Amongst delivering many other virtual projects this spring, RPO Resound was thrilled deliver an in-person project at Phoenix Arch School in Brent with a team of RPO musicians. Read what trumpet player Adam Wright (pictured above at a pre-Covid-19 RPO Resound project) had to say about the rush of being back in the room with participants.
Find tickets for our Mahler series
His symphonies are long and call for many musicians to take to the stage. Mahler’s Symphony No.8 was nicknamed the 'Symphony of a Thousand' by Mahler’s agent because its premiere performance featured over 150 orchestra members and over 800 choral singers.
Mahler was a morning person! He composed during the early morning and later in the day he would exercise: he swam, ran and cycled.
He was also an outdoorsman, who especially loved alpine trails. He composed a lot of his music in a tiny hut on the edge of Lake Attersee in Austria, where he once told the famous conductor Bruno Walter: “Don’t bother looking at the view, I have already composed it." Mahler maintained a strict routine when composing; according to Walter ‘[Mahler] went there at six in the morning, at seven his breakfast was silently placed before him, and only when he opened the door at noon would he return to normal life.’
His music wasn’t very popular when it was written, but it is now considered much more accessible and is very popular these days. According to Naxos, Mahler's Symphony No. 5 is the second most recorded of his all his symphonies. In a survey taken of three traditional Mahler orchestras (Vienna, New York, and the Concertgebouw), it was found that Mahler's Symphony No.1 was the most frequently performed.
Mahler’s music is featured on more than 100 film soundtracks including Death in Venice, Shutter Island, Children of Men and The Tree of Life. One Hollywood producer liked Mahler’s music in the film Death in Venice (which used his Symphony No.5) so much, he asked if he could get Mahler to write more music for movies. He didn’t know that Mahler had been dead for over 60 years!
Discover Mahler's First, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies in our 2025–26 Season in London's Royal Albert Hall with our Music Director Vasily Petrenko.
By Jennifer Christie (RPO Second Violinist)
It’s British Summertime and the stars certainly aligned on this project! As a Leo, I recently celebrated a milestone birthday, went on a blow-out holiday, then came straight back to work on some recording sessions before delving into this exciting RPO Resound project working alongside young people with vision impairments (VI) from the Royal Society for Blind Children (RSBC), hosted by the Science Museum. There’s never a dull moment as a musician in the RPO!
By Ben Wolstenholme (RPO Double Bassist)
On the bank of the river just down from the Thames Barrier, there is a workshop. Inside, on a shelf, there’s a tin containing nearly 200 small pieces of ebony with names written on one side. These are the names of double bass players going back generations. It’s a miniature history of the double bass in the palm of your hand.
What on earth has this got to do with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra?
