Tonight in London. Spurs-Arse derby or Mahler 7th?

[Toblacher]

If I lived in London this would be a difficult call, being both a Mahler and Spurs fanatic.

Would say you if you had to choose between attending a rarely performed Mahler symphony and attending your favorite sports team (any sport) in a big rivalry game?

[barry guerrero]

Well, it is Jurowski and the LPO!  I would think that M7 would be a piece that he'd do very, very well. In regards to your team's game, is it being broadcasted? And if so, is there somebody who could DVR the game for you?

I wish we could get Jurowski - or ANBODY - to come do Mahler in S.F.  Tilson Thomas has a monopoly on Mahler here - they won't let anyone else do Mahler with the S.F. Symphony. Worse, they never allow guest orchestras to perform Mahler at Davies Hall. Are they really THAT insecure?

The last time a guest orchestra performed Mahler in the bay area was with Bychkov and the Vienna Phil. doing M6 at Zellerbach Auditorium (U.C. Berkeley). That was at least four years ago now. MTT came to the concert (Bychkov worked under him in Buffalo). I was tempted to go up to MTT and say in a matter-of-fact manner, "so, you've come to see how Mahler 6 REALLY goes!". It was far better than he's ever done it.

Lucky London and New York - you have choices when it comes to Mahler.

[AZContrabassoon]

... a rarely performed Mahler symphony...

Is this really the case anymore? Maybe 40-50 years ago it was true, but nowadays it seems the 7th appears quite often, especially in the US. A couple of years ago there were at least a dozen orchestras doing it - I caught one, in Denver with Litton and the Colorado Symphony. If any Mahler symphony is rarely performed it's the 8th, for obvious reasons. Even more rare is Das Klagende Lied.