Mahler third in a teacup
mainMontreal has a magnificent new concert hall, the Maison Symphonique. This weekend it was playing string quartets.
While a performance of Mahler’s third symphony had to find another home – in Pollack Hall, where space is so tight that the choirs displaced the audience in several rows.
Why would they schedule things like that? Arthur Kapitainis sheds some light.
(A scene from John Neumeier’s Mahler 3 ballet. Photo © 2004 Holger Badekow)
It’s Pollack Hall. The reason is that Mahler’s Third was played by the McGill University Symphony Orchestra. McGill does not want to pay big bucks to rent the Maison Symphonique. They were to play in a large church, but a strike of the support staff forced them to return to their own 600-seat Pollack Hall.