Composer

“Encountering Nature” turns our American Adventures season toward wide skies and untamed landscapes, exploring how composers translate the natural world into sound. Copland’s Quiet City opens in hushed stillness, its solitary trumpet and English horn unfolding a spare, haunting dialogue that evokes empty streets at dusk and the quiet vastness beyond them. Intimate and searching, it captures the feeling of standing alone beneath an open sky. Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, “Titan,” expands that perspective to monumental scale, moving from pastoral dawn to storm-tossed intensity and, ultimately, blazing affirmation. Rustic dances, birdsong-like figures, and sweeping climaxes create a journey through nature’s serenity and power.

Encountering Nature

Riverwalk Center

Film music fan or classical music lover? The last Friday concert of the season offers both: We're daring daredevils, sailing with our audience and Erich Wolfgang Korngold over shimmering waves, setting off with Gustav Mahler into the dawn of young, new worlds. No screen pirates, it is said, were as elegant as those whom Erich Wolfgang Korngold honored with his dazzling music! The overture to The Sea Hawk is actually part of a film score, and Korngold's violin concerto also draws its most beautiful themes from various scores composed for the silver screen. 

Departure

Beethoven Hall

Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling’s limpid voice, blessed with honeyed tones and its sensitive response to poetic texts, inspires consistently glowing reviews. She and regular duo partner, Paul Rivinius, preface the heart-breaking Kindertotenlieder with sublimely beautiful songs by Mahler’s Swedish contemporary Emil Sjörgen and the aptly-named cycle Hjärtats Sånger (Songs of the Heart) by his much younger countryman, Gunnar de Frumerie.

EPSG:4326

Camilla Tilling soprano; Paul Rivinius piano

Wigmore Hall

'Where other children would have nursery rhymes, I’d go to bed to the sounds of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert,' recalls Sir Simon Keenlyside, whose father and grandfather were both professional violinists. Those priceless formative years continued when he became a boy chorister, then a choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, and set rock-solid foundations for his subsequent career as a wonderfully perceptive concert singer, one of the most exciting operatic performers of modern times.

Sir Simon Keenlyside baritone; Malcolm Martineau piano

The title is not misleading – Anton Webern's "Im Sommerwind" (In the Summer Wind) from 1904 is indeed an unclouded orchestral idyll, still firmly in the tradition of Liszt, Wagner, and Strauss. Almost nothing betrays the future avant-garde artist – except perhaps the 20-year-old's already perceptible sensitivity for the finest sound blends. The germ of Mahler's Second Symphony was also a one-movement symphonic poem. It was initially titled "Totenfeier" (Funeral Celebration). This ultimately evolved into the five-movement "Resurrection Symphony," which transcends all boundaries in every respect. The finale, based on the chorale "Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst Du" (Resurrection, yes you will rise), features a huge orchestra, an equally large choir, and two vocal soloists, unfolding with poignant power.

8th Symphony Concert

Eurogress Aachen

The programme is a love letter to 20th-century song in all its forms. 

From the soaring romanticism of Alma Mahler and Richard Strauss to the bittersweet elegance of Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim, this concert brings together worlds that rarely meet. 

You’ll hear music from beloved films and musicals alongside lush orchestral arrangements of song cycles and solo pieces all carefully curated to tell a story that is moving, varied and richly expressive.

Fantasia Orchestra with Niamh O’Sullivan

Smith Square Hall

1st Festival Chamber Concert: Recital Marlene Gomes

Munich Residence

Next Level shatters all common stereotypes of a classical concert! This requires unconventional, experimental, and inspiring characters on stage and an open-minded audience that is curious about unusual program combinations, wants to be close to the concert hall with a drink in hand, and appreciates the dialogue with the musicians. Next Level, the other face of classical music – new, unsettling, exciting, intoxicating.

