Word: mahler
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...Mahler's Eighth may or may not be the greatest symphony ever composed, but it's surely the loudest: at its premiere in Munich in 1910, the impresario called it with Barnumesque flair the "Symphony of a Thousand" to convey the immense scale of the work, which requires a double orchestra, a pipe organ, three large choirs and eight vocal soloists. At a performance of the piece last month by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the forces were just shy of 500, more than enough to achieve the sense of grandeur that Mahler envisioned. In the finale, when the massed musicians...
...Twenty-five years ago, such a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 anywhere in Pacific Asia outside Japan would have been impossible. There simply weren't enough skilful players around, and the venues available to them were woefully inadequate. (The qualifier "outside Japan" is essential: the Japanese have been fascinated by Western classical music since the time of Mahler himself.) But these days, world-class orchestras and world-class halls for them to play in are cropping up throughout the region...
...tallest skyscraper, De Waart led the orchestra in a short piece by John Adams. Then the intense, affable maestro spelled out his grandiose ambitions: De Waart, 63, one of the world's most accomplished and sought-after conductors, announced that he wants to perform a complete cycle of Mahler's symphonies in 2011, the centenary of the composer's death, and that he plans to present an opera in concert every year, culminating in a performance of Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelungs, the most challenging work in the Western musical canon. But what De Waart mainly wants...
...behavior on the conducting podium may be self-effacing, but Lan Shui talks about the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in bold, even hubristic terms. On the morning after his performance of the "Symphony of a Thousand" at the Esplanade, he asserts, "I think it's possible for us to play Mahler better than the Vienna Philharmonic. When we toured Japan with Mahler's Ninth Symphony, there were one or two performances that were as good as Vienna's?or not worse...
...midfield, Harvard was led by its top line of tri-captain Jeff Gotschall, sophomore Jake Samuelson and Mahler for much of the season, though they weren’t the only players to see action...