Sunday Sevens #57

Hurrah! It’s the first Sunday Sevens of the year! I had fun collecting seven pictures from my week, which began with a walk with Riley to the local park. He was sporting his new jacket. I thought he looked very fetching! 🙂

I am determined to make 2019 the year I hit 2000 miles in the #walk1000miles challenge. So far this month I have walked 171 miles. If you are competing in the challenge, how are you doing?

Music:

Voting for this years Classic FM Hall of Fame has opened. I chose three pieces of music which make me stop and reflect.

My Choices in Hall of Fame

My choices were:

1. Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony
2. Elgar’s Nimrod
3. Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight

Which pieces of classical music would you vote for?

Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Sunday, David and I attended a concert of Mahler’s triumphant 5th Symphony at the Liverpool Philharmonic. It was one of the best performances of the symphony I had heard!

Collecting:

This week I managed to complete my 2018 collection of Beatrix Potter 50ps. My latest find was Peter Rabbit munching on carrots! All I need now to complete three years worth of 50ps is the most rare one, Jemima Puddle-Duck.

Have you found any collectible 50ps in your change?

Peter Rabbit 2018

Maxi Climber

Exercise:

David bought an exercise machine to add to our well equipped gym. In his work’s shop he spied a Maxi Climber. It was a good purchase at only £20! It retails for over £100! I’ve only had a 10 minute session on the machine but my limbs ache!

Book I’m Reading:

I am reading the second of Minette Walter’s medieval novels, The Turn of Midnight. Even though I didn’t rate the first book much, I decided to give the second installment a go.

What books are you reading at present?

The Turn of Midnight

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2019

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch:

This weekend is the much anticipated RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I did my count on a blustery Sunday during lunch-time. Thankfully the birds put on a good show. I had five species frequent the feeders, mostly the usual visitors! My count was as follows:

• Seven starlings
• One blue tit
• 15 goldfinches
• 23 pigeons
• One robin

What species of bird have you seen in your garden?

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Thanks to Natalie at Threads and bobbins for devising the series.

Sunday Sevens #36

I think its time for a quick catch up, in the form of a Sunday Sevens devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins! Though instead of just focusing on one week I have chosen pictures taken from the past few weeks.

Viper-bugloss

Yarrow

Rudbeckia

The Yarden: The weather for the UK of late has been rather changeable. I have not enjoyed the cooler days and rain showers, but the plants in the yarden have been thriving! The wildflower seeds from the 30 days wild pack have started to flower. I am not 100% on the identification but think they are yarrow and viper’s-bugloss, do correct me if I’m wrong! I also bought a new plant to add to the perfect for pollinators collection, a vibrant rudbeckia! It definitely gives a flash of colour to the yarden!

Culture: Last weekend, David and I spent hours walking around the shops in Liverpool. A highlight was seeing The Umbrella Project. 200 umbrellas suspended over a street in the city centre, to aid awareness of ADHD.

#walk1000miles: My mileage this week has been a lowly 22 miles, though this year I’ve been making steady progress. I have now broken into 800 miles! My annual mileage is 829, just under 200 miles to go ’til I hit the target!

Wild Swimming: Much like my Lake District wild swimming map, I’ve purchased one of Northern Snowdonia and made a start on mapping my wild swims in North Wales. Llyn Cwellyn being my first!

Membership: I’ve been a member of the Facebook page, I Love the Lake District since I fell in love with wild swimming. This year, a group of members came together with an idea of creating a badge to help members connect with each other while raising much needed funds for Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue. I just had to buy one and add it to my collection!

I love the lake district badge

Mrd Tiggy Winkle

Collecting: After a drought of a few weeks regarding the Beatrix Potter 50p’s. This week I finally spotted my fourth, Mrs Tiggy Winkle! All I need is Jemima Puddle Duck and I will have the set!

The BBC Proms: For me this year has been particularly good. Many of my favorite composers, such as Elgar have been featured among the concerts. Last Sunday I enjoyed listening to a perfect concert of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no.3 and his Symphony no. 2 performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Gustav Mahler’s symphonies have featured heavily (surprisingly) this year! I have enjoyed the performances of his 2nd and 10th by the BBC SO and looking forward to my favourite of his symphonies, his 6th by the Vienna Philharmonic. Do you enjoy the Proms? Have you been lucky enough to see one at the Royal Albert Hall?