Symbiotic Clash

Tobacco Quarter Hall 1

Austrian baritone Florian Boesch has earned his place among the immortals of Lieder singing as an artist famed for his deep love of poetic words and their musical expression. As the son and grandson of singers, he absorbed the art by osmosis as a child and, following studies with his grandmother, then with fellow baritone Robert Holl, came of age as a recitalist at the world’s leading concert venues. A regular guest at Wigmore Hall since the early 2000s, he returns with a typically compelling programme.

Florian Boesch baritone; Malcolm Martineau

Donato Renzetti conducts the Orchestra della Fondazione Carlo Felice Music by Gustav Mahler

Mahler 6

Carlo Felice Theater

Cornelius Meister and the Staatsorchester Stuttgart conclude their multi-year Gustav Mahler cycle with three concerts. Since 2018, they have performed all nine of the Viennese composer’s symphonies together. In just one week, the Stuttgart Liederhalle offers a unique overview of Mahler’s symphonic oeuvre: from the world-embracing First to the tragic Sixth and the pensive, introspective Ninth.

6. Symphony Concert(s)

Beethoven Hall (Beethovensaal)

Gustav Mahler's music focused on humanity in all its facets of life and emotion. Whether man longs for deliverance or to simply sit with others in a tavern are, for Mahler, merely different aggregate states of a single, infinitely precious existence. His 9th Symphony is not an optimistic work, but rather one of the assessment of a life. It is ambivalent, doubtful, even fearful.

Mahler

Meistersingerhalle

Esteemed interpreter of Gustav Mahler’s works, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts The Met Orchestra in the composer’s Fourth Symphony. Though it’s the most compact of Mahler’s grand compositions, it contains numerous iconic moments—from its sleigh-bell opening, to a country fiddle solo performed by “Death,” to the fourth movement’s groundbreaking combination of solo voice and orchestra, showcasing mezzo-soprano extraordinaire Joyce DiDonato in this performance. DiDonato is also featured in Mahler’s five-song Rückert-Lieder. A selection by the late Saariaho, one of the great composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, completes the program.

The Met Orchestra 2026 Concert 3

Carnegie Hall

For the first time, the Czech Philharmonic is opening the doors of its own subscription series to the London Symphony Orchestra symbolically on the 50th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Britten. His Sinfonia da Requiem will be heard alongside Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a work that the conductor Antonio Pappano calls a celebration of the beauty of life.

London Symphony Orchestra • Antonio Pappano

Rudolfinum

After opening the season with Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 7, Chief Conductor Marcus Bosch concludes the Philharmonic Concert series with the composer's Symphony No. 9 – and it's time to say goodbye. Composed in Toblach and New York, this large-scale symphony is Mahler's last completed work. The then New York Chief Conductor looks back with nostalgia, bids farewell, and seems to capitulate with his visions. The result was an impressive and bold sonic edifice, with which he builds a world using every means at his disposal – ultimately crossing the threshold to modernity.

10th Philharmonic Concert / Farewell

Volkstheater Rostock - Big House

Mahler Strauss Martinů Borodin

Gasteig HP8

This is a chance to hear her rarely performed Harp Concertino.  This is followed by Mahler’s wonderful Symphony no.4 with part for soprano in the last movement. The conductor is Rebecca Miller, well known for her electrifying and inspired performances.

Spotlight on the Harp

‘The whole thing sounds as though it came to us from some other world. I think there is no one who can resist it. One is battered to the ground and then raised on angel’s wings to the highest heights.’ – Gustav Mahler

Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, ‘Resurrection’

The Bridgewater Hall

Mahler’s Resurrection is a colossal work of drama, beauty, and power. From its gripping opening funeral march to its earth-shaking finale, this is music on the grandest possible scale that demands to be experienced live.

