TV viewers in France and Germany can watch Claudio Abbado’s performance of Mahler’s 4th Symphony with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra this Sunday 30th August, 19.00, on ARTE.

(German only – translate with Google)

In Zusammenarbeit mit der Internationalen Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft, dem ORF-Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien und dem Wiener Konzerthaus schreibt der Österreichische Komponistenbund aus Anlass der Mahlerjahre 2010/11 (150. Geburtstag, 100. Todestag) einen internationalen Kompositionswettbewerb aus, der Komponistinnen und Komponisten des 21. Jahrhunderts ohne Altersbegrenzung einlädt, Werke in jenen drei Kategorien einzureichen, für die Gustav Mahler Kompositionen geschaffen hat: (more…)

Butler University has now announced the full programme of its Mahler Project during the years 2009 and 2010, with lectures, readings and concerts.

“Mahler embraced everything that exists.”

Do you remember when you heard Mahler’s music for the first time, and what your reaction was?

Salonen: I cannot remember what the first piece was; it might have been the 5th Symphony. My conducting teacher, Jorma Panula, was the first Finnish conductor to conduct a Mahler cycle, that is all the Mahler symphonies, and this was in Finland in the 70s. I did hear every piece in the cycle during that time, but I cannot remember what the first one was. I remember the feeling though – I was a little bewildered. I was very familiar with Bruckner at the time, and I was very taken by the simplicity and clarity of the form in Bruckner. There is a kind of lack of evolution; he just presents the material – a bit like Japanese cuisine in a way, here is the raw material. Whereas with Mahler, especially later Mahler, the material is in a state of constant flux; there is constant variation going on, and there is sometimes cyclical variation, so you have variations upon variations in a way. So the first impression was a little bewildering, and I find that some of the symphonies are still difficult to get a grasp of, formally speaking. Like No. 7: I have conducted it many, many times, and I have also heard it many times, but I still find that it takes quite a bit of energy for me to know where I am exactly within that form.

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The opening concert of this year’s Lucerne Festival is broadcast this Friday, 21st August, 20.05 CET on Bayern 4 Klassik Radio (and others in Germany).

Claudio Abbado conducts Mahler’s 1st Symphony with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.

“Mahler is my point of reference”

Do you remember when you heard the music of Gustav Mahler for the first time?

Metzmacher: Oh my God. No, I don’t. I think the first time I heard Mahler was when I was conducting it, or maybe just before. I did the Rückert-Lieder first you know: it was long ago and I was very young and it was with Margaret Price. Let me think – that’s probably not true. I think I heard Mahler earlier in the context of Ives, which I was always very interested in, because there’s this story that when Mahler came back from New York he had an Ives score in his suitcase and wanted to bring him to Europe, and then unfortunately he died. Because there are some connections between Ives and Mahler, and I think I first encountered the music of Mahler through Ives. I think so, and I think it was most probably the 1st Symphony

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The New Zealand International Arts Festival has just announced that its 2010 festival will open with a performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Vladimir Ashkenazy will conduct the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

“Mahler expresses life’s reality.”

Do you remember the first time you heard the music of Gustav Mahler?

Nagano: The first time I heard Gustav Mahler’s music was indirectly through the television. I was a very young boy, and it was in the early 1960s, and I heard the second movement of the 1st Symphony explained, and then conducted, by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. And it was on a very, well, what now has become a very famous television series, called The Young Persons Concerts, and for many children like myself, who lived in rural America, far away from the big cities, where we didn’t have regular access to big symphony orchestras and big opera houses, this was a tremendous outreach programme. And using high technology at the time – television – that Mr. Bernstein employed, so that he could somehow share with a very, very broad public of young people the very special qualities of music. So in this particular broadcast it was, as I said, the second movement of the 1st Symphony: maestro Bernstein explained in a very general analysis on the piano, and then we heard the second movement. I must have been 8 years old at this time. (more…)

(German only – translate with Google)

Claudio Abbado dirigiert nach 17 Jahren wieder ein Konzert an der Mailänder Scala. Am 4. Juni 2010 plant der Stardirigent sein Comeback im Mailänder Opernhaus mit Mahlers zweiter Symphonie, die er bereits bei seinem Debüt an der Scala im Jahr 1963 dirigiert hatte. Anlass ist der 150. Geburtstag Mahlers. Bisher wollte Abbado noch im Juni 2010 mit dem Symphonischen Orchester der Scala Mahlers achte Symphonie aufführen. (more…)