| On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the Cleveland | | | | As Severance Hall filled that evening of |
| Orchestra prepped for Thursday's concert, | | | | September 13th - every seat was taken - people |
| rehearsing Mahler's Fifth Symphony. As the | | | | received a slip of paper with this simple message, |
| magnitude of the terrorist attacks became clear, | | | | "Tonight's concert will begin with a moment of |
| orchestra members put down their instruments | | | | silence." At precisely 8 p.m. the Conductor, tall and |
| and stopped rehearsal for the day. The next | | | | regal with a striking white hair, strode onto the |
| morning they debated what to do about | | | | stage, dressed in his conservative black tails. He |
| Thursday's concert. They could cancel, just like | | | | turned to face the audience and began the |
| nearly every other public event in America that | | | | moment of silence. Only it was not just a |
| week. They could go ahead, but if so, what should | | | | moment. He waited long past a minute, more like |
| the orchestra play? Already, they had sensed | | | | two, right to the point where five seconds more |
| mounting pressure from members of the | | | | might have been five seconds too long. Then, he |
| community to abandon the classical repertoire in | | | | looked up, he turned to the orchestra, and waited |
| favor of a purely American program for the | | | | a moment for everyone to sit down. The |
| entire evening. | | | | conductor raised his baton, paused, and then with |
| They concluded that, perhaps more than any | | | | the flick of his wrist shattered the silence with the |
| other week in history, people needed the | | | | opening trumpet salvo of Mahler's Fifth. |
| orchestra to do the one thing it does supremely | | | | There was absolutely nothing that could have |
| well: play the most powerful orchestra music ever | | | | done to be of better service to the Country at |
| created by the human race. They decided to go | | | | that moment, than to stick with what they do |
| ahead with Mahler's Fifth - a piece inspired by the | | | | best. It really did not matter that some patrons |
| extreme emotions of death, love and life. Mahler's | | | | might have wanted a rousing sing-along, or others |
| Fifth begins with a desolate funeral march | | | | felt they should have not played at all. Some may |
| announced by solo trumpet, joined by the full | | | | have chosen not to donate the following years or |
| orchestra and ends sixty-five minutes later with a | | | | that the media criticized. What did matter is that |
| cathartic celebration of birth and renewal. It's | | | | this orchestra remained true to its values doing |
| almost as if Mahler had written the piece after 9 | | | | for the people of Cleveland what it could do |
| 11, not 100 years before, to console the soul of a | | | | better than any other organization in the world. - |
| nation. | | | | play Mahler's Fifth. |