Mahler's Glorification of Existence

Greg and I promised ourselves that we would try to take advantage of every opportunity to hear great orchestral moments when we were in New York and Wednesday night was one of the greatest we've heard in our admittedly limited experience.  The celebrated Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam presented Gustav Mahler's Symphony #3 in D Minor.  Mahler wrote monumental works using very large orchestras and choruses, so performances of his works require immense resources.  The stage was filled to capacity with perfomers-by my count there were 95-100 members of the orchestra, 30 members of the women's choir and 75 members of the boyschoir. So when the symphony pulls out all the stops, as in its powerful first movement,  it is an instrumental blast of sound.  The 30 minute first movement ranges from the infinitesimally quiet sound of a muted drum to a tsunami of music with all the instruments at full volume. There is no sensory experience to equal all those sound waves, exquisitely synchronized and in harmony, coming at you. 

Mahler was an emotional, evocative composer who said "I don't choose what to compose. It chooses me"   And since the 3d Symphony was composed as a musical evocation of the forces and creations of nature, both Greg and I felt that we had heard God's voice within the orchestral creation.  The titles to the five movements in the second part of the symphony rejoice in the progression in the world of creation:

• What the flowers of the meadow tell me
• What the animals in the forest tell me
• What the night tells me
• What the angels tell me
• What love/God tells me

 The "animals" passage included a haunting posthorn solo.  The "night" passage is still and deep with a poem by Nietzsche sung by a mezzo-soprano.  The final movement is an emotional adagio and the massive string section soared with the feeling that only love and God can elicit.  Since my critical writing skills don't rise to the occasion of this performance, I recommend the linked review which more fully describes a "performance led with passion, energy and  sense of mystical otherworldliness."

Thursday I spent the day following other evocative, "impressionistic" artists who also used their creative gifts to glorify existence.  My next blog entry will try to recreate my experience with Debussy, Van Gogh and Walt Whitman all in one day.  I love New York!