Monday Musicale with the Maestro – July 13, 2020 – Honoring the 160th Birthday of Gustav Mahler
Honoring the 160th Birthday of Gustav Mahler
In the 20th century, the greatest musical renaissance of a classical composer was that of Gustav Mahler (July 7, 1860-May 18, 1911). Until 1960 his works were regarded as being impossibly long and difficult and both banal and overly complex. He was celebrated primarily as a brilliant conductor. But the centennial of his birth led to a worldwide reevaluation of his work as a composer.
In America, Leonard Bernstein was the leader of this renewed interest—not surprising, perhaps, since they shared so much in common. Both were Jewish, and both were known in their lifetimes as composer-conductors who achieved the role of Music Director for the New York Philharmonic. Yet Bernstein seems to have grasped in Mahler’s work what others would see in his own only after his death: his legacy as a composer was far more important than his conducting.
Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 concludes with a song for female voice which could not be more direct and accessible. Taken from a collection of German folk poems titled Das Knaben Wunderhorn (Youth’s Magic Horn), the song “Das Himmlische Leben” (“The Heavenly Life”) describes a child’s view of heaven and begins with these lyrics:
We enjoy heavenly pleasure in heaven
And therefore avoid the earthly stuff.
No worldly tumult
Is to be heard in heaven.
All live in great peace.
We dance and we sing
As Saint Peter looks on.
The end of the song is a moving ode to the music heard in heaven:
There is no music on earth
That can compare with ours.
The angelic voices
Gladden our senses,
So that all awaken for joy.
The music covers a range of moods from joyous to solemn, rustic to ethereal.
Here is our performance of that work from our concert on November 3, 2019, at the Carolina Theatre: A Salute to the Centennial of American Women’s Suffrage.
Our soloist is soprano Jemeesa Yarborough, the 2019 winner of our DSO Young Vocalist Award, sponsored by Dr. Stephen Prystowsky.
William Henry Curry
Music Director, Durham Symphony Orchestra
Durham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro William Henry Curry
Featured Soloist Jemeesa Yarborough
Das Himmlische Leben (Das Knaben Wunderhorn – Finale Symphony No.4) – Gustav Mahler
The Carolina Theatre
A Salute to the Centennial of American Women’s Suffrage
November 3, 2019
Celebrating Maestro Curry’s 50 years conducting
& 11 years with the Durham Symphony!