Gerhaher, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Blomstedt, Royal Albert Hall

Not a concert but a masterclass in Bruckner conducting

Yet again I leave a Herbert Blomstedt concert with a sense of wonderment and bemusement. Wonderment at the extraordinary music-making that this man is capable of. Bemusement as to why he is not better known, his talents not more widely recognised, his services not more often called upon in this, his 83rd year. Last night's masterful Prom saw him leading the youngsters of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester first into the heavens of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler Symphony and then into the fiery wastes of hell in Bruckner's terrifying Ninth.
 

Keenlyside, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Albert Hall

An Eroica with too many E-numbers

Boy, did I want to enjoy this Prom. On paper it should have been the highlight of the season. Young Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has been making his mark in London as principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra with several sensational performances of Bruckner over the past few years. Here he was for his Proms debut at the helm of his smart new orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic (Gergiev's old outfit).

Tune in to Abbado's astounding Lucerne Mahler 9 livestream

You'll just have to take it on trust from me that to hear the world's most responsive orchestra conducted by the world's finest living conductor in the deepest symphony ever written is the one concert hall experience you can't afford to miss. And since tickets for this event have been the hardest-to-get ever, live viewing will have to be a second best for most. Tonight you can watch Claudio Abbado conducting his beloved superband the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Mahler's Ninth Symphony as it unfurls from the Nouvel-designed concert hall.

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Metzmacher, Royal Albert Hall

Hairdressing and window-dressing in hazy lesser Romantics and so-so Mahler 7

Swimming in the soup of the lesser late Romantics can be hard work. You get to admire the pretty variegated fish as you flounder, waiting to be buoyed up by a bigger idea. Then one comes along and nudges away so insistently that you nearly drown. Both extremes had to be borne in the first half of last night's Prom, with Ingo Metzmacher steering a supple course between the lazy devil of a Schreker operatic interlude and the placid blue sea of Korngold's Violin Concerto. The one interesting question that kept me afloat in viscous waters was: could he turn master oarsman and steer the superior, packed-to-bursting vessel of Mahler's Seventh Symphony?

Gergiev, World Orchestra for Peace, Royal Albert Hall

A lousy Mahler Four and an invigorating Mahler Five

It seemed odd on paper. Two Mahler symphonies? In one night? I don't think I'd ever seen that. Last night's Prom showed why not. While Valery Gergiev's second half Mahler Five saw the stage transfigured into a writhing sea of bodies and the air filled with an epic sound, his first half starter, Mahler Four, fell flat on its face. One was a performance; the other was a rehearsal to a performance.
 

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Runnicles, Royal Albert Hall

Donald Runnicles - a great Mahlerian in the making?

Being a great Mahler conductor is all about going the extra distance: the near-inaudible pianissimo, the seismic crescendo, the rhetorical ritardando; the accelerando that borders on reckless, the tempo change that crashes the gear-shift, the general pause that becomes a gaping chasm. Mahler took all the trappings of Austro-German music to the edge and back. His most successful interpreters do likewise. So, on the evidence of this Prom performance of the pantheistic Third Symphony, is Donald Runnicles a great Mahler conductor? Maybe not quite, not yet. But getting there.

Australian Youth Orchestra, Elder, Royal Albert Hall

A worthy successor to last year's Proms hit, the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra

The stage of the Royal Albert Hall has a rather unfortunate habit of making orchestras seem incidental. Stretching endlessly across, one of the world’s largest organs by way of backdrop, even the most generous conventional ensembles take on Lilliputian proportions. Youth orchestras, with their Romantic scale and do-or-die attack, often emerge best from this encounter, as the Simón Bolívar and Gustav Mahler ensembles have recently proved. Framed by eight double basses and five horns, the Royal Albert Hall finally starts to make sense as a performance space. In the hands (and lips) of the Australian Youth Orchestra last night, it not only made sense, it made music.

theartsdesk in Los Angeles: Twilight in Tent City

The movie capital needs to get its act together for next year's festival

The Los Angeles Film Festival would seem to have everything going for it. There's the perfect Californian weather, the vast number of stars who live and work in the city, and this year there’s been a glamorous new venue in downtown Los Angeles. The 16th festival has also brought in an ambitious new artistic director, former Newsweek film critic David Ansen, who hopes to unite high and low, screening both crowd-pleasers with major Hollywood talent and small, finely crafted foreign films. And yet something has been amiss.

Classical Music CDs Round-Up 6

March releases have a late-romantic bias

This month’s reviews have a heavy late-romantic bias: chamber music by Dvořák, fascinating and idiosyncratic Mahler from Bernstein and Tennstedt, and some superb recordings of Bruckner, Sibelius and Rachmaninov (or Rachmaninoff, as Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra prefer to call him). The more offbeat items include an eclectic piano recital, two quirky ballet scores from the Soviet Union and contemporary orchestral music from France inspired by the cosmos. As usual, click on the links to purchase these items on Amazon.

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