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Thread: Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

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    Registered User Tom Wright's Avatar
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    Default Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

    The Chicago Symphony YouTube channel is offering a "digital premiere", the live recording from 2010 of Mahler's 7th Symphony, Pierre Boulez conducting, at 8pm EDT. There are several closeups of me playing mandolin in the 4th movement. My technique is not wholly correct but got no complaints from Boulez, and I make sure you hear the mandolin. I also encouraged our guitar player to be bold.

    A long song, the 4th movement happens most of an hour into the piece.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPgMQew7YU

    I expect the video will be available at a later date, as well.
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    Default Re: Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

    That’s a very enjoyable performance!

    Tom, any insights into why Mahler included a mandolin? In looking at the score it is used sparingly. (Must be fun counting all of those rests.) I played a couple of the passages and they struck me as merry. It got me to wondering what inspired him to include it.
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    Registered User Rob MacKillop's Avatar
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    Default Re: Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

    Well done. You played it perfectly, and didn't embarrass the mandolinist's chair. But one hour before playing is nothing - I played the guitar part in Wagner's Meistersinger, and it is THREE hours before the guitar comes in, and then you have to sound like you can't play, as your character is a buffoon!

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    Registered User Tom Wright's Avatar
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    Default Re: Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

    According to CSO program notes, mandolin and guitar represent a guy serenading his lover.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop View Post
    Well done. You played it perfectly, and didn't embarrass the mandolinist's chair. But one hour before playing is nothing - I played the guitar part in Wagner's Meistersinger, and it is THREE hours before the guitar comes in, and then you have to sound like you can't play, as your character is a buffoon!
    A very long song. It's so annoying when composers ask us to sound bad -- Mozart asks the mandolin to represent the amateur Don Giovanni, and Stravinsky asks the bassoon to sound like a crude folk instrument in Rite of Spring.

    I feel I play much better now, after concentrating on mandolin and setting viola aside. But Peter, on guitar, and I are experienced in playing for that orchestra and can lay down a groove. The orchestra instrument may have been made by the luthier Leo Kottke liked -- Bozo Podunavac -- it was commissioned from Kagan and Gaines, a general musical-instrument shop in Chicago, probably in the 50s. Pretty loud but not a refined tone, which matched my unrefined playing. I was using Thomastik strings.

    Peter and I stayed awake by following an extra violin part. "Das Lied von der Erde" is another long wait. I had a chance to use my first Buchanan on a performance of that in Chicago before I retired. Much more pleasing tone.
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    Registered User Tom Wright's Avatar
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    Default Re: Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

    Quote Originally Posted by ToyonPete View Post
    That’s a very enjoyable performance!

    Tom, any insights into why Mahler included a mandolin? In looking at the score it is used sparingly. (Must be fun counting all of those rests.) I played a couple of the passages and they struck me as merry. It got me to wondering what inspired him to include it.
    Program notes from CSO inform that it is a serenade to a lover.
    Bandcamp -- https://tomwright1.bandcamp.com/
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    The viola is proof that man is not rational

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    Registered User Louise NM's Avatar
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    Default Re: Mahler 7 Tonight (7/7/20)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Wright View Post
    It's so annoying when composers ask us to sound bad -- Mozart asks the mandolin to represent the amateur Don Giovanni, and Stravinsky asks the bassoon to sound like a crude folk instrument in Rite of Spring.
    Another classic example of this is Peter Maxwell Davies' An Orkney Wedding With Sunrise where the solo violinist is supposed to sound drunk. It's a great piece, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCeh6amXyYE

    I listened to the Mahler symphony this afternoon. Nice playing! What was Boulez like to play under? He has a grouchy affect.

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