Symphony cycles competition !

[Suffolkcoastal]

I've never heard a complete symphonic cycle live. Perhaps as I don't go to many concerts & much of the repertoire I like is rarely featured, if at all in concert programmes.

The few symphonies I have heard live are:
Beethoven 7
Dvorak 8
Elgar 1 & 2
Glazunov 5
Harris 9
Haydn 45
Mahler 7
Martinu 6
Mendelssohn 3
Mozart 31
Parry 5
Sibelius 5
Tchaikovsky 3 & 4
Vaughan Williams 3, 4, 5 & 6

In my many years of double bass playing & singing, I've taken part in amateur performances of the following symphonies:
Beethoven 2, 3, 5 & 8
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Borodin 2
Bruckner 4
Dvorak 8 & 9
Haydn 73, 101, 103 & 104
Schubert 6
Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms
Tchaikovsky 6

[smittims]

That's interesting. I assume that was in Liverpool, as I can't think here else he could have done it. I wonder of anyone remembers it. Individual Mahler symphonies had been played in Britain since early ithe 20th century, Henry Wood being a pioneer (1,4 , 7 and 8 I think) . Hamilton Harty premiered the 9th in Manchester in 1930 ad Boult the third and possibly the fifth (unless Wood had done that too) in 1948.

[Pulcinella]

I've just read (in the liner notes of a Bliss CD) that Sir Charles Groves was the first British conductor to perform a complete cycle of Mahler symphonies.
Not the first name that would have sprung to my mind.

[oliver sudden]

My first live Mahler 8 was a performance in Melbourne in perhaps the late 1980s or early 1990s. For the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund I think? It wasn’t top-notch but still very effective. I don’t think I’ve heard it live otherwise except from the inside, singing in the choir in a few performances in Sydney and Melbourne around the turn of the century.

But one of my most memorable Mahler 8 experiences was in 2021, some months after our twins came along. They were fairly hard work to start with, first for their mother (keeping them in when one of them wanted to get out and see the world in week 18), then for some magnificent Berlin doctors and other health professionals, then for their parents. Eventually we managed to bring them to Köln as had always been the plan. Then gradually they started to calm down for long enough stretches that listening to lengthier pieces of music became realistic. One afternoon I decided to risk the Horenstein Mahler 8 CD (BBC Legends CD 1, I think). I hadn’t got around to playing it until that point and was quite blown over. The Alles Vergängliche in particular knocked the absolute stuffing out of me (Horenstein’s sopranos manage to float those high lines like none others I’ve heard) and I had tears streaming down my face by the time the trumpets were reaching for their top Cs in the last minutes. Then the twins suddenly picked up their favourite squeaky rattles to join in the percussive whacks on the very last page and basically it was all the feelings at once.

[pastoralguy]

Mrs. PG and I contributed some money to the RSNO after her parents died. We were rewarded by tickets to their performance of Mahler 8 which was their season closure concert in 2018.

Alas, it left me as cold as when I played it in 2005.

[gurnemanz]

I've been to several Mahler 8s in London over the years and am surprised at the number on here who have somehow managed to miss them as they do pop up from time to time.

My two most unforgettable were LPO/Tennstedt in 1991 and BBC SO/Andrew Davis in 1995.

My first (of two) Mahler 8s was memorable, Herbert Kegel with Leipzig Radio SO in 1973 and duly Googled it to discover that last year someone had posted the subsequent radio broadcast of it on YouTube. Fantastic to hear it again over 50 years later. Good soloists and the Leipzig Radio Choir was one of the best around. I am very grateful to the person who uploaded it and to this post for nudging me in that direction. My second was an ageing Maazel at RFH in 2011 - OK but less than top notch.

I am pretty sure I have heard a complete set live except a whole reconstructed Tenth.

[Petrushka]

... St Paul's is often unbearable if you're in the wrong pew. But I've had awful ("turned to mush") experiences in so many places - some really exasperating times in York Minster, when you knew the choir were doing amazing things with amazing music - and all you heard was garbled mush..

.

These great cathedrals were designed to be places of worship, not concert halls. Having said that, I heard another fine Gerontius from Andrew Davis and the BBC SO in Westminster Cathedral some months prior to the St Paul's performance and there were no acoustic disasters there, at least not from my seat.

I've attended a number number of services in St Paul's (including the unforgettable post-9/11 service on September 13 2001) and it sounds great under the dome, and not too bad half way down the nave where I was in 2001.

[vinteuil]

. My only experience singing a large choral work in St Paul's was the Brahms Requiem during a City of London Festival with BFC/RPO/ Frühbeck de Burgos. It was exciting from within the choir, but it would have been hard to tell what the audience heard, especially those at the back of the nave.

