Overture Magazine 2013-2014 March-April 2014 | Page 43

Program Notes }

Instrumentation: Four flutes, two piccolos,
four oboes, English horn, four clarinets, piccolo clarinet, bass clarinet, three bassoons,
contrabassoon, seven horns, four trumpets,
four trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion,
harp and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2014

Jo s e ph Meye rho ff Sym pho ny Hall

B a l t i mo r e S y m p h o n y O r c h e s t r a
Marin Alsop
Music Director • Harvey M. And Lyn P. Meyerhoff Chair

Off the Cuff:
Mahler’s Titan

Saturday, April 26, 2014 — 7 p.m.
Presenting Sponsor:
Marin Alsop, Conductor

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D Major, "Titan"
Langsam. Schleppend
Kräftig bewegt
Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen

Stürmisch bewegt

The concert will end at approximately 8:25 p.m.

Marin Alsop

Mahler

For Marin Alsop’s bio., please see pg. 12.

About the concert:
For notes on the program, see pg. 39.

The Off the Cuff series is an opportunity for Maestra Alsop to explore
the back story of some of the most
celebrated works in classical music.
The programs, which usually last about
90 minutes, begin with Maestra Alsop
describing the chosen piece, its history,
and its position within the broader
world of classical music. She then
breaks down passages, showing how
themes and motifs carry through the
work, often calling upon the orchestra
to illustrate her points. Finally, the
audience is treated to a performance
of the piece in its entirety.

M o r itz Näh r

striking the strings with the wooden part
of their bows. The trio section is very sentimental, even a little boozy, with lurching
glissandos for the strings and some tipsy
dissonant harmonies for the woodwinds.
The funeral-march third movement in
D minor is what really outraged Mahler’s
first audiences, for it mixes tragedy and
levity, “vulgar” music with “serious” symphonic themes in a schizophrenic manner
unique to this composer. The stifled
sound of a muted solo bass lugubriously
introduces the German children’s song
“Brüder Martin” (better known as “Frère
Jacques”) as a funeral dirge, which spreads
solemnly in canon through the orchestra. Then Mahler abruptly launches an
incongruous episode of up-tempo popular
music c. 1880, mingling traces of klezmer
with the schmaltz of a Hungarian gypsy
cafe. And then amid all this craziness,
he offers up a lyrical section in G major
of great peace and loveliness, using the
melody of the last of the Wayfarer songs,
in which the unhappy lover finds