DIY: This weekend I have assisted (can’t say I helped much,) with the creation of our new back door. The old one did not open properly and was starting to disintegrate! David planned the design, purchased the wood, sawed and screwed them all together into a cohesive whole! The project took just two days to complete and cost £30! I think David is quietly impressed with his baby! I think it looks fab! 🙂 All we need now is to finish painting the yarden floor and walls and the outside of our home is refreshed!

And finally: Back to more culture! David and I topped off the weekend with a visit to Liverpool artist, Paul Curtis‘s For all Liverpool’s Liverbirds mural. I went for the angry liverbird look! 😀

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

A Celebration by the RLPO!

I had been excited about attending this concert for some time. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor Vasily Petrenko had earlier in the week been wowing the audience at the Royal Albert Hall, London in the biannual Classic FM Live. Friday’s programme borrowed heavily from their earlier London performance, though sadly Petrenko did not return to Liverpool with his glittering sequinned jacket which he wore in celebration of Classic FM’s Make Some Noise charity.

Vasily Petrenko Picture: Ian West/PA

David and I were in the cheap seats in the upper circle. The auditorium filled up nicely, but was not a full house as Thursday’s performance of the same programme was. I was thankful for this and we enjoyed a unobstructed view of the orchestra!

View from our seats

After the National Anthem, the orchestra started the evening as they meant to go on with a Celebration Overture composed by Nigel Hess and commissioned for the Philharmonic’s 175th anniversary! It was a fun opening to the concert though I was more interested in what came next.

Ji Liu who had also graced the stage of the Royal Albert Hall with Petrenko and co on Tuesday, came to Liverpool to perform Rachmaninov’s ultimately romantic second Piano Concerto!

Ji Liu

It is undoubtedly my favourite piano concerto! I love the lyricism of the piece and the second movement (adagio sostenuto) is spine tingly good. Ji Liu cuts a very slender frame on the stage and at times during the performance the piano seemed too small for him, (if that make’s any sense)! He played the piece deftly and with skill.

During the opening movement (moderato), I found that the orchestra seemed to drown out the piano at times. I have noted this earlier in my review of Nobuyuki Tsujii‘s performance of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. Perhaps this was why the orchestra was surrounded by padding that adorned the walls? In part to rectify the change in acoustics due to the earlier renovations? Either way, the performance was exceptional.

While Ji Liu took the audience into the slow, second movement, made famous by David Lean’s Brief Encounter, I prepared myself to be swept away with romantic feeling. However the reality was that any sentimental musings were disrupted by some unfortunate, who coughed and retched about five minutes into this musical reverie. I imagined the poor stricken soul expiring in his chair. I gripped David’s arm hoping the gentleman would recover or graciously leave the auditorium. He thankfully recovered so we could all enjoy the remaining performance which culminated in Ji Liu coming onto the stage three times to raucous approval and then satisfying the appreciative crowd with his rendition of Skyfall.

After the interval, the Philharmonic continued their celebratory mood, with Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila, Vaughan William’s English Folk Song Suite and Verdi’s Aida march and ballet music. The concert was rounded off loudly with the much played 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. I would have loved this performance even more, if it were not for the recorded playback of cannons near the cymbal crashing culmination! To me it seemed a little forced. I was content with the wonderful playing of the percussion section whose bells sounded glorious!

Overall it was a fun concert to see and a great start to the Philharmonic’s new season. I look forward even more to Petrenko’s Mahler in November when the RLPO perform Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, a symphony very close to my heart!

© 2015 Christine Lucas

Gustav Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony!

I’m not an expert in classical music. I don’t know much terminology nor can I decipher notation. I listen just because it makes me feel. Some pieces make me feel serene: Allegri’s Miserere, some make me want to dance, Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, and others just simply take me to a place both spiritually and emotionally that is unparalleled by any other medium! For me, Gustav Mahler’s music does that above any other composer. I may be a bit biased as Mahler was the composer who made me turn away from my ‘pop’ loving years of the 90’s to re-acquaint myself with classical music, but his symphonies especially his later ones from the 5th onwards often have me quaking with a mixture of heightened emotions!

Gustav Mahler

There is joy to be heard in Mahler’s work for example his 1st Symphony bristles with youthful energy. Love is to be found in his 3rd Symphony, not only human love but of nature too. His 9th Symphony is filled with heavy pathos and heartfelt resignation but it is not done in a depressive way, it’s more of an enlightened way, which enables deep soul searching. And then there is the fear and tragedy that punctuates his 6th Symphony and resonates so powerfully in his 2nd!

