The sad death earlier in the year at the age of 44 of a former Cor Anglais player of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Zoe Kitson, was celebrated in a five minute world premier by Sir James Macmillan entitled For Zoe. After a due silence the Orchestra was into Mahler's Third Symphony.
Considered the longest of Mahler's symphonies with the first of six movements lasting a full thirty five minutes, Mahler is said to have taken himself to a lakeside resort in Upper Austria for a summer of composing and to get away from an increasingly busy conducting career. We can picture him sitting with his summerhouse doors wide open. He wanted a symphony in which the whole of nature finds a voice. 'The summer marches in' is how he titled the first movement, the second 'What the flowers of the meadow tell me'. In the third we listened for the animals of the forest, twice hearing a very effective distant post horn.
For the fourth movement, the mezzo soprano Linda Watson was already in her place to sing 'What night tells me' and the struggle to make sense of the world. Sitting very still behind the Orchestra from the beginning were about one hundred and twenty ladies and girls, roughly half from the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and half from the RSNO Junior Choir. All rose to sing the fifth movement which told the story of how Peter betrayed Christ - but went on to regret it. There was no singing for the final movement which brought Mahler's thoughts on evolution and nature together in a strong and powerful manner. The RSNO's highly regarded Music Director Thomas Sondergård had every reason to be pleased with the performance of his Orchestra and the joint Chorus in front of him.
Event: Tuesday 23rd August 2022 at 8pm