Anne's blog

Do you pay atten­tion to the Grammy Awards?  I must con­fess: I don’t, not espe­cially.  Sure it’s fun to watch the yearly fash­ion show, and see the lights and glit­ter and lip-syncing played out… and we chuckle at all the win­ners’ bab­ble, and then laugh at the com­men­tary about the bab­ble, and then at the com­men­tary about all the com­men­tary!  But, when it comes down to it, frankly, most of the time I’m left with the feel­ing of where’s the music?  Where’s the real music?  You know, the stuff that reeks won­der­fully of sin­cer­ity, and toil?  The stuff that lit­er­ally changes your life when you hear it… where’s that?  Where’s the music that catches your breath and makes your hair stand on end, and you know in an instant that if you heard that music again many years later it would be just as mov­ing and thrilling and awe-inspiring if not more so.  Where is that, the real music, the PASSION?

So, for this year’s Grammy’s, I decided to cast only a half-hearted eye and ear in the direc­tion of Hol­ly­wood.  Save some time, right?  Wrong!  Shocker of shock­ers: out of the ampli­fied din of plat­form shoes and cleav­age and crazi­ness, there comes a name that I inti­mately rec­og­nized, a name on the win­ners’ list that grabbed my atten­tion and made me sit up straight–Mahler.  Mahler?!  Com­poser Gus­tav Mahler, who passed away in 1911?!  Yikes, yes!!!  Here in the win­ners’ cir­cle, his soul was unmis­tak­enly present: his music was shin­ing in the spot­lights, gloriously–and not once, not twice, but three times:

• BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM–Gustav Mahler: Sym­phony No. 8 and the Ada­gio from Sym­phony No. 10, with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Fran­cisco Symphony
• BEST CHORAL PERFORMANCE–Gustav Mahler: Sym­phony No. 8 and the Ada­gio from Sym­phony No. 10, with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Fran­cisco Symphony
• BEST ENGINEERED CLASSICAL ALBUM–Gustav Mahler: Sym­phony No. 8 and the Ada­gio from Sym­phony No. 10, with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Fran­cisco Symphony

Now, per­son­ally, I have to say, “Hot damn, this rocks!”  For Mahler’s 8^th is incred­i­ble.  It is undoubt­edly one of the most dif­fi­cult sym­phonies of all time to pull off, par­tially because of the sheer size of the under­tak­ing and because of all the com­po­nents involved: a huge orches­tra, large cho­rus, mul­ti­ple soloists, organ, children’s cho­ruses… hun­dreds, let me just say that again, hun­dreds of musi­cians are involved!  No won­der it became known in Mahler’s time as his “Sym­phony of a Thou­sand”– a uni­verse of bod­ies is required!  And per­formed today, it is just as vast and com­pli­cated and mindboggling.

But what is even more amaz­ing about Mahler’s 8^th is that, in spite of the epic-ness of it all, the music is alarm­ingly trans­par­ent.  Dan­ger­ously trans­par­ent.  For Mahler was fanat­i­cal in his orches­tra­tion and scor­ing: he crafted every sin­gle voice and lone instru­men­tal line with such absolute per­fec­tion, that each is fright­en­ingly exposed exactly as he intended.  And what does this mean?  No lip-syncing soloists found here!  No shrink­ing vio­lets any­where on a Mahler-symphony stage!  No, here the musi­cians are real and true, and brave–they have to be!  They stand in a sea of human­ity upon that stage, strong with years of edu­ca­tion, sweat and toil in their blood; yet each per­son is indi­vid­u­ally called upon to pre­vail like a soli­tary and hum­ble hero, tak­ing a giant leap into the sky when­ever Mahler asks it of them.

Well… leap they do, all of them do, here in this three-Grammy-award-winning record­ing of Mahler’s 8^th Sym­phony!  Con­duc­tor Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Fran­cisco Sym­phony, the Pacific Boys Choir, the San Fran­cisco Sym­phony Cho­rus, the San Fran­cisco Girls Cho­rus, the soloists, the engi­neers–all of them make a quan­tum leap in this amaz­ing record­ing.  Indi­vid­u­ally and together they soar, always gen­uinely, through­out this entire enor­mous work.  And the results of this, for you and me?  Mag­nif­i­cence!  Bril­liance!  And tears.  Mag­nif­i­cence that is almost over­whelm­ing!  Bril­liance that can scarcely be described!  And tears, tears that glis­ten with life’s full spec­trum of col­ors… tears of joy, because Mahler always shows us the soul of humanity.

With Mahler, it is always all about the MUSIC.  Isn’t that what the Grammy’s are sup­posed to be about?

Below, be sure to check out this short but first-rate video (pro­duced by the San Fran­cisco Sym­phony and enti­tled “A Uni­verse of Sound”) on the pro­duc­tion of this extra­or­di­nary Mahler’s 8^th Sym­phony record­ing.  You’ll get to hear the con­duc­tor and some of the engi­neers and musi­cians com­ment­ing on what it was like rehears­ing and prepar­ing for this LIVE record­ing!  It’s a rare view, only a few min­utes in length–and I get incred­i­bly excited every time I watch it.  What inspi­ra­tion!

Tags: Grammys, Mahler, San Francisco Symphony, symphony, video

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