It is Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, entitled the Resurrection, that I now turn my attention to.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra performed the Resurrection twice this April, on Wednesday 29th and again on Thursday 30th. I booked tickets for the Wednesday performance. It was almost a full house! We were in the ‘cheap seats’ up in the gallery but we had a perfect view of the brightly illuminated orchestra.

Mahler’s 2nd at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

I read the programme notes before the concert and Stephen Johnson mentioned that in the early performances of Mahler’s first three symphonies, Mahler gave detailed accounts of each movement and what ’emotions they aroused.’ However he was not entirely satisfied with having to tell the audience what to feel, what he meant by his music. Mahler said, ‘In my conception of the work I was in no way concerned with the detailed setting forth of an event, but much rather of  a feeling.’ This remark resonated with me and on the night of the concert the feelings became manifest sending goose flesh and shivers all over my body. In fact the performance of the Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Sir Andrew Davis reverberated deep within my body and I felt the effects long after I had left the hall and stood shivering outside awaiting my bus! Even David who is not a Mahler fan said he felt ‘shivers’.

Sir Andrew Davis is not a conductor I have seen perform before. I know of his reputation but have not seen him conduct live. He is a conductor of much energy, jumping and jigging on the podium with his long tail coat flapping. He did not carry a baton but commanded the orchestra with the shape of his expressive hands. You could see that he really had fun with the orchestra. His years of experience showed. I was surprised to read that Davis was 71 years old he really moved about with the energy of a younger man, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him!

Sir Andrew Davis

The sound from the orchestra was breathtaking. In the 2nd Symphony there are moments of light hearted fun (the Ländler) and solemn solemnity as found in the Urlicht performed by the Mezzo Soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers. I could find no fault in her performance, nor that of the choir, however Catherine Jones of the Liverpool Echo said the ‘German text wasn’t as crisp as it could have been.’ The brass for me still played a bit ropey at times (though they got the loudest cheer come applause) and some passages sounded a bit muted in the hall. In her review, Catherine Jones said ‘even the controversial new acoustic, which tends to over-amplify the brass, acted in the work’s favour by adding depth rather than overpowering the whole.’

Alfred Hickling reporting for the Guardian remarked at the ‘frenzied’ attack Davis gave Mahler’s second. I found that the pace was ideal, though brisk it sounded better than some languishing performances of the symphony. Hickling commented mainly on Davis’s appointment as Conductor Emeritus. On the night he was presented with the award and made a speech saying he was ‘deeply touched and honoured’ by the gift and relished ‘the prospect of making music regularly,’ in Liverpool, a ‘wonderfully vibrant city, of which the Orchestra is the finest jewel.’ I’d have to agree. While Davis was making this speech and the orchestra and chorus performed Mendelssohn’s Lauda Sion Op.73 I felt overwhelming pride and respect for the Liverpool Philharmonic, and with this being their 175th year anniversary there is much to celebrate!

My most favourite part of the Resurrection Symphony (apart from Urlicht) is about 10 minutes into the finale. It is the orchestral version of the hymn like chorale that will finish the symphony. When I listen to this part that steadily builds up into a triumphant crash of percussion interlaced with strings and trumpeting brass I always imagine the golden rays of a rising sun stretching its light over a slumbering countryside. Sheep rear their heads from a night of rest and a horse drawn carriage trundles along a narrow country lane. Under Davis’s command the Liverpool Philharmonic played this passage to awe-inspiring heights, some would call it apotheosis, (no recordings I’ve heard come close to it!) The sound filled the entire auditorium! My heart swelled with emotion and I have never heard the orchestra sound so loud, so passionate, so emotional, I indeed had a tear in my eye!

The only jip I had was with the audience, of hissing coke bottles being opened, mobile phones tinkling and the guy behind me humming along to the choir! But none could detract from the performance which culminated in the most rousing finale I’d ever heard!

What would Mahler have thought? If he had heard the mobile phone he would have undoubtedly stopped the performance, like he did when someone had a coughing fit at one of his performances.

