Archived event
Performance details
Thursday 14 March 2024 at 7.30pm
Saturday 16 March 2024 at 7.30pm
Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
Featuring
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Jaime Martín conductor
Raehann Bryce-Davis mezzo-soprano
Upper voices of the MSO Chorus
Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus director
Steven Hodgson guest chorus director
Young Voices of Melbourne
Program
Mahler Symphony No.3
About this performance
Fasten your musical seatbelts for one of the most thrilling symphonic rides in the repertoire: Mahler’s truly epic Third Symphony, under the baton of Chief Conductor Jaime Martín. The forces of the MSO are bolstered by Young Voices of Melbourne, the MSO Chorus, and electrifying American mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis.
At the time Mahler composed this work in 1902, a ‘symphony’ typically had a standard structure comprised of four movements. In approaching his Third Symphony however, Mahler sought first and foremost to create a ‘world’, and to allow the shape of this ‘world’ to dictate the work’s final form.
It begins with a Dionysian funeral march as Summer arrives and the Greek god Pan awakes, before the flowers, animals, humanity, angels, and love bestow their wisdom upon the listener in the second half. This ancient world in two parts, comprised of six movements, embodied a radical modernity that challenged the very identity of the symphony.
Duration: approx. 100 minutes, no interval
