Gathering Note

Month: April 2025

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

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

    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…

  • CSO’s Mahler survey begins with a thrilling Seventh Symphony

    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…