Many people in Germany would have opened their newspapers (or turned on their computers) on the morning of January 31 to discover that Richard von Weizsäcker – former mayor of West Berlin and first president of the reunified Germany – had died. That evening at the Philharmonie, Sir Simon Rattle announced that the concert would be dedicated to his memory and asked the audience to observe a moment of silence. Everyone in the auditorium rose to their feet and bowed their heads.
Even without this solemn opening, the evening had the air of a special occasion. Mahler’s Second Symphony, with its large orchestra, full choir and ninety minute duration, is the sort of piece that resists conventional programming. Paired on this evening with Lachenmann’s brief-but-intense Tableau, the one-off concert was intended perhaps as the practice run for a…
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