Having played Mahler's 1st myself - The Titan - on the clarinet in my late teenage days, I somewhat became obsessed with his symphonies. To my ears, there is nothing more deliciously complex and dramatic than his first, fiths, and only Schubert's Unfinished tops his ninth in terms of the opulent melodrama of romanticism. Oh well, music history...
Granted, the Royal Albert Hall is not the mecca of accustic fidelity - unlike the Cologne Philharmony, a purpose-built venue for classic concerts - but the charme to walk in after work for a fiver equipped with a blanket and a bottle of champagne urges you to re-position the evening on pleasure.
Hiding the booze like a teenager away from the patrolling staff on the gallery under the roof, it resembled the quest for a working class boy to mingle with his aristocratic lover at dawn without being detected by the entourage of the upper class girl guarding her viginity on the streets of Victorian Kensington.
Then you get the usual rituals of concert master and conductor coming in, receiving applaud, bowing, sitting down, the orchestra getting into pose, a few seconds of empty silence, and then the masterpiece emanates from the stage and illuminates the O2 of the 19th century.
Lying on the floor, closing your eyes, feeling your blood circulation and holding your better half in your arm, your thoughts float into the night and give space to concentrated listening while half asleep. You can just imagine yourself as a well-dressed gentlemenn with a broken heart in 1908 on the dawn of the Belle Epoque roaming the streets of Vienna.
Epic music meets monumental architecture. Can't wait to see the 10th - his unfinished one.
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