As reported in the Los Angeles Chronicle, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra starts its 2009/10 season with a festival of Mahler’s music. Michael Tilson Thomas (see our video interview) is joined by soloists Susan Graham and Thomas Hampson.

“Mahler pursues Schubert’s goals with Wagner’s techniques.”

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

Tilson Thomas: I remember very clearly the moment when Mahler’s music reached out and grabbed me, when I was 13 years old. I was waiting at the house of my parents’ friends for some reason or another, and they were very busy people and they said, “Would you like to listen to some music? For example, do you know Das Lied von der Erde by Mahler?”, which of course I did not. And they said, “Why don’t you listen to the last movement – it’s about 20 minutes long and your parents should be here by then”. And they put on this section, and really I divide my life between before I heard that recording – which was Ferrier and Walter – and after I heard it. The music made a stunning impression on me; it was as if it gave voice to all kinds of feelings that I had, that were part of my family, that were part of the whole connection that my family had to life in small villages in the Ukraine, and the presence of Jewish music – both secular and sacred music – in those villages, and the pull of those different cultures. But when this part [sings extract] came in, it went right into my heart. I could not believe that such symphonic music existed, and I never got over it.

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