Our second visit to the BBC Proms tonight was Prom no 69. We heard one of the great orchestra's of the world, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig conducted by Riccardo Chailly. He has apparently been 'recovering' their Mahler tradition and tonight was no exception.
The concert began with some Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. This is a memorial to the dead of the first and second world wars, and is a bit difficult to appreciate, but there was some strong playing of the wind and percussion that made up the orchestra - no strings at all.
After the interval and a complete shuffle of furniture on the platform, a huge orchestra came back into the Hall to play Mahler's 6th Symphony. Though called 'Tragic', it is uplifting with sweeping themes and those wonderful horns, but in the last movement we were fascinated by the playing of what looked like a large cupboard with a sledgehammer, that cut them off when in full flow. This is the hammer of the gods overcoming the hero of the piece who dies - the end, an ultimate finality.
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