Page 609 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

Written in three parts and comprising five movements, the ‘adagietto’, the shortest movement
lasting about 10 minutes, found universal popularity when Luchino Visconti used it in his
1971 film, Death in Venice. An immensely lyrical and evocative piece so endearing with
emotional and passionate outbursts, Mahler supposedly wrote it to represent his love for his
‘soon-to-be wife’ Alma.

A grand and imposing work, the symphony received its première in Cologne’s equally grand
and imposing Gürzenich Hall conducted by the composer but this Aldeburgh Festival
performance by the Hallé, conducted by Sir Mark Elder, proved a grand and imposing
occasion, too, and brought the curtain down on a highly successful festival which sees Sir
Roger Wright, CBE, bow out of his post as Chief Executive of Britten Pears Arts on a high
after serving a glorious decade at the helm.

And to mark Roger’s parting, Sir Mark Elder offered the audience a fitting encore in his
honour with the strings of the Hallé delicately playing a gentle rendering of Elgar’s Chanson
de Nuit thus mirroring the opening concert of the festival when the brass and percussion of
the London Philharmonic blasted Snape Maltings Concert Hall with a thoroughly enjoyable
Fanfare in Roger’s honour penned by Colin Matthews. The only difference being that ‘the-
man-of-the-moment’ then was just Roger Wright - by the end of the festival he became Sir
Roger Wright. Congratulations!

Note: A correspondent kindly clarified about the ending of Curlew River - "the boys in
Curlew River. Both Matthew and Daniel sang at the end, Matthew first from one end and
then half way through the lines, Daniel took over. It was Albert Bate who acted as the boys
spirit, walking up the aisle and interacting with Ian."