Though undoubtedly what Mahler would have thought is of little consequence. Personally, I came away from the hall feeling satisfied. A young couple in front of us talked about how religious the symphony was. I have a feeling Mahler’s Resurrection is more emotional than religious, whether it is a ‘spiritual religious’ or a ‘spiritual emotional’ is another discussion. What is for certain is that there is no ‘judgement’ in Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. Stephen Johnson in his programme notes says that, ‘the 2nd Symphony marks a huge progression from darkness and death through to light and affirmation of life and love.’ There ‘is no judgement…There is no punishment… an overwhelming love illuminates our being. We know and are.’ It can only be a good thing to be all knowing at the end of it all. The end of all things.

© Christine Lucas 2015.

My Week Off.

The week commencing 20th April was taken as annual leave, and the sun smiled happily as I embarked on my week off work.

Monday:

I did some weeding in the garden and watched Artie sniff and hunt for flies. I then replanted (in bigger pots) seedlings I had growing of poppy and other seedlings which I later found out were coriander. (Looks like I didn’t need to buy the one from Lady Green!)

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After working in the garden I then sat and relaxed with my Kindle and soaked up some sun while it lasted.

For dinner I made a vegetarian sausage casserole with lots of vegetables. It tasted very herby!

Vegi sausage casserole

Tuesday:

First thing this morning I booked ‘our’ place on the Chester Zoo member’s event, of seeing ‘Islands‘ before it officially opens to the public. (Well I hope the booking has gone through!) There are some perks to being a member after all! 🙂

Mum and I had intended on taking a trip to the Maritime Museum but I felt a little unwell, so we decided on visiting my brother Stephen and to see my nephew Aaron.

Back home, in the afternoon I spent a little more time sunbathing in the garden and enjoyed a strawberry and Bliss desert, swilled down with a small measure of whisky. It didn’t seem as hot in the sun as yesterday and I grew cold quickly as well as feeling tired.

Bliss and Strawberries

For dinner, I had bought some Jersey Royals (potatoes) so had them with smoked salmon and salad… gorgeous!

Wednesday:

A lazy day today. I sat in the garden and watched Artie chase flies. I noticed that a Blue Tit was happily gathering moss from nearby gardens and flying to a bush in another. I thought that Blue Tits only nested in boxes or crevices but after doing some research I found that their nests are cup sized and can be anywhere! I also found out that the females are the only ones that make the nests, so it was a Mrs Blue Tit who I saw!

For dinner I made a spaghetti bolognese with Quorn Swedish style meatballs. I even used freshly cut oregano from the garden! It is always a very satisfying dinner.

spaghetti bolognese and Quorn Swedish style meatballs

Thursday:

While it was St George’s Day, William Shakespeare’s birthday and World Book Day, I did very little indeed. I did the usual sweated for 20 minutes on the treadmill, had a coffee and chat with mum before having lunch.

In the afternoon Artie and I spent a few hours sunning ourselves and listened to the visiting Goldfinches and Blue Tits in the nearby trees while Classic FM played on the radio. I discovered that the seedlings I transplanted on Monday, the poppies had withered but the coriander was still looking strong!

For dinner while David had a pizza, I made do with Quorn bacon, beans, egg and chips.

Quorn bacon, eggs, beans and chips

In the evening as the setting sun washed everything golden, I sat listening to my favourite performance of Mahler’s 6th Symphony, the andante.

Friday:

Was the last of the ‘good’ weather of the week. It has been simply splendid to have such lovely summery weather for the week off work!

David had taken a day off work and so we headed the 1.5 hours towards Wakefield to Yorkshire Sculpture Park.  We arrived after 10.30 am and paid the £8 for all day car-parking. We then spent the next five hours walking the fields that were filled with sculptures of bronze, stone, wood, all kinds of materials. We walked literally miles, my poor feet ached!

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The sculpture park is amongst the grounds of Bretton Hall Country Park which has nature trails as well as art instillations. We took a leisurely walk around the Upper Lake and spent some time amongst a Bluebell wood and old Victorian ruins.

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With gloomy looking clouds encroaching, David and I headed back to Liverpool, tired but having thoroughly enjoyed our day out in Yorkshire!

I am already planning the next day out!

The weekend came and went too quickly and it was time for me to head back to work. It has been slow for me to get back into the old routine but a long Bank Holiday weekend is near which sustains me!

Dry January – Week Two.