BBC Philharmonic - Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, ‘Resurrection’

Dive into the depths of Mahler’s emotionally charged Symphony No. 6 with Jun Märkl. Known as the “Tragic,” this symphony journeys through moments of hope, despair, and heroism, showcasing Mahler’s powerful orchestration. Experience one of his most intense and introspective works. This work will be performed without intermission.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 6

Hilbert Circle Theatre

Friday Concert No. 7 »The Song of the Earth«

Volkshaus Jena

Mahler’s Seventh Symphony began with a journey on the water: “I got into the boat …. At the first stroke of the oars, the theme (rather, the rhythm and character) of the introduction came into my head.” This journey glides through the nocturnal world of a feverish imagination, with the composer’s genius always lighting the way. We pass through twilight realms of fairytales, of phantoms, of serenading guitar, before emerging to hear Mahler greeting the full light of a sunny day. It remains his most mysterious and rarely heard symphony. Drawn by its emotional complexity, Music Director Xian Zhang wanted her first Mahler symphony in Seattle to be his Seventh — our first performances of it in 20 years.

Xian Conducts Mahler 7

Benaroya Hall

When Beethoven wrote his Fifth and final piano concerto in 1809, Vienna was besieged by Napoleon's troops. The sounds of war and economic uncertainty – his patron Archduke Rudolf had left the city – influenced the creation of the work. Beethoven composed a piano concerto with an exceptionally new form for the time, in which the soloist alternates between heroic and peaceful moments. Despite the difficult circumstances, the work does not reflect fatalism, but rather a solemn struggle for freedom and against oppression. Gustav Mahler's First Symphony also reflects intense personal experiences. His unhappy love for the singer Johanna Richter inspired him to create the "Songs of a Wayfarer," from which he incorporated motifs into the first and third movements of the symphony. In an emotional state of exception, Mahler completed the symphony in just six weeks. The premiere in Budapest in 1889 was met with incomprehension, prompting Mahler to revise the work multiple times. Today, it is among his most frequently performed symphonies.

Sir Donald with Mahler

Palace of Culture

This experiment explores the unique qualities of Mahler’s writing, in which the interplay between voices and sections of the orchestra is conversational, almost dramatic, as if he heard the different instruments as people, living the experience of the symphony.
You will hear Mahler’s masterpiece in changing surround-sound, finding yourself at the very heart of the music as its vast sonic world unfolds. From the hazy glow of the opening to the ferocious outcry of a storm, every moment is both felt and heard with exhilarating immediacy.

The Mahler Experiment

We begin our final concert of the season with one of Mozart’s best-known and most beloved works: Eine kleine Nachtmusik (or A Little Night Music) and like most of Mozart’s works, it sounds so simple and completely belies the composer’s sophistication. We actually don’t know for sure why Mozart composed this piece. He rarely composed without a specific purpose or commission. And there’s no mention of this work in his letters or those of his contemporaries. All we know is that he finished it when he was 31 years old in Vienna—the same year he wrote his opera Don Giovanni. Maybe it was one of several works written for a friend of his, Gottfried von Jacquin, in Vienna. Jacquin’s sister, Franziska, was a pupil of Mozart, and together, they met as a group at Jacquin’s home for what they called “discussions, games, and merrymaking.” Mozart actually wrote several works for the Jacquin household, and A Little Night Music may well have been one of them. And maybe it’s an example of party music—who knows? In any case, it is great music, lots of fun to play and to listen to.

Magnificent Mozart & Mahler

Terrace Theater, Long Beach Performing Arts Center

Spanning themes of death, renewal, and spiritual awakening, the symphony moves from solemn funeral march to a breathtaking cosmic finale. Featuring soprano Leslie Ann Bradley, mezzo-soprano Simona Genga, the Orpheus Choir of Toronto, and RESOUND Choir, this powerful performance brings together expansive orchestral and vocal forces in a work that redefines the symphonic form and affirms music’s ability to confront—and transcend—our deepest existential questions.

