Symphony of a Thousand

On Tuesday, we went to listen to Mahler's Eighth Symphony, more commonly known as the "Symphony of a Thousand."

The story is that Mahler originally wrote this symphony for a thousand people to perform it, but it was only done once with a thousand people on the night of its premiere in 1910, Munich.

The one we went to was "only" four hundred people on stage; one orchestra (which had two harps, so imagine the size) and three choirs, plus the soloists standing at the front and some part of the brass section in one of the aisles between the seats of the audience because they couldn't fit on the stage.

Still, it was no different than a quartet who's been together for twenty years playing their favorite piece; everything was right, and even in that chaos and in that heap of people, instruments and stands, nothing stood out and everyone managed to listen to each other.

Of course, the conductor played a big part in all of this "staying together" and synchronization.

But the most important thing to do when you're performing with an orchestra, especially with a 300-people one, is to listen to every single instrument and voice. Looking at the director, in my opinion, comes later.

The most amazing thing I observed at one point midst the screeching dissonances, chromatic notes and "themes" to be heard once and never again, was how the huge violin section could pull off such an awesome crescendo; it sounded like one person was playing the whole thing. Playing the right notes and the rhythms is something, but doing a perfect crescendo in unison is another.

The Symphony of a Thousand by Mahler, put together by the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra and three choirs, was surely an amazing experience, one that I would be terribly sorry to miss. Once again, I realized how actually listening to people make the music there and then, with little flukes and perfect nuances is much, much, much more different than downloading the piece from torrents.com and listening to it with cheap headphones.

The Quiet Prodigy

He was born in a small village in Warsaw, in 1810.

He was the second child and the only son of Justyna and Nicholas.

His first piano teacher was his big sister, and he gave his first concert at the age of seven.

He traveled to Paris, hoping he would stumble upon more opportunities as an aspiring musician, with a handful of his native soil in his pocket, in 1830.

But he was gone for good, because the rebellious Poland army was pulverized by the large and powerful Russian army, just a couple of weeks after his departure from Poland. Coming back home, returning to his homeland was, henceforth, not possible.

His lover broke up with him by writing a novel in which the female character (symbolizing herself) left the male character (our musician) for someone else, and sending our musician the novel.

He gave little less than 30 concerts in his short-spanned life. He was not a big-hit back then, as he "failed to fill the concert hall"; he was too quiet.

Compared to Liszt's and Berlioz's mighty compositions spilling over with fortissimo's and hammered chords, he was simply too soft for the audience in Paris.

His life was ended prematurely by a demanding disease, most probably tuberculosis.

This man is Frederic Chopin.

Most of his works are for the solo piano, and he is my all-time favorite composer.

Why, you ask?

It's because of the feelings inside his pieces, locked in tightly by the staves and the written, simple notes, waiting to be released by an understanding and passionate pianist.

Every single time I play his Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp major, I find something different in it, another feeling, another thought.

And every time I listen to this incredible piece of work, it takes me to a different place, stirs up different memories, different emotions.

His piece called Adieu, a waltz in A-Flat Major for the piano, conveys the emotions of farewells and goodbyes and departures better than any painting I've seen or any novel I've read. It is hard to keep your eyes from brimming with tears, to stay standing behind the sand bar the waves of memory build up in your mind. It is hard not to feel, it is hard not to live the music.

Frederic Chopin, the quiet, emotional, master of the Romantic Era, quite different from his fellow composer friends, manages to prove everyone who thinks that music can only express so much wrong. Now, if you will listen to his waltz L'Adieu, you will understand what I mean. The silent prodigy makes up for the lack of volume in his pieces with overflowing feeling and just simple, plain, beauty.