Performed by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Giordano Bellincampi
Giordano Bellincampi conducts the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Photo: ©Adrian Malloch
In 1967 Blumine was performed for the first time in 73 years.
"It was a strange and touching experience, like a vivid dream in which one meets a long-dead friend," wrote the critic William Mann.
Composed in 1884, it began life as incidental music for the staging of a poem which described a scene of a trumpeter serenading his love across the Rhine.
It then made its way into Mahler's first Symphony, The Titan, as the second movement. It lasted there for three performances but was widely criticised as being mismatched to the rest of the work. Mahler agreed that it seemed "insufficiently symphonic" and removed it from the symphony.
Fast forward to 1966 and Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell made a dream find at the Yale University Library when he stumbled on the symphony score with the Blumine movement included.
Benjamin Britten conducted that 1967 performance and a for a time, various conductors reinserted it in the symphony. Overall though, the take seems to be that Mahler was correct in his final structuring of the Titan and Blumine is performed most regularly as a standalone work.
Programme note: Kevin Keys
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Auckland Town Hall, 8 July 2021
Engineer: Adrian Hollay; Producer: Tim Dodd