Orchestra Toronto presents: Resurrection—Mahler 2

Meridian Arts Centre

Samuel VanLoo, trumpet

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

Prepare to be blown away! Violin virtuoso Charles Yang—of the genre-defying supergroup Time For Three—takes the stage for a mesmerizing concerto by Kris Bowers, the visionary composer behind Bridgerton, The Color Purple, and King Richard. Transformative in both theme and experience, this stunning work sets the stage for Mahler’s monumental Fifth Symphony. Mahler pours everything into this symphony—passion, struggle, love, and triumph—making it an unforgettable experience for all.

Mahler 5 & Charles Yang

Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center

A Song of the Earth is a unique musical and poetic experience which, through irresistible movements, will draw you into a joyful popular dance to make you experience the music and the words, with your whole body and your whole soul.

This show brings together three unique voices: Gustav Mahler, with The Song of the Earth , a great symphonic fresco inhabited by the beauty of the world and the quest for eternity; Marcelle Delpastre, an Occitan peasant poet, who writes of a living, organic, mystical earth; and André Minvielle, a singer, sound poet and improviser whose presence connects orality and improvisation to the sources of writing. These three artists combine the infinitely small – the earth as matter, language, everyday life, terrestrial life – and the infinitely large – the cosmos, memory, eternity, the life of the soul.

On stage, the voices of André Minvielle, Romie Estèves, and Juliette Minvielle—a blend of lyrical singing, scat, poetry, and improvisation—join twelve instrumentalists to create a vibrant fresco, somewhere between symphonic work and popular energy. A sensitive and lively journey, from the most intimate to the most cosmic, where words, sounds, and emotions sweep you away.

Un Chant de la Terre

La Coopérative de Mai

Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann closes the concert season with one of orchestral music's best-loved, most elevating works. Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony probes themes of life and death and the struggle to find meaning – expressed through the composer's unique musical voice. A young man's piece, the Second Symphony packs cataclysmic orchestral shrieks together with folk dances, military bands, and Post-Romantic angels-from-on-high. Get ready for the incredible power of music when Nathalie Stutzmann coaxes the most profound drama out of the world-class Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Chorus, and soloists.

Stutzmann + Mahler's Resurrection Symphony

The Woodruff Arts Center

The season ends with world star Peter Mattei offering interpretations of the pain of love and the search for spiritual perfection. 



Broken hearts have given rise to many musical masterpieces, and in this concert, world singer Peter Mattei interprets with poignant blackness and overwhelming vocal beauty the young Gustav Mahler's bitter love pain in Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. After a disastrous marriage, Pyotr Tchaikovsky seeks peace of mind with his customary abundance of languid, singable melodies in Symphony No. 4 . 

Mattei, Mahler & Brabbins

Malmo Live Concert Hall

His recent misfortunes have placed him face to face with the ruins of his past, but Gustav Mahler soon comes back to life thanks to a small collection of Chinese poetry that a friend gave him. It will be the basis of the Song of the Earth through which he "rediscovers the way to himself." From six refined lieder is born a lyrical symphony, a symphony of intoxication, youth, and beauty where, farewells past and beyond death, nature and the earth bloom eternally, studded, as the last verses whisper to us, "everywhere and always with bluish gleams on the horizon... always... always."

The Song of the Earth

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

The Festival Orchestra leads audiences through Mahler’s “Titan,” a symphony celebrated for its darkly humorous funeral march and triumphant finale. Opening this program is Paul Wiancko’s new violin concerto, co-commissioned by Spoleto and written for renowned violinist Livia Sohn. Inspired by their longtime friendship, the concerto highlights Sohn’s virtuosity and their artistic bond forged at Spoleto.

Mahler Symphony No. 1

Gaillard Center

When the Sønderjylland Symphony Orchestra and the Schleswig-Holstein Symphony Orchestra unite, music truly becomes borderless. Across national borders – but with a shared love of symphonic music – the two orchestras create a magnificent concert experience that is only possible in a region with such strong cultural ties. It is a unique opportunity to experience over 100 musicians together on stage, a luxury that is otherwise only found in the largest European capitals.

