For this post, my first ever on AspenPost.net, I’m cracking open that sturdy, dust-laden footlocker, you know, the one in the corner of the attic under great grandma’s foot-peddled Singer sewing machine… It was the summer of ’79 or ’80. I know, because a clear part of this memory is that I was working at the coal mine. And tickets to the Aspen Music Festival cost about $30.

That was the last time I heard a live performance of Gustav Mahler’s 6th Symphony. If memory serves, Jorge Mester conducted, but I can’t be sure about that.

Today, I had the pleasure of hearing James Conlon conduct the Aspen Festival Orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s 6th once again. What made this performance special was not simply the opportunity to hear live classical music, but Conlon’s interpretation of what is arguably one of the more challenging symphonies to play and conduct.

Prior to the performance, Conlon explained that in Mahler’s 6th, there are three variables (which, coming from a classical music conductor, can only be an oversimplification). First, there is a repeat in the first movement that few conductors observe; Conlon observed it. Second, Mahler inverted the traditional order of the second and third movements. Ordinarily, the second movement is slow (Adante), and the third is dance-like (Scherzo). Many conductors have ordered Mahler’s 6th in this way. Conlon, however, placed the Scherzo movement second, as, he said, Mahler had written it. Finally, one of the memorable characteristics of the 6th is Mahler’s use of unusual instruments, like cowbells and what can only be described as a grossly over-sized wooden mallet, a kind of precursor to the modern sledge hammer, slammed into a dense wooden box that looked like the Luddite’s version of the kettle drum. Mahler originally scored three strikes of the hammer in the fourth movement. As the story goes, he grew superstitious of the third mallet strike, thinking it his own death knell, so he removed one of the strikes. “Since Mahler is dead now,” Conlon explained, “I have no problem putting it [the removed strike] back in…”

I have always relished my memories of summer afternoons at the music tent, and in truth, when my mind seeks calm, reveries of walking the Aspen-lined paths to the music tent always get the job done. So what could be better than a cool breeze carrying music through the Benedict Music Tent on a summer Sunday afternoon? James Conlon and the Festival Orchestra performing Mahler’s 6th today—truly unforgettable for all the right reasons.

Cheers,