Mahler - First Symphony (NEC Philharmonia + Wolff) 1/2

Hugh Wolff, NEC's Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras, conducts the NEC Philharmonia in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in a reconstructed edition, based on two of the earliest manuscript sources for the symphony. The majority of the music is a transcription of a newly discovered manuscript at the Mahler-Rosé Collection at the University of Western Ontario containing three movements of the originally five-movement symphony. This music is believed to be the earliest version of the First Symphony, premiered in Budapest in November 1889.
The two movements missing from the Ontario manuscript -- the Blumine and the Funeral March -- are performed from their own earliest manuscript source from the Osborne collection at Yale, reflecting the second, 1893 Hamburg performance of the symphony.
This performance of the First includes not only the Blumine movement that Mahler initially took over from another work and ultimately discarded, but also significant segments of music, notably in the Finale, that never made it into any subsequent versions. Originally called Symphonic Poem in Two Parts, the work features a smaller, less Mahlerian orchestra than in its later incarnations, and gives insight into the compositional process that transformed this piece into the Mahler First Symphony that we know today. This work, in Mahler's words "the most spontaneous and daringly composed of all", was subsequently heavily revised, yet due to the public's rejection, remained as he observed his "child of sorrow".

NEC's concert marked the American premiere of this earliest version of the Symphony, and the first time it has been heard in this form since its 1889 premiere. This performing edition was prepared from microfilms of the manuscripts by Kristo Kondakci '09 Prep, '13 B.M., an NEC composition major studying with Michael Gandolfi and John Mallia.
For more information: http://necmusic.edu/mahler

Category:

Music

Tags:

• new england conservatory
• jordan hall
• boston
• hugh wolff
• gustav mahler
• symphony
• premiere
• michael gandolfi
• john malia
• composer
• orchestra
• classical music