sat 02/11/2024

BBC Proms: Graham, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Davis | reviews, news & interviews

BBC Proms: Graham, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Davis

BBC Proms: Graham, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Davis

Viennese youth orchestra teams up with ageing conductor in the wild and exotic

Colin Davis and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester: the old leading the young© Chris Christodoulou

The spectacle of an orchestra named after Mahler playing Stravinsky irresistibly calls to mind Stravinsky’s report of a performance of the Eighth Symphony in Zurich in 1913. “Imagine”, he wrote to Maurice Delage, “that for two hours you are made to understand that two times two makes four.” Oddly enough, repetition is the lifeblood of Stravinsky’s own music, though he rarely makes two times two equal four, and his symphonies don’t last two hours (nor, incidentally, do Mahler’s).

The spectacle of an orchestra named after Mahler playing Stravinsky irresistibly calls to mind Stravinsky’s report of a performance of the Eighth Symphony in Zurich in 1913. “Imagine”, he wrote to Maurice Delage, “that for two hours you are made to understand that two times two makes four.” Oddly enough, repetition is the lifeblood of Stravinsky’s own music, though he rarely makes two times two equal four, and his symphonies don’t last two hours (nor, incidentally, do Mahler’s).

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The Soprano Soloist is of course the world renowned MEZZO Soprano Susan Graham.

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