Gustav Mahler was a much better human than I’ll ever be. Case in point: If someone gave me a sledgehammer, my first impulse would be to enter Ned Lannamann’s pathetic cubicle at the Mercury offices and start swinging away at any computer (or fingers) I could find, with the aim of silencing this hopelessly uninformed, wildly myopic, so-called music editor for a good long while. Luckily, when the muses presented Mr. Mahler with a sledgehammer, the composer bravely resisted any destructive inclinations, and instead inserted this bluntest of instruments into his Symphony No. 6. The epic work might be labeled a symphony on paper, but in a live performance, this music will be nothing less than cathartic sacrament—nearly 90 solid minutes of 96 classically trained musicians on the Schnitzer stage wrestling with sonic nihilism and bitter chaos! Folks, this is Gustav fucking Mahler we’re talking about here. Witness. This. Show.
Also on: http://www.nobleviola.com/2012/10/31/angry-symphony-guy-strikes-again/