Haydn completed, Coca-Cola a la Grieg, and a profound Mahler 6 for 9/11.

I finished the Haydn listening challenge this past week...I listened to all 104 of his symphonies in consecutive order. What a journey it was. I liked and respected Haydn to start with, but I came away with a much deeper appreciation for his music and the depth of his creativity. I can see why his later works are played most often...they are his deepest and most mature works, in my opinion. But all throughout his career, there are many great melodies and expressive ideas. I had to put much of my other musical interests on hold to get though this process, so I was a bit relieved that it was over....but not really.

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Once again, the music of Edvard Grieg is being featured in a national advertising campaign. And no surprise, it is "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from his Peer Gynt Suite (1867). Here is the television ad;

And the irony here is that it is possible, however remotely, that Edvard Grieg actually drank a Coke. Coca-Cola was first sold in 1886 in Atlanta. It was first brought to England on August 31, 1900, albeit a very small quantity was available. Grieg made many trips to England between 1862 and 1906. Who's to say that he didn't have a Coke while he was there in 1906?!?

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As we reflect today on 9/11, I am listening to a CD that is quite extraordinary. 

This stunning performance of Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony was first recorded on September 12, 2001. I heard this CD for the first time a couple of years ago, and not in September. I have many Mahler 6 recordings, but this is one is special. Not only because of the performance, but also the circumstances surrounding it. As I read the liner notes and I saw the dates it was recorded, I was floored.... How could the musicians and the audience deal with such an emotional piece of music the day after the 9/11 attacks? The Mahler Sixth is known as the "Tragic" Symphony. It was scheduled to be performed and recorded live in Davies Hall in San Francisco from Sept 12-15, 2001. But then the world changed....There were discussions about canceling these performances in light of the tragedy, but it was decided to go forward. When I listened to this recording a second time, knowing these circumstances, it took on an even more emotional dimension. Here is what Michael Tilson Thomas wrote about the Mahler 6:

Mahler Symphony No. 6 in A Minor

"Composers before Mahler had been great and expressive communicators, but no one is less guarded than he in his emotions and in the intensity of what he asks us to experience with him. His Sixth Symphony is a work of enormous exploration, of testing musical limits. Here Mahler has pushed his technical abilities as a composer and his perceptual boundaries as a human being. His first audiences were shocked and frightened by this new kind of soul-baring music. He himself was so unnerved by what he had done in his Sixth that he was in tears at the first rehearsals. The Sixth looks unflinchingly at the obsessive, destructive nature of man, the unremitting capacity of humankind to hurt itself. In its final pages, it regards destiny and realizes there will be no mercy. But there is more than despair in these pages. There is utter honesty, humor, tenderness, and, in the third movement, homage to the power of love. Mahler said that a symphony should mirror life. His entire symphonic output is a testament to that belief, and nowhere did he realize this credo so powerfully as in his Sixth Symphony. In listening to the frenzy and sorrow of this music, it is difficult to grasp how someone experiencing these feelings could write them down. Mahler himself doubted that he could compose this and maintain his sanity. But the Sixth is an extraordinary example of his desire to communicate, his need to tell others that they were not alone in experiencing the existential terror that has so sadly become a part of modern life. The need to communicate was, ultimately, what brought him through the process of composition, and what enabled him to write this Herculean piece. It is his faith and commitment to the comforting and transforming power of music that has inspired us in giving this performance and that we hope will be felt by our listeners."

—Michael Tilson Thomas, from liner notes

A review in Gramophone Magazine said this as well:

"In the shock and confusion on the day after 9/11, once the sound of Mahler's anguish reached out from the stage, there was no one among the musicians or the audience staying outside, looking in. An instant community was born, it coalesced in experiencing the pain and beauty of the Sixth. There were tears, but also a temporary closure, a tentative catharsis."

The power of music to heal, to unite, and to inspire is undeniable. This is a supreme example of that.