Mahler’s Seventh Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic

Mozart

Don Giovanni – overture

Knussen

Symphony No. 2

Mahler

Symphony No 7 in E minor

Gillian Keith (soprano)
BBC Philharmonic
Gianandrea Noseda (conductor)


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Reviewed: 17 August, 2020
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After almost a decade at the helm of the BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda (who later became the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate) opened this 2012 Prom with Mozart’s famous overture to Don Giovanni – by turns solemn, impetuous and edgy. From dreaming sleep to a dawn awakening, Oliver Knussen’s Second Symphony then takes us through a landscape of iridescent colour, with a vocal line that soars to stratospheric heights.

One of British music’s great originals, Knussen found an individual voice while still in his teens. This performance – given on his 60th-birthday year – is a celebration of his unique contribution to UK music. Its nocturnal sequence finds a counterpart in the two ‘Night Music’ movements of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony – his own all-encompassing journey from darkness to light – which concludes the programme.

Read Past Reviews on the Classical Source

(From the BBC Proms 2012, 30 July)

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