CSO_1415_Catalog

2014/15 Season Highlight
29
MAHLER 5
5
A journey from darkness into light unfolds in one of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s
signature works.
Mahler wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1901 and 1902, a time of great
change for the composer. He was enjoying numerous triumphs in
his personal and professional life: he met and married his beloved
wife Alma and held jobs with the Vienna Court Opera and Vienna
Philharmonic. He also experienced dark trials. In 1901, he suffered
a dangerous and nearly fatal hemorrhage, leaving him quite shaken.
Mahler claimed that the Fifth Symphony represented a transformation
in his orchestral writing, one that focused on orchestral technique
and abandoned the programmatic music that typified his previous
symphonies. However, there are several clear references to his life
throughout the five-movement symphony.
The unsettling opening begins with a trumpet fanfare and settles
into an elegiac funeral march, similar in spirit to the first of the
composer’s Kindertotenlieder. The following movement struggles
between darkness and light, with a rough and wild theme juxtaposed
by a striking chorale and some dance-like moments. The more
light-hearted Scherzo, based on a traditional Austrian ländler,
contains one of the most difficult horn solos in the repertoire. The
tender and breathtaking Adagietto is a love letter to his wife, Alma,
prominently quoting the prelude from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
The Adagietto leads seamlessly to the jubilant Finale, during
which Mahler summarizes the symphony with references to previous
movements, leading to a triumphant coda. The entire work has gone
from deep despair and anger to love, and then ends in pure joy.
PERFORMED OCTOBER 9–12
JAAP van ZWEDEN conductor
Series: Thursday B and I, Friday B and Sunday A