Musicians of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
In Sunday’s (4/4) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock), Eric E. Harrison writes, “Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 … isn’t the composer’s most massive work. It doesn’t quite overwhelm a stage as does his Symphony No. 8, the so-called ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ … But it’s pretty colossal—80 minutes, no intermission, and well north of 90 players (extended string sections to balance Mahler’s ‘all hands on deck’ wind and brass groupings, counting two harpists, a tenor horn and a mandolin player, but not counting Music Director Geoffrey Robson) formed the Arkansas Symphony Saturday night at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall for the gangbuster finale of its 2024-25 … Masterworks season. Among its other triumphs, this performance shows how much the orchestra has grown … in recent years, and particularly under Robson’s baton. The musicians have proven that if they can handle this, they can handle just about anything…. All sorts of solo moments, more than I can detail, are worthy of mention, as is the horn choir in the second movement and the very busy percussion section … Robson maintained tight control throughout of the enormous forces.”
