Mahler "Tragic" Symphony

I have seen circular concert halls on YouTube, but today (Saturday) was my first time sitting in one, and specifically behind the orchestra, which also happens to be the cheap seats. Concert tickets, even for the cheap seats were not cheap, but despite this, the hall was almost full. The audience was also quite diverse in terms of age group, with a number of children in attendance.

The concert started with a short 20 minute piece,"swallow harbour", by a young American composer Conrad Tao, in it's debut performance. The notes from the composer mentions that the piece is inspired by the city's jagged skyline - and thus the music is jagged with various short snippets. There isn't really a consistent theme or melody till almost the very end and the performance, to me at least, was not really that pleasant - too experimental and too distorted to make it pleasant and entertaining.

After a short interval, Mahler's 6th Symphony, was the highlight performance. It's the first time I have heard it, and the program notes made it fairly easy to follow the progression. The symphony is said tone Mahler's most personal, inspired by his wife - so it's a bit strange that it explores death and tragedy in its finale; and much of the joyous and passion are wiped out by the finale. 

It was a magnificent performance - and being next to the percussion in this specific performance was a pleasure to watch. The only complaint would be - the sledgehammer in the finale just didn't have the impact described in the notes ... but it still managed to break the box!