Boston Symphony Orchestra
Part of: Carnegie Hall Live on WQXR
Performers
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, Music Director and Conductor
Håkan Hardenberger, Trumpet
Program
HK GRUBER Aerial
MAHLER Symphony No. 5
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission. Please note that there will be no late seating before intermission.
At a Glance
The Viennese composer, conductor, and “chansonnier” HK Gruber—famous worldwide for his own performances of his work Frankenstein!!—wrote his trumpet concerto Aerial for the formidable virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger, who is called upon to play two different types of trumpet, use a rackful of mutes, and even play the cow’s horn in this wildly colorful but occasionally melancholy piece. Hardenberger gave the world premiere of Aerial with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the London Proms in 1999.
Drawing on Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, Gustav Mahler felt it his artistic duty to push the symphony beyond established tradition and into new realms of expression. He completed his first, purely instrumental symphony in 1888 and followed it with the startlingly expansive Wunderhorn triptych—symphonies nos. 2, 3, and 4—which incorporated voice and cross-pollination with the composer’s songs on texts from the folk poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn). The purely instrumental Fifth Symphony set off in a new direction that continued with the Sixth and Seventh, both also purely instrumental. Composed in 1901–1902, the Fifth benefited from Mahler’s study of Bach’s and Beethoven’s counterpoint, and also reflected a new emotional presence in his life: that of his future wife, Alma.
The Fifth takes a unique approach to symphonic form. Mahler designates three large parts: Part I comprises the opening Funeral March and the stormy second movement, which is a kind of development of the first. Part II is a big, utterly Austrian, utterly Mahlerian scherzo. Part III encompasses the famously lovely Adagietto for harp and strings (sometimes heard alone, and suggested by some to be a declaration of Mahler’s love for Alma) and the Rondo-Finale, in which Mahler demonstrates his mastery of traditional counterpoint while providing a wide-ranging and delightful conclusion—including an idea that speeds up music from the Adagietto—to the work as a whole.