Summer evening concert: Pijper and Mahler

‘Everything worked,’ Pijper wrote after a performance of his Second Symphony. ‘The music had the audience in a vice-like grip throughout.’ His magnum opus was soon consigned to oblivion, however: no orchestra was able to raise the 112 musicians required – even more than for Mahler’s First. Now, 101 years after its completion, the symphony is about to be resurrected at full strength. Concertgoers, brace yourselves.