This weekend, the Nashville Symphony is playing Mozart’s 40th Symphony in G minor (a nice piece, but overplayed), Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1 in D minor, and a contemporary piece by Lukas Foss, Time Cycle for Soprano and Orchestra. I love Rachmaninoff’s piano piece Prelude in C# minor, but this was my first time hearing any of his symphonies, or at least hearing them when I was paying attention. Considering the fact that he wrote his first symphony at the age of twenty-three, it is a pretty incredible piece of music. It took him eighteen months to get the first performance which ended up being a complete disaster, due to lack of rehearsal time and even allegations that the conductor was inebriated during the performance, and so was never performed again in his lifetime, a real shame. About five minutes into the first movement, there’s a really cool thing that happens with the second violins and cellos playing in unison, and then the first violins and violas coming in together four bars later and a fourth higher, with woodwinds doubling the strings another four bars later. And the fourth movement is fun throughout, with a great ending. I’d recommend checking it out sometime.

The Lukas Foss piece, Time Cycle for Soprano and Orchestra, was based on four texts, the last being an excerpt from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra that he translated. It was my favorite of the four movements, and the text reminded me of the best line in the new U2 single, Get On Your Boots: “Laughter is eternity if joy is real.”

O Man, take heed!
What speaks the deep midnight!
“I slept, I slept –
“From deep dream I awoke:
“The world is deep,
“And deeper than the day.
“Deep is its woe –
“Joy deeper than heartache.
“Woe speaks begone!
“But joy desires eternity.
“Desires deep, deep eternity.”