Collaboration concert: Wagner, Brantelid & Mahler

Alsion Concert Hall

German House

Once again, Teodor Currentzis and his Utopia Orchestra stop at Santa Cecilia for an unmissable concert. It begins with a masterpiece of heartbreaking beauty, Berg  's Violin Concerto , written for the young Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler, who died at just 18, and therefore dedicated "to the memory of an angel." The second part features Mahler  's Symphony No. 1, "The Titan ," a tale of a hero's coming of age, amidst nature's awakenings, grotesque funeral marches, and a finale that is a cry of triumph.

Utopia Orchestra / Teodor Currentzis

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Alban Berg dedicated his Violin Concerto "to the memory of an angel," namely Alma Mahler's daughter Manon. Together with Teodor Currentzis and the Utopia Orchestra, the exceptional violinist Vilde Frang will bring this angelic song to life. Mahler's Symphony No. 1 is entirely earthly: from natural sounds to parodistic funeral marches to the "titanic" triumph of the nameless hero.

Utopia Orchestra | Currentzis, Frang

Casino Bern

Utopia Orchestra

Victoria Hall in Geneva

Gala concert for Zubin Mehta's 90th birthday

Max-Joseph-Platz

Time For Three: Abrams Conducts Bates

Shermerhorn Symphony Center

Music Director Peter Oundjian, the Colorado Symphony Chorus, a pair of incredible vocal soloists, and your very own Colorado Symphony join forces for an unforgettable sendoff to our concert season with Mahler’s colossal “Resurrection” symphony. This titanic work deals with nothing less than the meaning of life, as Mahler confronts an existential quest for understanding amid the challenges and incomprehensibilities we all experience. A gripping, emotional work of striking brilliance, Mahler’s passionate, stylish, and explosive symphonic journey concludes with an expression of hope and optimism that will leave you awestruck.

Mahler Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" with Peter Oundjian

Denver Performing Arts Complex

Maestro Ankush Kumar Bahl returns to present Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 1, "The Titan," in a celebration of his tenure.

Bahl Conducts Mahler’s “Titan”

Omaha Performing Arts

Gustav Mahler famously told fellow composer Jean Sibelius that “The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” Maestro Tausk brings the VSO’s classical season to an epic close with one of the most ambitious symphonies ever composed, Mahler’s extraordinary Third Symphony. Mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb returns to the VSO in Mahler’s most extroverted and impressive work of genius that culminates in one of the most staggering conclusions of the orchestral canon.

Mahler’s Third Symphony

Orpheum

Conductor laureate Herbert Blomstedt leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 9– the last to be completed by the composer himself – which is considered among the greatest in the symphonic repertoire.

Blomstedt & Mahlers ninth

Berwaldhallen

Alban Berg dedicated his violin concerto to "the memory of an angel", namely Alma Mahler's daughter Manon. Together with Teodor Currentzis and the Utopia Orchestra, the exceptional violinist Vilde Frang will bring this angelic song to life. Mahler's Symphony No. 1 is entirely earthly: from sounds of nature to parodic funeral marches to the "titanic" triumph of the nameless hero.

Teodor Currentzis – of angels and titans

Tonhalle Zürich

Mahler composed his Sixth Symphony during some of the happiest times of his life. His wife, Alma, the subject of the intensely emotive Adagietto of his Fifth Symphony, had just given birth to their second child. It seems an odd juxtaposition, then, that his Sixth Symphony is often subtitled ‘The Tragic’.

Kahchun Wong Conducts Mahler’s Sixth

Humanity’s frailty and fortitude combine in Mahler’s existential Sixth Symphony, as Kahchun Wong conducts. Composed during some of the happiest times of Mahler’s life – his wife, Alma, the subject of the intensely emotive Adagietto of his Fifth Symphony, had just given birth to their second child – it seems an odd juxtaposition, then, that his Sixth Symphony is often subtitled ‘The Tragic’. While certainly filled with brooding, nihilistic undertones, the symphony also possesses moving tributes to the composer’s greatest loves. The soaring melodies of the first movement represent Alma, and the playful, scurrying Scherzo of the third movement represents his two toddler daughters. Kahchun Wong’s affinity with Mahler’s work is world-renowned and this promises to be a very special season finale.

