like the Sixth or "innocent" like the Fourth or "valedictory" like the Ninth, and so on. Anyone who knows the music, of course, will be aware that these labels are gross oversimplifications, but for me the fact that the Seventh resists that kind of simplification makes it all the more fascinating and indeed radical. The first movement for example is so complex in its unfolding and in the rapid succession of sometimes momentary sound-images and -vistas it evokes, in a way that would be more typical of music written half a century after Mahler's death than in the work of his immediate successors. I guess making a connection between Mahler's Seventh and (say) Boulez or Stockhausen is hardly going to be taken as a recommendation by many contributors to this forum, but all the same I think it means something.

[EdgeleyRob]

I love Mahler 7 and thought tonights performance was fantastic (amateur view).
To me it's Mahler's most interesting symphony,almost like chamber music at times.

[jayne lee wilson]

It was as if Noseda said to the orchestra, anyone can play the notes - tonight we'll tell a Fantastic Tale! And how vividly and daringly they told it, tempo rubato ed espressivo through the 1st movement, with the sublimely delicate and sensuous lead-back to the recapitulation only one of many freshly-read moments. "Make it new" seemed to be the motto here.

The three middle movements were played almost attacca, as a nocturne in 3 parts; this had a least the merit of preventing applause from chasing the owls, ghosts and ardent serenaders away too soon - the Prommers eager acclaim released to usher in the broad daylight of the finale.

Noseda effortlessly contrasted the relaxed yet spooky atmosphere of (i) and (ii), and the lovesong of (iii), with the forward momentum of the first movement and flnale. I would have liked a little more colour and character in the dance-episodes of (v) as, overshadowed by the brilliantly sunlit marches, the lesser characters in the tale were rather left to look after themselves; but this was a true PERFORMANCE, an enactment of Mahler's shadow play, and if the players were driven to extremes - just listen to the strings in the scherzo! - it isn't the occasional mishap I'll remember, but how Noseda held us all with his glittering eye.

[jayne lee wilson]

Special Delivery for Hornspieler, the Digested Read of Noseda's Mahler 7:

(i) ooh, aah... Yes, Yes!

(ii) Spooky!

(iii) Even spookier!!

(iv) (cod French accent) ah, what a night for Love!

(v) Yes! Yes... er... YES!

Gianni and the lads done well.

[Boilk]

Had something of a revelation tonight; the closing fanfare of the 7th's climax is a majorised version of a minor tune (2nd subject?) from the first movt. Brings to mind use of that technique in the closing fanfare of Bruckner's 8th (although there AB's superimposing majorised versions of tunes from more than one movement).

[HighlandDougie]

Special Delivery for Hornspieler, the Digested Read of Noseda's Mahler 7:

(i) ooh, aah... Yes, Yes!

(ii) Spooky!

(iii) Even spookier!!

(iv) (cod French accent) ah, what a night for Love!

(v) Yes! Yes... er... YES!

Jayne

I hope that you have copyrighted your succinct (and very funny - it made me laugh out loud) description of this bit of a problem child among the Mahler symphonies. I think that you should adopt the same approach to the rest

HD

[Boilk]

I don't know how anyone can describe the 7th as problematic when there is the Eighth "symphony" to contend with - a far more unconventional work.