Gustav Mahler and the social network

Returning to Thailand from Opera Siam’s London tour last autumn was strangely depressing. It had been an artistic triumph in many ways: A sold-out last night for "Mae Naak and Lord Ivar Mountbatten leading the standing ovation for the British premiere of my "Mountbatten Cantata" were moments that made life worth living but and the logistical and financial nightmares engendered by the tour brought me close to despair. 

After London, I found myself wanting to go to the US and sit at home churning out books rather than worrying about nursing a destitute opera company back to health. But I do have the Siam Philharmonic to worry about. The SPO isn’t like other orchestras in this country. It doesn’t do commercial gigs nor does it have a regular university grant to sustain it, and yet, whilst struggling to stay together for the last nine years the SPO has produced a consistently exciting body of work.

If anything can really bring us back from the grave, it is Mahler. So, a month ago, I decided that we should continue the SPO’s ambitious plan to play all of Mahler’s symphonies by 2014. We are already half way through this project but to bring us out of darkness I’ve chosen No 6, nicknamed "The Tragic" – though not by Mahler – the favourite Mahler Symphony of HRH the late Princess Galyani Vadhana, to whom I once promised that Thai musicians would be able to play all the Mahler symphonies. 

Mahler Six is often said to be the composer’s greatest work. It is a searing one, brooding, opening with a relentless funeral march and ending with an ambiguous vision of an earthly paradise complete with cowbells. It’s got the three huge "hammerblows of fate" which, Mahler’s widow proclaimed, foresaw terrible tragedies in Mahler’s life.

The SPO’s Mahler Six will be a world first in that I intend to use a coffin to make the sound Mahler seems to want for the "hammerblows". It will therefore be a visual as well as an aural symbol. Then there’s the vexed question of what order to play the two inner movements in. They are completely different symphonies depending on which order you pick, with different structures and completely different emotional meaning. There are firm justifications for both orders and Mahlerites will fight almost to the death to defend their personal choice. 

Of course, the question above all questions is how do you fund something as big as a Mahler symphony, which needs around eighty musicians or more with one of Hungary’s leading concert masters being flown in to help? In Thailand, social networks have become newsworthy of late. They have been used to create flash mobs in aid of one political cause or another. They’ve also been used to send out viral videos – so I started to wonder whether social networks couldn’t be harnessed in the name of culture.

I have 4,600 Facebook "friends" (I use the term loosely). When I discuss something controversial on Somtow.org, thousands of people click on it, though when I discuss music, it drops to dozens. I wondered whether simply begging people for money for Mahler on social networks, and adding easily clickable Paypal links for donations, would actually allow me to finance this concert. With a week to go, I’d raised almost half the money needed. The last contributor was a Swiss philanthropist who wired euro 1,000 (Bt49,000) to our Mahler fund. One of the most touching was a person in America who, while jobless, had $5 left in her paypal account and decided to send it to us. Some became members of our Gustav’s Angels programme, donating Bt5,000 or more. Others became "Little Angels". But amazingly, those little clicks started to add up. Most were from friends I haven’t seen in years or total strangers, but I would have to say that most donations came from people who don’t live in Thailand and have no hope of getting to the concert. They just felt moved by my plea.

I don’t know whether this is a one-time thing or whether I’ve started a new movement. I do know now that if you "cry in the wildness" and that wilderness happens to have an Internet connection – your cry may be heard by people very far away, and what those people can do may surprise you.

If you are in town on Thursday at 8pm, do come to SCB’s Mahisorn Hall at SCB Park Plaza and hear a live performance of one of the biggest, most searing masterpieces of the 20th century! 

And please visit www.Somtow.org and help us keep Mahler alive!