The Hallé’s season finale – Kahchun Wong conducts Mahler’s Sixth

Join us at the Southbank Centre for the launch of our latest Virtual Orchestra experience – an exciting, hands-on journey that invites you to pick up a virtual instrument and play alongside the full symphony orchestra. Designed with families in mind, this immersive experience welcomes curious kids, first-time concertgoers and seasoned music lovers alike.

Play along: Virtual Orchestra

Southbank Centre

Utopia Orchestra: Teodor Currentzis

"The Fifth is a cursed work. Nobody understands it," complained Gustav Mahler. That was in 1905, and the symphony, premiered in 1904, had just met with little enthusiasm in Hamburg. Mahler, in general, was celebrated during his lifetime primarily as a conductor; as a composer, his global musical visions overwhelmed the audiences of his time. Mahler's symphonies have long since been appreciated – especially his magnificent Fifth, which remains his most popular today. The Konzerthausorchester Berlin's program features this masterpiece alongside another visionary work: Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonic Third Piano Concerto. Under the direction of its chief conductor Joana Mallwitz and with Alice Sara Ott on the piano, the orchestra invites you to a summit meeting of visionaries.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin / Alice Sara Ott / Joana Mallwitz

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Experience the emotional depth and grandeur of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 with the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra. This monumental work takes listeners on a powerful journey through moments of intense drama, heartfelt lyricism, and triumphant joy. From the iconic trumpet solo that opens the symphony to its exhilarating finale, Mahler’s Fifth is a masterpiece of passion and complexity that continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

The Mahler Experience

Living Arts Centre

Neil Advant, trombone

For the grand finale to our classical season, Music Director Juraj Valčuha leads Mahler’s final completed work, the extraordinary Symphony No. 9. To hear one of Mahler’s symphonies live is to feel why it’s an experience unlike anything else in music, and the Ninth is one of his most remarkable—a monumental journey of epic proportions, ending with music of rare transportive power and time-altering beauty.

Valčuha Conducts Mahler 9

Jones Hall

Discover Mahler's mighty First Symphony as the Calgary Phil, conducted by Earl Lee, perform this orchestral epic that takes you from the joys of springtime — through rustic dances to an ironic funeral march — and culminates in victory over worldly despair. Before it, relish the rich, nostalgic poetry of Robert Schumann's eloquent Cello Concerto, featuring distinguished cellist Steven Isserlis.

Mahler's First Symphony

Arts Commons

Odense Symphony Orchestrakicks off its complete performance of all of Mahler's symphonies in style, when we are the very first to play the longest of them all, namely the monumental 3rd symphony, which runs for up to 1 hour and 45 minutes and requires an orchestra almost twice the size. But then it is fortunate that we have joined forces with our friends inCopenhagen Phil– on this symphonic journey into Mahler's score of overwhelming dimensions: in addition to an enormous ensemble with, for example, 8 horns, a boys' choir, a women's choir and a mezzo-soprano are also required. Here, Mahler's own words that the symphony IS the world really make sense – the musical expression could not be more all-encompassing; but Mahler also moves down into the smallest chamber musical expression and thus comes all the way around this amazing symphony – a word that actually becomes too poor here to describe what we are about to experience.

Mahlers 3.

Odense Concert Hall

Schoenberg was one of the most revolutionary & challenging composers, but his early works are among the most lyrical & romantic pieces ever written. Mahler’s heart-rending Adagietto needs little introduction and is regularly in the Top 40 of Classic FM’s annual Hall of Fame, while Schoenberg’s impassioned Transfigured Night is a musical realisation of a Richard Dehmel poem, in which a young woman confesses to her betrothed that she bears another man’s child, conceived before they met. His acceptance of her, and resolve to raise the baby as theirs, is one of the most touching moments in classical music.

