Mercury Symphony Orchestra

While Mahler was writing his fifth symphony in 1901 and the following year, an event occurred that changed his life forever. This was his meeting and marriage to Alma Sintler. The presence of the brilliant and free-spirited Alma had a profound influence (both positive and negative) on Mahler's subsequent creative work. This piece is the first example of this, reflecting the atmosphere of the happiest period of his life, as can be clearly heard in the third section consisting of the famous "Adagietto" and the "Rondo Finale" that follows.
Let us draw one more auxiliary line here. Around 1904, when the Fifth Symphony was premiered, a young man began to study composition. His name was Alban Berg. Mahler, who was the director of the Imperial Opera House and who also wrote his own great symphonies one after another, was an idol of his. He was greatly influenced by Mahler through his teacher, Schoenberg, and remained close to his wife, Alma, until the end of his life.
And then there is Britten. Britten admired Berg as a "composer in Mahler's lineage" and wanted to study with him directly. However, Berg died in 1935, and his dream was never fulfilled. Then, in 1936, at the World Congress of the International Music Association in Barcelona, he met the Catalan violinist Antonio Brossa and witnessed the world premiere of Berg's last work, the Violin Concerto, which had died the previous year. Britten's Violin Concerto could not have been written without these events.
Incidentally, Berg's violin concerto has a dedication "To the memory of an angel," which refers to Manon, Alma's daughter by her second marriage to Gropius, an architect with whom she had had an affair before Mahler's death. Thus, the causal circle from Mahler to Britten is closed.
We have always had a lot of Mahler in our repertoire, but in the past 10 years, we have also performed three Britten pieces. We have always had a lot of Mahler in our repertoire, but Britten is a composer whose works have been performed more frequently than ever in the past decade. The program this time is a combination of two such works, so to speak, the latest version of "Suikyo's trump card. This will be our second collaboration with Tatsuro Nishie as soloist since the Bartók Pro, so we are well-prepared for the concert.