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After a 34 year hiatus from the Konzerthaus stage, the Toronto Symphony gave a knockout performance that had everything in spades

In the ballad, a lovelorn maiden is finally reunited with her dead lover, who immediately tries to trick her into a midnight wedding at a graveyard after dragging her through muddy swamps filled with ghosts and howling animals. 

A well prepared "Resurrection" by BIPO under the baton of Sacha Goetzel which left a slightly bittersweet taste. 

Though Jordan and the Wiener Symphoniker have been happy bedfellows many times before, this concert marked the beginning of a new stage in their relationship. 

The opening concert of the Wiener Konzerthaus in 1913 featured a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with a celebratory prelude written by Richard Strauss. To mark its 100 year birthday, this Sunday morning the Vienna Philharmonic, led by the eminently engaging Gustavo Dudamel, performed Beethoven’s Ninth as well, but this time with a “Prolog” written by living composer Aribert Reimann.

With the business situation in the recording industry being what it is, studio recordings of operas are more or less ruled out. The positive side of this is that the general public gets the chance to be part of concerts that are recorded and enjoy the tension such an event creates more often.

Counting this present concert performance, public outings for Jaromir Weinberger’s 1937 opera Wallenstein may possibly have reached double digits, and such reception details, or indeed any information about the opera beyond a basic synopsis, would have made a welcome addition to the programme.

The German Requiem is an unbudgeable fixture on the Viennese musical calendar, and yet selections from Brahms’ more obscure choral output are seldom programmed, with chorus directors typically citing the unfeasible ratio of rehearsal to running time for complicated works like Nänie (which is less than 15 minutes long).

Ravel is one of those composers who seem to slip through the cracks sometimes. I myself am guilty of letting this happen – I know that I like Ravel’s music but often forget how magical it really is. After tonight’s concert, however, I am sure that I’ll never forget this again.

Tradition has it in Vienna that while the Wiener Philharmoniker ring in the New Year to the strains of the Blue Danube and other Strauss family hits, the Wiener Symphoniker give festive performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Konzerthaus.