Mahler’s missing man
Album Of The WeekFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
The death of composer Alexander Goehr last August reminded obituarists of the vital contributions his refugee father Walter Goehr had made to insular British culture. Walter worked as a house conductor for EMI and for one of the BBC’s weaker orchestras. He is remembered chiefly for giving the 1953 UK premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalia Symphony, but he also introduced a gamut of novelties from Monteverdi to Mahler, Schoenberg and Stravinsky to Britten and Tippett.
MahlerThe first shock on hearing Das Klagende Lied and the fourth symphony is how intuitively he grasped Mahler’s unpredictable pauses and rhythmic shifts…
Read on here.
En francais ici.
Walter Goehr was a friend of Schönberg, and the Schönbergian heritage complete with its ethos went from father to son. “I know exactly how Schönberg thought, and the premises from which he worked.” (Alexander Goehr)