yamamanama | the divine dream

Since Benjamin Zander was conducting, we got a lot of insights before the concert.
The first movement is a sonata form. If you can find your way through the thirty five minutes of it. The first ten or so minutes are this plodding primeval behemoth. 8 horns, even though four was enough for everyone else. 2 cymbals, and then in a reiteration, three cymbals. The tam-tam represents death. Then comes the trombone. Then arrives Pan with summer and its exuberant marches. The voice of Death laments its own nature. In the balcony plays a trumpet with a flugelhorn mouthpiece.
The second movement was written in a day. A small-scale Shubertesque that opens, like all but one movement, with a perfect 4th. Carefree as only flowers are. Zander likens it to a fin de siecle Viennese waltz and if you’ve been reading my older posts, you’ll know that this won’t be the last time we liken Mahler’s music to fin de siecle Vienna. If you listen, you’ll hear quotes from his 4th symphony, which, as you know if you’ve been her a while, the last movement to that was meant to be the last movement of this. I suppose it got overlong.
In the third movement, I thought I heard someone in the hallway playing a brass instrument.
The fourth movement is the heart of the symphony. The song is Nietzsche.
The fifth movement is a brief song of praise. The boys in the balcony make bell sounds and the woman sing of faith. There’s a brief dark section where the soloist sings of sin and guilt. Where four is modern, five is ancient. Four is midnight, five is midlight. Four is amorphous, five is sing-songy. Again, it quotes the fourth symphony.
The sixth movement, bright light and piccolos fade into the aether. The first nine notes are a quotes from Beethoven’s first quartet.

Zander called this an anthem for humanity. It’s not about nationalism, or triumph, or tragedy, or resignation, but pure bliss.

We waited two and a half years for this. I’m hoping Omicron Mark 2 is the last phase of this, but sadly. people like MCA Hogarth and L. Jagi Lamplighter are the ones with reach.

It’s not like Beethoven. Instead, Mahler breaks a handful of rules each symphony. I don’t know if having a chorus was considered rule-breaking in the 1890s. It wasn’t the first of its kind, nor was it the second, nor was it the third if you count various quasi-symphonies like Liszt’s Faust Symphony, Sibelius’ Kullervo, and Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. It’s also the longest symphony. Well, there’s one that’s longer that has only been played a handful of times. And there are a few that exist on paper that have never been performed, let alone recorded. The orchestra plays instruments in ways that they were never meant to be played.

On the train was a very pale woman with dark hair and big eyes with a cow-print jacket.
I ate at Lucy. Spinach with what I think was cinnamon and cloves, and what I’m pretty sure is the same thing I had last time, that is to say, a spicy lamb stew wrapped in injera. Or maybe not. I think I had a vegetable stew last time.
They played Mulatu Ästaṭḳe and the guy was impressed that I knew who he was.

I noticed on the signs around the reflecting pool that the Mapparium has the Tuvan People's Republic. I checked and it was built in 1935 and they wanted to update it a few times in 1939, 1956, and 1966, but that would be prohibitively expensive.

burning question: Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?