This weeks`s Coop/BKG concert with the Sinfonieorchester Basel is one that is, for two reasons, a definite must. It`s not often that I`ll tell you this, so heed my words: go and support your local band, broaden your horizons and have a great experience at the same time.
Why is this evening so special in my book? The first reason is that we`re playing Mahler. Mahler`s music is for me something like an elemental force. Although many researchers have written volumes about his music, nothing can prepare you for the gut-level impact it has when you hear it played live. I`ve been searching for the reasons why I love playing Mahler. I can only explain them in simple terms. Mahler`s music takes you through every fundamental experience you have had, now have and will have during your time on earth. It is deep joy and sorrow, exhaltation and deprivation, reverence, awe, playfulness, fury, hope, grieving and consolation. I think you`ll find the complete gamut of human aspiration in his music. It`s also a lot of fun to play, because he knew the limits of orchestral capacity and wrote music that is a very sensuous experience for the players. I guess I`d call it musicians`music. It touches my heart and stimulates my spirit.
Besides a fascinating and complex composer, we have a conductor who is, although in every way a larger-than-life figure, a quiet spoken and gentle man, one who enables us.
When Dennis Russel Davies conducts us there is nothing we cannot do along with the very best. Figured it out? He is the second reason why these concerts will be extraordinary, because the work he does with us has nothing to do with the mere average. He listens and lets us discover what it is we have to do to make the piece work. There is no lording it over his subjects: he may be a benevolent dictator, but I still haven`t seen or felt the dictator part. Working with Dennis Russell Davies is the perfect partnership- he brings out the best in us, and we enable him to make music.
We have every reason to be proud that Dennis Russell Davies has found his way to us in Basel: the fact that he was recently elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences shows that it is not only my opinion that he is a man of unusual charisma and competence. Like Mahler`s music, he touches our hearts as musicians and human beings and helps us find the confidance we need to express the unspeakable and wonderful language of the soul, music.
So you see, you`re getting a great package this week- it`s not just two for one, Mahler and DRD. It`s the dedication and enthusiasm of many, an absolute will to create that will make this a memorable evening for all participants. And besides- if you don`t go, I`ll never speak to you again.
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