Epic.

That word doesn't begin to describe the concert I attended tonight. I wouldn't say that I was completely floored by the orchestra itself, but several factors strongly came into play with my intense reaction. Please allow me to explain myself.

Tonight, the Philharmonia Orchestra played the Berg Violin Concerto and Mahler 6 at the Royal Festival Hall with Esa-Pekka Solonen. Before hand, there was a pre-concert talk with Julian Johnson, a Mahler scholar. I sat in the front row for said talk. He discussed the 6th Symphony, how it's often incorrectly mistaken as being autobiographical and classical, compared it to R. Strauss and Beethoven, and how the 3rd hammer blow was eventually done away with. At the end, there was time for questions. I didn't get the chance to raise mine before he had to end it. He remained onstage, though, so I asked him. I wondered if, because Mahler's conversion to Christianity, the hammer blows had any sort of religous overtones. The 2 existing blows, for instance, might represent Jesus falling twice while carrying the cross. He emphasized how the 3rd could be felt even when it wasn't played. This, perhaps, could represent the crucifixion, no? He said he had never seen my idea talked about, but that it could surely be drawn.

Note: I despise creating nonexisting stories behind artists' work. I only asked this question to see if it actually was an idea of Mahler's, not to make up some sort of second reason for them.

As for the concert itself... The concerto was the first half. I absolutely hated it. I do believe it is the ugliest piece of music I have ever heard professionally performed. Sorry if you're a Berg fan. 6 was the second half. I don't know why, but they played the movements out of order (I could read the 8th horn part)- 1, 3, 2, 4. I jotted down some things that happened during the performance (jotting occurred after the conclusion, of course). If you're interested, feel free to ask to see my notebook when I you next see me, or something. Oh, and another thing that was going through my head was that Solonen looks and kind of acts exactly like Gary Oldman.

When the 4th movement began, I was immediately overcome with intense feelings of fear. The fact that the cybals (eventually FOUR sets of them) were about 6 feet from my right ear, as was the hammer. The bass drum was directly below me. The EIGHT horns were aimed DIRECTLY at my head. As all of the instruments I just mentioned are incredibly important to the piece (i.e. loud), I was in the best possible seat, I do believe.

By the conclusion of the work, I was shaking ever-s0-slightly and my cheek was slightly dampened with a single trail of tearage. I'm not going to lie- it was quite moving.

The man next to me immediately asked me if I enjoyed it. Apparently the tear trail didn't announce my answer to him. He wondered where I was from and why I was in London. I can hardly imagine what my reaction would be if I could hear the LSO play Mahler 6 live...Until that day comes, I look forward to the other upcoming concerts: a children's concert at 2:30 and chamber concert at 7:30 on Sunday. Another LSO on Thursday, the King's Singers Friday.

Bring it.