MahlerMan reports - Day 8

A bus waits in front of the Concertgebouw's revolving door. ‘Cast Musical Malle Babbe’ is written on a plasticised piece of cardboard behind the window. My Mahler head begins to make strange connections. Is Anna Lucia Richter taking part in that musical? Is Julius Drake going to accompany there too? Did Malle Babbe end up being not a musical about Rob de Nijs but about the life of Alma Mahler? It just might. That's where Herman Rieken arrives, percussionist in the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Should he start singing the rhythm of the rain on the attic window? ‘Plitter plitter plitter plitter, listen to that rain shower’.

Herman Rieken will guide the Mahler Walk, a stroll through the neighbourhood past buildings and places from the history of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Mahler. Among other things, he explains to the fifteen fact-hungry walkers that Café Viotta is named after Henri Viotta, the Dutchman who conducted the opening concert of The Concertgebouw on 11 April 1888. In that Café Viotta, I get talking to John that evening. He is 89, which makes him born around the time Henri Viotta died. Everything is connected here. It might be his last Mahler Festival, John says, ‘especially if they wait a long time to do it another time’. Tonight, he and his son will go to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance of the Seventh Symphony, conducted by Jaap Van Zweden. It is the only concert he will attend in this Mahler Festival, and for a reason. Although he has been deeply involved with music all his life and has also written about it for professional magazines, the Seventh is the only Mahler symphony he has never heard live.

It is getting to seven o'clock. John hesitates to go to Morten Solvik's introduction. I strongly advise him against it; I'm a bit shocked at my own firmness myself. Not that Solvik's introductions are not good - in fact, they are excellent - but my mahler heart says that if you are attending the Seventh for the first time at 89, you'd better do so open-mindedly. First times at 89, you shouldn't want to think about that too much or be influenced by knowledge. Dive in. And rise again.

For me, too, the Seventh Symphony is a blind spot. I realise that the recording I have of it is with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - just like tonight - but under Claudio Abbado. One of those DG Masters CDs. Midprice. Rarely listened to. Anyone who has seen the CD era come and go often links a composition to a CD recording. I therefore link the rest of the Mahler symphonies to the CDs of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart. Also mid-priced, better suited to a student budget.

The man next to whom I end up during the concert seems to know the Seventh better. So much so that he feels he has to conduct it. He indicates orchestra entries with hand movements, his body cramps at the onset of a climax. He seems like a conductor in the depths of his mind, but in the long run you wish he would stick to those thoughts. Admittedly, that's difficult when you're sitting right next to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Afterwards, I look in vain for John. How was that now? What did he learn about the Seventh Symphony? I hope he has answers, because I have many questions.

Zurückhaltend,

Until tomorrow,

Mahlerman

Three moments of the day:

• the realisation that Gustav Mahler was looking at a strange chimney in Van Eeghenstraat
• the tiramisu in Café Viotta
• the French horns of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra