David Briggs

A new live recording of  David's transcription of Mahler's 6th Symphony is now available. It is available from the 'Recordings' section and you can hear some samples in the panel on the right of this page.

David writes....

I owe my love affair with this extraordinary work to my wife, Madge, who introduced me to the great recording of Mahler 6 with the CBSO under Sir Simon Rattle early on in our courtship back in 2003. I have always been addicted to Mahler symphonies, starting with playing the 5th as a Viola player in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in the late 1970’s, but, for some reason, the sixth had passed me by. The transcription you hear today was made last year, and was a 50th birthday present for my wife.

The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler, sometimes referred to as the Tragische ('Tragic'), was composed between 1903 and 1904 (rev. 1906; scoring repeatedly revised). The work's first performance was in Essen, on May 27, 1906, conducted by the composer. Amazingly, the symphony was not heard in New York until December 1947, under Dimitris Mitropoulos.

David Briggs: A week in the life of a concert organist

Leonardo Ciampa: We’re delighted to be welcoming you to play at Kresge Auditorium. Can you tell us a little about your career as an organist? At what age did you start to play?

David Briggs: I’ve played the organ since I was six, although I didn’t have any lessons until the age of twelve (after I’d reached a fairly high level on the piano and my feet could properly reach the pedals). I’m delighted to be performing on the Holtkamp Organ here at M.I.T. In fact I played my first ever concert in the USA on a Holtkamp instrument – it was at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, Ohio in February 1997. I remember five inches of lake-effect snow fell during the course of the concert and I improvised on ‘Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer’. Coming from the UK, I remember immediately being very impressed by the size and generosity of US audiences, as well as the huge automobiles, not to mention the fact that everybody spoke with a strange accent and drove on the wrong side of the road. I couldn’t have predicted that I would be (very happily) based in this country from 2003.

As a virtuoso organist and a composer, do you identify with the role JS Bach played, or do you feel your life as a travelling concert artist is fundamentally different?

You may say I’m a virtuoso, but I imagine what I can do is a shadow of what Bach was capable of. There’s evidence that Bach could do with his feet what the best organists can only do with their hands! One cannot underestimate the significance of his faith, either: I do believe he had a hotline to his creator. There is a mystery at the heart of his works, the music is always greater than the sum of its parts.

He was rooted within his institution, obtuse, I imagine, with a hyper-focus on composing. I worked at Gloucester Cathedral for eight years so I know a little of what the music director’s job entails: but since I was 12 I have wanted to be an organist and a composer, not a choir director, so my current life suits me better. I do believe Bach was always looking to the future, imagining all the possibilities, so he would have probably loved aspects of my life, particularly the international travel. Not sure how he would have coped with the secularisation of society, though…