April 2025 – Gathering Note

Mahler’s symphonies are always events. Whether performed in clusters, as they are this year, or—more typically—once or less per season, their size, length, and narrative sweep tend to position them at the beginning or end of something significant. Jaap van Zweden, who is leading the CSO in two Mahler symphonies this season—the Sixth and Seventh—ended his time with both the Dallas Symphony and the New York Philharmonic with the Second. Just last summer, Carlos Kalmar closed his tenure as Director of the Grant Park Music Festival with the Eighth. You get the idea.

This week, Klaus Mäkelä joined the CSO for two weeks of concerts, beginning with a single-work program: Mahler’s mammoth Third Symphony. And they have the feeling of “occasions”: Friday’s performance was nearly sold out, with only a few seats remaining on the main floor.

I keep finding my way back to performances of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. It started in 2018, with a thrilling rendition by Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony. That performance roared. No, the Oregon Symphony isn’t a world-class orchestra, and subtlety wasn’t its strength. But they more than made up for it with heart and visible joy, especially as Kalmar and his players surged into the final bars of the fifth movement.

Last night, Jaap van Zweden was in town to open a mini-Mahler festival in Chicago. Over the next month, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will perform three Mahler symphonies—the Seventh, Third, and Sixth—in a series of concerts. Van Zweden is leading the Seventh and Sixth, while Klaus Mäkelä, the CSO’s music director designate, will take the podium for the Third. Afterward, the orchestra heads out on a spring European tour featuring the Sixth and Seventh, including a stop at the third Mahler Festival in Amsterdam.

Month: April 2025

Mahler’s Third Symphony, Mäkelä’s emerging voice, and a thrilled Chicago audience

CSO’s Mahler survey begins with a thrilling Seventh Symphony