English Symphony Orchestra Residency: Schoenberg, Mahler, Elgar, Taylor & Copland

Cheltenham Town Hall

At the age of twenty-eight he died in the First World War, and most of his estate was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1945. And so Rudi Stephan's Music for Seven String Instruments is all the more precious: dramatic, tragic, like an expressionist silent film, seeking the grand gesture. Afterwards, we can dream ourselves away from the world – in Mahler's immortal "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" (I am lost to the world) and other Rückert songs, performed by soloists of the SWR Symphonieorchester.

I breathed a gentle fragrance

The Baden-Baden Casino

The Seventh Symphony is Mahler's most enigmatic work, filled with night-dark tones and overwhelming orchestral sounds.

Mahler 7

Aarhus Music Hall

Be blown away by Mahler's mysterious orchestral universe.
The Seventh Symphony is Mahler's most enigmatic work, filled with night-dark tones and overwhelming orchestral sounds.

Richard Strauss’s almost overwhelmingly beautiful Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra were the German composer’s final works. Running through each lavishly scored song is an autumnal warmth and the sense of acceptance in the face of death.

London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle

Barbican Centre

Mahler’s Fourth, written at the turn of the 20th century, is one of his most accessible symphonies. It’s a masterpiece of contrasts – the sweeping opening movement gives way to the sinister dance of the second movement and a hymn-like, contemplative third. Symphony No 4’s heart, however, lies in its finale, a tender setting for soprano and orchestra of a poem painting a child’s glimpse of heaven.

London Symphony Orchestra: Half Six Fix – Mahler

"The Titan"—this wasn't just a nickname for Mahler's First Symphony, which the composer later dropped, but also an unofficial title given by younger generations to their composer idol, Beethoven. The sunny character of his Second Symphony belies the fact that Beethoven was already struggling with hearing loss when he composed it. Mahler's First Symphony broke the established boundaries of the genre in its time. For this, a conductor of superlatives comes to Wiesbaden: Jonathan Nott, at home on the world's great concert stages and a sought-after Mahler interpreter.

7th Symphony Concert: The Titan

Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden

Immense and intense, Mahler’s 6th symphony is full of dramatic peaks and valleys. This, the most personal of Mahler’s grand symphonies, predicts the tragedies to come in the composer’s life, culminating in the earth-shattering hammer-blows of fate that make this masterwork an unmissable experience.

Mahler’s 6th

Merrill Auditorium

Andrew Guo, clarinet

Mahler was unaware that he would not live past the age of 50 when he composed Symphony No. 9. Many have espoused that every bar is filled with a sense of foreboding and despair, but Mahler's dualism is ever-present. When he's happy, he's sad. When he's tragic, he's hopeful. We open the concert with Brinton Smith performing Elgar's Cello Concerto, the visionary work which saw Elgar exploring a more intimate and compact, musical language following the cataclysm of World War I.

Mahler's Ninth

University of Colorado Boulder

The Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra is the oldest continuously operating orchestra in the state of Oregon. From its inception in 1906 as a collegiate orchestra composed of nine members, the symphony has grown into a full symphonic orchestra performing 3 major classical concerts, a holiday concert, and a children’s concert each season. Professional musicians from throughout the Willamette Valley are joined by talented community members, OSU faculty, and OSU students representing a wide span of majors across campus. Repertoire from recent seasons includes Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe,” and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Corvallis-OSU Symphony Spring Concert

Oregon State University

Mahler's Resurrection

Granada Theatre

Get primed for Hammer Time! With over 100 musicians on stage, a chorus, and the infamous “Mahler Hammer” our season finale is a gripping journey through triumph and despair. Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 weaves a tale of a hero facing an inevitable tragic fate with relentless courage. From its soaring melodies to the dramatic Hammer blows, this is Mahler at his most electrifying.

