Author: JM

Having never heard Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 performed before, the Ann Arbor Symphony’s Saturday night performance of it was certainly an experience. At over an hour and twenty minutes long, it takes listeners on a profound musical journey of Mahler’s personal memories and experiences.

It has been hotly debated whether Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is more a lamentation of death or a “love song to life,” and this dilemma was noted at the beginning of the concert by A2SO conductor and music director Arie Lipsky. While I am certainly not an expert, the first three movements, in my opinion, seemed to be a celebration of life and the living. This does not, however, preclude death from being a present theme in these movements – it makes sense to me that, knowing that his death was drawing nearer, Mahler would have looked back on his life and what was important and dear to him. Even if life is the overarching theme of the Symphony, it does not mean that the music must be solely “happy,” because that is not a true representation of life. As a listener I can hear this complexity of emotions reflected in Mahler’s composition. For example, I heard the introduction of the second movement, with its buoyant trills in the upper woodwinds, as lively, but with a darker undertone of nostalgia or longing. Overall, I believe that it is impossible to assign either life or death as an exclusive theme of the work, because the two are so closely intertwined; in the human experience, one does not exist without the other, and this is clearly reflected in Mahler’s music.

The fourth movement of Mahler’s symphony, however, stood alone to me when I heard it. It is extremely slow, and begins with a single melody in the strings, which gradually deepens and transforms to richer harmonies, and then the music fades away. I found myself captivated and perplexed by the music to the degree that I was literally leaning to the edge of my seat, and at the end of piece, the audience was silent for nearly half a minute. If any of the movements of the Symphony are contemplative and haunted by death, the fourth movement is the one, and this is very clear to listeners. I found myself thinking about the music after I had walked out of the Michigan Theater and back down the street.

As Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan observed of Mahler’s ninth symphony, “It is music coming from another world, it is coming from eternity.” For anyone who has not experienced Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, it is a composition not to be missed, and the Ann Arbor Symphony’s performance of the piece certainly did it justice.

From the very first notes of their October 26^th performance at Rackham Auditorium, it was clear that the Aizuri Quartet’s communication as an ensemble is excellent. It was fascinating and amazing to me to watch the string quartet’s body language, eye contact, and gestures throughout the performance, and to observe how they were perpetually in sync with one another on a level deeper than just the notes and rhythms. As an audience member, the connection between the members of the Quartet was tangible, and it brought additional joy and life to their performance.

What also resonated with me was the intention with which the Aizuri Quartet performed their music. After the first piece, violinist Miho Saegusa spoke briefly about the evening’s program, which was entitled “Locally Sourced.” The first half of the program, she explained, consisted of compositions inspired by the places near and dear to their composers. These pieces were Komitas Vartabed’s Armenian Folk Songs and Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17, Sz. 67, and the locations of inspiration were Armenia and Hungary, respectively.  The second half of the program was, as Ms. Saegusa put it, an exploration of the “rich musical landscape of pieces being written in America today.” It included Blueprint by Caroline Shaw and LIFT by Paul Wiancko, both of which were written specifically for the Aizuri Quartet and which are featured on their new album Blueprinting. The quartet’s reasoning behind their choice of music, and the meanings behind the chosen pieces, challenged me and reminded me that music is, at its most essential, a means of communication.

The pieces in themselves were certainly a tour in musical contrast. Armenian Folk Songs, my personal favorite of the concert, was at once ethereal, jubilant, and full of life, while the Bartók String Quartet was more longing, dissonant, and insistent. Blueprint’s name comes as a play on words of the quartet’s namesake style of Japanese woodblock printing, aizuri-e, and of the piece’s genesis as a harmonic reduction (a “floor plan”) of Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6. The beginning instructions of the piece, which were printed in the program, reflect the composition’s humorous, witty nature: “like a marble bust / stoic & grand & still/ but with a little wink or some / side-eye. The final piece, LIFT, was a rich, dramatic, and engaging adventure of its own, oscillating between jazz, folk and bluegrass inspirations.

The Aizuri Quartet’s performance was, for me, a lively experience of what twenty-first century chamber music can be. It was a pleasure to join them as they, in Ms. Saegusa’s words, “[explored] the joy in music-making.”

On Saturday, October 27, the Ann Arbor Symphony will be playing Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in D major. The concert will be at 8 pm at the Michigan Theater on East Liberty Street, with a pre-concert lecture at 7pm.

This event is on the Passport to the Arts, so use your voucher at the door on the night of the event to get a free student ticket! Even if you don’t have a Passport or if you already used yours, students get 50% off tickets to the Ann Arbor Symphony.

Written between 1908 and 1909, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was his last, and it is regarded as a very personal work. It has been debated whether the symphony is more emblematic of life or death, and I am very excited to hear it performed. If you want to hear this profoundly emotional work for yourself, don’t miss the Ann Arbor Symphony’s performance of it! Hope to see you there!