... St Paul's is often unbearable if you're in the wrong pew. But I've had awful ("turned to mush") experiences in so many places - some really exasperating times in York Minster, when you knew the choir were doing amazing things with amazing music - and all you heard was garbled mush..

.

[Keraulophone]

I went to a performance in St Paul's of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius in 1997 (BBC SO/Andrew Davis, the one that appeared as a DVD) but could hear nothing of it from my seat in the nave and could see precious little. I swore I'd never go to another concert there again.

That's a pity, because the performance as seen and heard on DVD is excellent, particularly the late Philip Langridge. My only experience singing a large choral work in St Paul's was the Brahms Requiem during a City of London Festival with BFC/RPO/ Frühbeck de Burgos. It was exciting from within the choir, but it would have been hard to tell what the audience heard, especially those at the back of the nave. The reverberation time of the last note of the third movement clocked at 15 seconds. The loudest parts of Mahler 8 would likely turn to mush depending on where one was sitting.

[Petrushka]

Same here.

Mahler 1-7, 9,10, Das Lied (which some might count a symphony). I did want to hear my first 8th last Thursday with the Bach Choir / David Hill (celebrating their 150th season) in St Paul's Cathedral, but couldn't justify yet another recent stay in London.

I went to a performance in St Paul's of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius in 1997 (BBC SO/Andrew Davis, the one that appeared as a DVD) but could hear nothing of it from my seat in the nave and could see precious little. I swore I'd never go to another concert there again.

I've been to several Mahler 8s in London over the years and am surprised at the number on here who have somehow managed to miss them as they do pop up from time to time.

My two most unforgettable were LPO/Tennstedt in 1991 and BBC SO/Andrew Davis in 1995.

[Keraulophone]

A tough call, the only complete cycles for me would be Beethoven and Elgar.

Same here.

Mahler 1-7, 9,10, Das Lied (which some might count a symphony). I did want to hear my first 8th last Thursday with the Bach Choir / David Hill (celebrating their 150th season) in St Paul's Cathedral, but couldn't justify yet another recent stay in London.

[vinteuil]

... in this context I feel very small indeed

I think the only big Symphony I have ever heard live was a Mahler 2 at the Royal Festival Hall : it was with my fairly-recently widowed mother in either 1983 or 1984, and I remember the harps. And a surreal thought as we walked back over Hungerford Bridge - she is so desperately unhappy, would it be for the best if I just pushed her into the Thames? (Reader : I didn't - and she went on living pretty happily for a further twenty five years. Moral : just because your mother looks a bit sad, no need to do her in... )





.

[Maclintick]

All Beethoven, Brahms, Elgar, Mahler incl 10 heard live -- though naturally some more memorable than others, e.g. No.5 VPO/Bernstein, No.3 Lucerne/Abbado, No.6 LPO/Tennstedt & CSO/Haitink, plus Das Lied a few times.

Near misses:
Bruckner -- all numbered ones except 2 (not including "0" or other another unnumbered one I can't remember)
Sibelius -- all except 3

Not-quite-near misses:
Tchaikovsky all except 2 & 3 but including "Manfred" (a terrific Prom - RLPO/Petrenko}
RVW -- all except "Antarctica" & 8

LHC deserves some kind of FoR award for unflagging patronage of the UK's live music scene

[oliver sudden]

I've never had any doubts about Mahler 8 - in the right hands, with the stars aligned for a good set of soloists in good vocal health - and usually in the Albert Hall - I have found it can be an enthralling experience.

I have occasionally found myself thinking anent Mahler 8 that it’s not such a great piece but it’s always very effective in concert.

And then I have no choice but to slap myself repeatedly across the face because what other damn test of a piece was there when he wrote it?!?

I’ve only heard it live once but have sung in it a few times and gosh when the sopranos soar above everyone in “zieht uns hinan” it is jolly difficult to keep control of oneself. Speaking for oneself of course.

[bluestateprommer]

4 points for me:
(1) Mendelssohn: the symphonies
(2) Rachmaninoff: the symphonies, the four piano concertos (semi-bonus for Symphonic Dances and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini)
(3) Tchaikovsky: six numbered symphonies plus Manfred (albeit with the Svetlanov-ized ending, rather than Pyotr Ilyich's original ending)
(4) Mahler: all 9 fully completed symphonies, including 10 in any form (have heard both the Adagio and one full completion; semi-bonus for Das Lied von der Erde)

Bonus point:
(5) Walton: the two symphonies

Honorable mentions:
(a) Bernstein: have heard # 2 and # 3 live, for sure (I'd like to think that I've heard # 1 live, but I can't remember, so it's not included in the top list)
(b) Sibelius: all heard live except # 3 (& I've heard Kullervo once live)
(c) Nielsen: all heard live except # 1
(d) Bruckner: all heard live except # 1, # 5, and "Die Nullte"
(e) Shostakovich: all heard live except # 3 and # 12