Masterworks Vi

Paramount Theatre Iowa

The University of Iowa School of Music - Voxman Building

Experience an unforgettable evening of music with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra on May 16 & 17, 2026, at Miller Symphony Hall! The program begins with an electrifying overture by Grazyna Bacewicz, the trailblazing Polish composer whose dynamic orchestral works are a feast for the senses. Next, renowned guest soloist Erik Ralske, principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera, will showcase his virtuosity in Strauss’s demanding and Romantic Horn Concerto No. 1. The night culminates in Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, “Titan,” a masterpiece bursting with youthful exuberance, introspection, and soaring melodies. Don’t miss this captivating concert—secure your tickets now!

Mahler’s Titan

Miller Symphony Hall

Transcendence

First Methodist Mansfield

Mesquite Arts Center

Symphony No. 5

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

Titan Unbound

Saugerties High School

The nickname “Symphony of a Thousand” scarcely does justice to Mahler’s epic work — one of the greatest in the concert repertoire. Its immense scope makes performances rare and, therefore, are to be treasured. Part One of Mahler’s mystical work begins with a powerful unleashing of sound that sets the hymn, “Come, Creative Spirit,” a text that also foreshadows the message of Part Two of the Symphony. The expansive second half transports us to the final scene of Goethe’s dramatic poem Faust, the title character who had bargained away his soul to the devil and thus to eternal damnation. But the beatific voices of a “chorus mysticus,” underscored by thunderous timpani rolls, reach into the stratosphere and promise that Faust’s soul — borne higher and ever higher to heaven through the intercession of hosts of penitent women and holy men and ultimately angels, will be redeemed through “the eternally feminine” — the power of love.

Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

At 97, San Francisco Symphony Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt maintains a rigorous concert schedule that belies his age. He conducts Mahler’s massive Ninth Symphony, a 90-minute marathon of emotional catharsis and technical derring-do. It was the last symphony that Mahler completed, and death was on his mind. At its core, and in spite of its tragic touches, the Ninth Symphony offers solace, the salvation of sunshine, a passing cloud, a child’s laughter.

Blomstedt Conducts Mahler 9

Davies Symphony Hall

2026 May Chorus Concert

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is a sonic banquet, five spectacularly different movements that come together in an overwhelmingly brilliant whole. When rehearsing for the premiere, Mahler called the work “primeval, this foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound.” The program opens with a new work by acclaimed Philadelphia-based composer Tyshawn Sorey, written for Aaron Diehl, a pianist of “melodic precision, harmonic erudition and elegant restraint” (The New York Times). 

Composer

Gustav Mahler

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 8, 2026

Tour: Salzburg Festival ·

Aug 16, 2026

Tour: Menuhin Festival Gstaad · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Aug 19, 2026

Tour: La Chaise-Dieu · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Aug 21, 2026

Mahler’s ‘Song of the Earth’ · BBC Philharmonic

Aug 27, 2026

Mahler’s Das klagende Lied · Usher Hall

Past events

Aug 5, 2026

Encountering Nature · National Repertory Orchestra

Jul 10, 2026

Departure · Beethoven Orchester Bonn

About

Gustav Mahler hasn't added a bio

Composer

Gustav Mahler

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 8, 2026

Tour: Salzburg Festival ·

Aug 16, 2026

Tour: Menuhin Festival Gstaad · Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

Aug 19, 2026

Tour: La Chaise-Dieu · Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

Aug 21, 2026

Mahler’s ‘Song of the Earth’ · BBC Philharmonic

Aug 27, 2026

Mahler’s Das klagende Lied · Usher Hall

Past events

Aug 5, 2026

Encountering Nature · National Repertory Orchestra

Jul 10, 2026

Departure · Beethoven Orchester Bonn

About

Gustav Mahler hasn't added a bio

Tour: Menuhin Festival Gstaad · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Tour: La Chaise-Dieu · Budapest Festival Orchestra