“For such as this, the man deserves a few years in prison,” the indignant critic of a later performance in Vienna expressed his outrage. Good that Mahler’s colossal Third was not first performed in 1902 in the capital city of classical music, but rather in rather remote – at least when seen from Vienna – Krefeld. By the way: it was a triumphant success. Mahler himself wielded the baton, and the Gürzenich Orchestra played. The composer explained the unprecedented dimensions of the symphonic “friendly giant”: his aim was to build a world with musical means. The world of Mahler’s Third begins with a dramatic march: are the arrival of spring and the reawakening of nature actually supposed to sound like this? The first movement alone lasts more than half an hour. The tales of the flowers in the meadow and the animals in the forest turn out to be more concise. An alto solo directly addresses man in Nietzsche’s words, before angels burst out in heavenly hullaballoo. But the final say of this world panorama needs no words: love itself sings, “reposeful”, endlessly luminous: is this an extension of the 19th century or a portal to the modern era? From this point forward, music history could only proceed differently. How – that constitutes the main focus of this concert season.
