Latest news with #Mahler
Calgary Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Review: Rune Bergmann gives exemplary farewell to orchestra and city
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content It was a night of finales and farewells. On the last weekend in May, the CPO performed its final pair of concerts of the current season, a season with many highlights (including this one) and with 40 sold-out performances, a company first. Recovering from near bankruptcy some years ago, the CPO is now enjoying some of the strongest support it has had in many years. Article content Article content At least some of the reason for this lies in the astute programming, but perhaps even more lies in the new manner of presentation, not the least by its outgoing conductor, Rune Bergmann, whose smiling face and manner have signalled to all that classical concerts can be both serious and simple fun. Article content Article content Bergmann has been with the orchestra for nine years, which includes the difficult years of COVID-19. It hasn't been easy to bring audiences back, but Bergmann persevered and has led the orchestra in delicate performances of works by Mozart as well as monumental symphonies by Mahler. Article content And it was with Mahler, specifically Mahler's popular Second Symphony (Resurrection), that Bergmann chose to conclude his time with the orchestra. A symphony about farewells, it is also about hope and new life. It is also a symphony by which to measure the growth in the performing stature of the orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, both of which are enjoying a period in which a great many of their recent concerts have been of a very high level. Article content Just this past season, the orchestra performed a splashy Carmina Burana to open its season (also with the CPO Chorus), with concerts featuring world-famous soloists like Jonathan Biss and Honens winner Nicolas Namoradze. It also gave superb performances of Mozart and Elgar with Bergmann at the helm, and a wonderful Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. String soloists were not ignored either, with outstanding performances by violinists James Ehnes and Diana Cohen, and recently a sold-out appearance with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Article content This list of accomplishments, together with an earlier Beethoven symphony and concerto cycle and several Mahler symphonies, including an impressive performance of the Third Symphony, gives an indication of the wide range of music performed, and with impressive surety and confidence. Article content These qualities marked Bergmann's final appearance with the orchestra. One could only marvel at the authority of the opening cello section solo, as well as the numerous solo turns given to the wind and brass players (especially the solo trumpet of Adam Zinatelli). The percussion section whipped up a storm, and the chorus sang with hushed emotion and, in the final moment, with dramatic grandeur.
Calgary Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Review:
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content It was a night of finales and farewells. On the last weekend in May, the CPO performed its final pair of concerts of the current season, a season with many highlights (including this one) and with 40 sold-out performances, a company first. Recovering from near bankruptcy some years ago, the CPO is now enjoying some of the strongest support it has had in many years. Article content Article content Article content At least some of the reason for this lies in the astute programming, but perhaps even more lies in the new manner of presentation, not the least by its outgoing conductor, Rune Bergmann, whose smiling face and manner have signalled to all that classical concerts can be both serious and simple fun. Article content Article content Bergmann has been with the orchestra for nine years, which includes the difficult years of COVID-19. It hasn't been easy to bring audiences back, but Bergmann persevered and has led the orchestra in delicate performances of works by Mozart as well as monumental symphonies by Mahler. Article content And it was with Mahler, specifically Mahler's popular Second Symphony (Resurrection), that Bergmann chose to conclude his time with the orchestra. A symphony about farewells, it is also about hope and new life. It is also a symphony by which to measure the growth in the performing stature of the orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, both of which are enjoying a period in which a great many of their recent concerts have been of a very high level. Article content Article content Just this past season, the orchestra performed a splashy Carmina Burana to open its season (also with the CPO Chorus), with concerts featuring world-famous soloists like Jonathan Biss and Honens winner Nicolas Namoradze. It also gave superb performances of Mozart and Elgar with Bergmann at the helm, and a wonderful Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. String soloists were not ignored either, with outstanding performances by violinists James Ehnes and Diana Cohen, and recently a sold-out appearance with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Article content This list of accomplishments, together with an earlier Beethoven symphony and concerto cycle and several Mahler symphonies, including an impressive performance of the Third Symphony, gives an indication of the wide range of music performed, and with impressive surety and confidence. Article content These qualities marked Bergmann's final appearance with the orchestra. One could only marvel at the authority of the opening cello section solo, as well as the numerous solo turns given to the wind and brass players (especially the solo trumpet of Adam Zinatelli). The percussion section whipped up a storm, and the chorus sang with hushed emotion and, in the final moment, with dramatic grandeur.
The Guardian
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
BBCSO/Elder review – like a Klimt painting in sound
Conducted by Mark Elder, the final concert of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's season opened with Franz Schreker's Chamber Symphony, a work we don't hear as often as we might, though it is a thing of often extraordinary beauty, sensual yet elusive, its sound world to some extent like no other. Dating from 1916 and written for 24 solo players, it is cast in the form of a ceaselessly evolving single movement, though its four sections echo and approximate conventional symphonic structure. Strauss and early Schoenberg lurk behind the scoring, which has an ornate, jewelled glamour, sometimes described as being like a Klimt painting in sound. Elder, clearly fond of it, lingered, sometimes a bit too much, over its sensuous textures, teasing them out with exquisite finesse and eliciting some gorgeous playing from the BBCSO in the process. The same attention to textural detail characterised the performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde that followed after the interval, an interpretation of unsparing intensity, magnificently controlled. Speeds were carefully calibrated, and Elder's slightly slower than usual tempo for Von der Jugend captured a poignant nostalgia behind the surface elegance, while the almost reckless momentum for the horsemen in Von der Schönheit immeasurably heightened the sense of yearning their appearance provokes. The sheer weight of orchestral sound was electrifying at the start and the ending immaculate in its reflective beauty. Elsewhere instrumental solos, played with exceptional refinement, seemed to call and echo across open spaces and voids, heartbreaking and desolate. Alice Coote and David Butt Philip were the soloists. Coote's voice has lost some of its opulence of late, and a hint of metal occasionally creeps into her upper registers. Her artistry remains intact, however, and she has always been superb in this work, slightly declamatory in her delivery, words and emotions deeply felt, yet etched with restraint and great dynamic subtlety. Butt Phillip, meanwhile, was simply revelatory, tackling some of the most demanding music ever written for tenor with astonishing ease, ringing fullness of tone and verbal clarity, even in the most implacable high-lying passages, all of it balanced with soft singing of immaculate warmth and sensitivity – a truly outstanding achievement in a very fine concert. Broadcast on Radio 3 on 27 May then available on BBC Sounds for 30 days.
Straits Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Concert review: SSO plays Mahler's Resurrection with power and panache
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra played Mahler's Resurrection Symphony on May 23 and 24 at the Esplanade Concert Hall. PHOTO: CHRIS P. LIM
South China Morning Post
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
‘Music everyone can relate to,' Mahler's symphonies celebrated in Amsterdam festival
When Klaus Mäkelä climbed the Concertgebouw podium in Amsterdam and turned to the audience at the orchestra's third Gustav Mahler Festival in 105 years, the conductor could see the writing on the wall. Facing him was 'MAHLER' etched in gold on a cartouche and shining in a spotlight, centred in a permanent position of honour among the 17 composers enshrined across the balcony front. And sitting in the first row directly behind the sign was Marina Mahler, the composer's 81-year-old granddaughter. 'It was just as it should be. I was terribly moved and excited at the same time,' she said after the final note of Mahler's Symphony No 1. 'It affected me in the deepest possible way.' All 10 of Mahler's numbered symphonies are being presented in order along with his other major works from May 8-18, ending on the 114th anniversary of his death at age 50. Ivan Fischer conducts the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir in Mahler's Symphony No 2 in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Photo: AP 'This is in a way the first orchestra that really trusted in Mahler,' Mäkela said.
