Aurora Plays Mahler's First from Memory at Proms
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Aurora Orchestra will perform Mahler's First Symphony from memory at this weekend's Proms, paired with a new play about the composer written by their principal flautist that features whole-orchestra choreography, two actors, and sound design.
- Aurora pioneered Proms performances from memory in 2014 with Mozart's 40th Symphony, when bassoonist Amy Harman compared the experience to 'skydiving without a parachute. But in a good way.'
- The ensemble has since performed Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Beethoven's Ninth, and Shostakovich's Fifth from memory at the Proms, each paired with a 40-minute theatrical first half exploring the work's creation.
- Mahler's documented 1910 meeting with Sigmund Freud frames the new play, drawing on accounts of their conversation about why he wrote particular kinds of music and why audiences couldn't understand him.
- Mahler's First Symphony premiered in Budapest in 1889 to reviews calling it 'offensively trivial,' 'a disaster,' and 'ridiculous'; the play follows his journey from composition through that hostile reception.
- Singer Natalie Lewis and actors Jack Bardoe and Sarah Twomey join conductor Nicholas Collon and co-director James Bonas for performances at the Royal Albert Hall this Saturday and Sunday.
Why it matters: Aurora is scaling up from its 2014 Mozart — Mahler's First runs roughly twice as long and uses more than double the musicians — while giving the orchestra just a day and a half to rehearse choreographed staging alongside memorisation. If the format survives this stretch, the Royal Albert Hall engagement tests whether audience appetite and player stamina can sustain Aurora's theatrical format across longer, more complex works.