It’s now the 15th day of Dry January, and I have not touched a drop of alcohol in that time. I have also had two very generous donations to my Alcohol Concern fundraising page and I am most thankful!This past week has been rather difficult. Not because I have needed a drink, (although on Friday I was thinking, ‘it would be nice to have a glass of wine to wind down into the weekend’), but because my depression has reared it’s ugly head again. I hate January/February (as do most)! My life always seems so much bleaker in the darker months of winter. I am really looking forward to March/April and the warmer months so I can enjoy the sun/warmth and my garden again!

There are some new signs of life sprouting in the garden at present. The bulbs I planted in September are now poking through the soil. Come March-May I will find out if they are Snow Drops or Bluebells! My Tulips are also growing, so hopefully soon my garden will be awash with colour again! My Hellebore or Christmas Rose has lots of buds on it but the flower heads seem too heavy for the stems so all are bowing down to the ground!

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Trying to overcome the negative thoughts, I keep reminding myself that I do have lots to look forward to in 2015! I have booked to see The Theory of Everything at the Liverpool Philharmonic as we had such a nice time on Monday watching The Imitation Game, we even had tickets for one of the boxes! The Philharmonic has an organist, Dave Nicholas who plays before the film and as the only working Walturdaw cinema screen in the world comes up from beneath the stage. It is quite a sight!

Film at the Philharmonic hall

I have also booked for the Valentine’s day concert, Mahler’s 2nd in April and A Mid Summer Night’s Dream at the Everyman! During the summer, I also hope to have a day out to Birmingham to see the Big Hoot, visit Norwich to see Go Go Dragons, and Bristol to see Shaun in the City! Whether these day/nights away will come to fruition time will tell, but they are some events to look ahead too!

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So I am trying to shift my depression, look ahead with optimism and value what I have in my life.

Here’s to the next dry week!

Two Pilgrims.

Saturday 1st June (half way through 2013 and nothing to show for it.) I was up at 5.35am with David who went walking in Cumbria with his work colleagues. I on the other hand was stuck at home but enjoyed the sunshine although it was too cold to sunbathe, ordered a vegetable Shahi from my favourite Indian restaurant Saffron and enjoyed a whole bottle of JP Chenet Chardonnay-Sauvignon. 😀 Bliss!

During the day I was busy creatively as I mixed my ‘theme tune’ Gustav Mahler’s 6th Symphony: the Andante with Jonathan Firth’s readings of Daphne du Maurier’s audiobook I’ll Never be Young Again. I had to be extra careful as I did not want to destroy my favorite music.

I think I achieved something better than the Mahler’s 10th mix I made earlier in the year. I think the readings suggesting nature and the music by Mahler complimented each other perfectly. I am very happy with the result.

What do you think? I would love some feedback? 🙂

Inspiration or Insanity? You Decide!

Recently I was listening to an audio recording of Jonathan Firth in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. In it he plays Orsino the duke of Illyria. The play opens with his most famous soliloquy ‘if music be the food of love, play on.’ This got me thinking! The first composer that came to my mind was Gustav Mahler. Then a ‘flash’ hit me! An idea was born! Why not try and blend Jonathan’s wonderful readings with Mahler’s 10th Symphony?

I had not long since been given a download of the audio mixer ‘Audacity’, so I attempted to weave some magic into Mahler’s 10th. Where I think it really worked was when I used a clip from Daphne du Maurier’s I’ll Never be Young Again. I think the recording is one of Jonathan’s finest audio work and the clip I intersected with Mahler seems (or so it seems to me) to be a wonderful pairing, very emotional!

Where I didn’t feel so confident is near the end, where I used a clip from William Woodruff’s Shadows of Glory. Though not a bad narrative, I don’t think it portrays the emotion that Du Maurier’s work does. I shall let you all decide.

A word on the cover photo. I was listening to a recording of  Mahler’s 6th Symphony on YouTube, it was by the Vienna Philharmonic/Bernstein. I loved the cover artwork so I print screened and pasted it into Paint Shop. I changed the picture of Mahler and added a recent one of Jonathan. I am really proud of myself as I think it looks lush! I am not renowned for my artistic prowess. 🙂

I hope you enjoy the music! 🙂

I Did Not Cry…

Not a tear fell while I listened to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under the guidance of Vasily Petrenko as they performed for the first time in the Philharmonic’s history the entire 10^th Symphony by Gustav Mahler. There were moments when I was overcome with emotion but I managed to hold it together and not embarrass myself or David.

