CSO Program Notes: Mahler 6 with Jaap van Zweden

30/04/2025 15 min
CSO Program Notes: Mahler 6 with Jaap van Zweden

Listen "CSO Program Notes: Mahler 6 with Jaap van Zweden"

Episode Synopsis

The CSO brings the soaring emotional peaks and valleys of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony to Chicago audiences before performing it on Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw stage. The “hammer blows of fate” in the finale seem to foreshadow the tragedies in Mahler’s life, including his own fatal illness. But the symphony brims with life’s pleasures, too, from memories of mountain pastures (listen for the cowbells) to a rapturous portrait of the composer’s wife, Alma.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/mahler-6-with-jaap-van-zweden