Good night Vienna! (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Good night Vienna!

9:40am Sunday 22nd February 2009 in

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ENJOY a very special evening at The Anvil when the Philharmonia Orchestra performs two late romantic masterpieces from Vienna.

The February 25 concert opens the Orchestra’s City Of Dreams: Vienna 1900-1935 festival – their major European project for 2009 and their first under principal conductor and artistic director Esa-Pekka Salonen (pictured).

“Vienna in 1900 was a unique cultural melting pot, where musicians, philosophers, poets, painters and scientists met together in the city’s many cafés, and created works of art and science that changed the course of history.

“I have always believed that the music of this period has a very special artistic significance, and I hope that you will join us to hear the music of Mahler, Schoenberg and Berg in the context of Klimt’s paintings, Josef Hoffmann’s tableware and Freud’s dreams,” says Esa-Pekka Salonen The programme begins with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, one of the truly great pieces for strings. It is a musical translation of a poem in which a woman and man, walking through a forest at night, find their emotional difficulties transformed by the healing power of love.

This is followed by Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, completed in 1910. It shows the composer’s deepest reactions in the face of death. A passionate love of life, bitterness and sarcasm and outbursts at hostile fate abound in the first three movements, before the final Adagio eventually brings acceptance, peace and a poignant farewell to earthly things.

To begin the evening, there is a free pre-concert talk by series consultant Julian Johnson entitled Romantic Schoenberg/Modern Mahler from 6.30pm to 7.15pm. Julian will take a fresh look at music in Vienna around the 1900s.

Julian is currently a Professor of Music at Royal Holloway College, University of London. From 2001-2007 he was a Reader in Music and Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. In 2005, he was awarded the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association for ‘outstanding contributions to musicology’.

To book for any Anvil Arts events, or to keep up-to-date with all performances at The Anvil, The Forge and The Haymarket, call the Anvil Arts box office on 01256 844244. Details of all Anvil Arts performances can be found on the website .