For this season finale, the Cal Poly Symphony will perform Mahler’s first work in the genre that would define him: the symphony.
Gustav Mahler famously said “my time will come.” His idiosyncratic, groundbreaking symphonies were not universally understood in his own lifetime but have become some of the most celebrated works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In this work, Mahler draws heavily on music he wrote for the autobiographical song cycle “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” (Songs of a Wayfarer). This first symphony embraces the full range of images and emotions, from nature awakening and birds singing about spring to a funeral march, from a village band to a “heart wounded to the quick.”