I was saddened to see that on both performances of Mahler’s 10th, the hall wasn’t full to capacity! I wonder what made the organisers put on two shows rather than one? I wish they had done the same for Mahler’s 8^th last year, then I may not have been stuck at the back of the Anglican Cathedral and upsettingly witness someone in the audience keel over! However, as there were no heads in front of me, I had a great view of the orchestra and of Vasily in this special performance.

I listened to the broadcast of the first show on BBC Radio Three on Thursday and I, with a nice glass of Pinot Grigio succumbed to the wonderful orchestration of Mahler’s unfinished symphony, completed by Deryck Cooke. The Philharmonic’s command of the Adagio (1st movement) was simply breath-taking. I believe I had not heard it played with so much depth of emotion before. The sound was so clear even streaming through broadband!

And so for Saturday’s performance. David and I, wrapped up from the chilling wind that brought with it Spring snow the day before, made our way to the Philharmonic Hall. We gingerly watched for ice underfoot as we caught the 86 bus and was transported smoothly for our date with Mahler!

I have been attending the Philharmonic in Liverpool for nearly 20 years now and have listened to Mahler being performed countless times. It was my first on hearing his 10th being played though. With excited butterflies in my tummy, the lights in the auditorium fell and the brilliant (almost too bright) spotlight lit up the orchestra as Vasily walked on stage with baton in hand. There was a collected intake of breath from the audience as the first bars of the Adagio were played. I love watching the sections of an orchestra as they come together and it’s only with Mahler symphonies that the percussion section seem to entertain most of all. David said he liked the soaring strings in the romantic Adagio the best. I noticed how Vasily would raise his hands to the heavens almost as if beseeching Mahler’s spirit to come amongst us as his music drifted into the ether. Norman Lebrecht in his blog post describes a conductor approaching a performance of Mahler’s 10^th Symphony as ‘the maestro, for that hour-plus,’ has ‘to be Mahler.’ Therefore perhaps Vasily was indeed channelling the spirit of Mahler? During the two Scherzo’s Vasily seemed to take on the persona of a demented fiend, jerking about like a man possessed. He would raise his fist to the orchestra who in turn would challenge him in their playful audacity. As the drum of fate boomed around the auditorium the conductor seemed to shiver as if in fear. The only comic relief to be had was during the ländler where the orchestra played light-heartedly and Vasily shook his booty on the podium!

Then the soul tormenting Finale came. It’s a piece of music that usually renders me in tears. Thankfully this evening it wasn’t the case, though the screeching strings and then the soft sighing of the woodwind tugged at the heart. Catherine Jones of the Liverpool Echo in her review said there were some tonality issues, but none that could detract from the poignancy of the music being performed. Vasily seemed to have tightened up the brass section since the first performance and they played with unparalleled confidence. As the final note of Mahler’s 10^th faded, Vasily paused while the rawness of the performance was absorbed by the audience. The young conductor fell back upon the rail of his podium as if overcome with emotion and sheer exhaustion of the piece. With baton lowered he invited the audience to show their appreciation, a few rose to their feet. Vasily came onto the podium twice more to accept praise where it was due. He also seemed subdued, placing his hand to his heart in gratitude. The applause was understated, perhaps due to the fact that Mahler’s 10^th is a symphony largely forgotten or maybe the powerful emotions performed for over an hour subdued the audience? Either way they milled out of the hall silently, thoughtfully.

I really wish that the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic would release a recording of their rendition of Mahler’s 10^th Symphony. I believe it was one of the best, if not the best I have heard it performed! Norman Lebrecht also mentioned in his blog that Vasily would be repeating his version of Mahler’s 10^th ‘next year with the Philharmonia in London and the radio orchestra in Berlin,’ something to look forward to then.

Ohh exciting times ahead…

Today my tickets for Mahler’s 10th arrived! I am so excited about that… perhaps listening to it will be life changing?

 

 

 

I was looking at my diary and David and I, though we don’t have a holiday booked, do have lots of things to look forward too at the local theatres in Liverpool the first half of 2013!

On the 14th February I am ‘dragging’ David to the Liverpool Philharmonic to hear their Valentine’s concert. Then we are back there on the 23rd of March for Mahler and then in June again to listen to Stravinsky’s Firebird!

In March I have booked to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Liverpool Empire and in May, I am going to the Echo Arena to see Walking with Dinosaurs which I saw in 2009! I look forward to that! I loved it the last time!