Circle City Clarinerd

If two years ago anyone had told me that the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra concert for which I would be most excited this season would be Mahler's First Symphony, I would have called them crazy. 

For most of my life as a classical musician, I could never bring myself to like or even understand Mahler's compositions.  Beethoven symphonies, Brahms sonatas, and even Strauss tone poems made sense to me, but these long, loud, and laborious Mahler works that call for an army of brass players and sometimes even multiple choruses and soloists simply intimidated me.  A year and a half ago, I was terrified when I learned that my college orchestra would be performing Mahler's Second Symphony.  I, a timid freshman at the time, feared that I would never be able to make sense of the strikingly different movements and dense orchestral writing and that my ears would explode when the brass chords blasted behind me on stage.  Yet, our conductor led us through rehearsals slowly and carefully, helping us make sense of this incredibly dense orchestral work.  In our last dress rehearsal right before the concert, our conductor pulled out a teacup filled with grass, which he told us he pulled from Mahler's gravesite on his last trip to Vienna.  Although I could only scratch the surface of the meaning of the symphony, my conductor's reverence for Mahler - as exemplified by the way he cherished the grass from Mahler's grave - did give me a sense of what a profound experience engaging with a Mahler symphony could be.

Although I was inspired by my conductor's story and relished playing Mahler 2 with my college orchestra, my true love of Mahler's music blossomed just a few months ago. This past spring, I had the immense privilege to study music abroad for a term in Vienna, Austria with 12 other Dartmouth music majors.   In early April, we attended a performance of Mahler’s First Symphony by the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. A few days earlier, we heard a lecture about Mahler's First Symphony by a Vienna-based Mahler scholar.  We learned that Mahler derived much of the material First Symphony derives from his vocal compositions “Songs of a Wayfarer” and that the Funeral March in the third movement is the tune of “Frère Jacques” in a minor mode, presented in a canon between instruments. We learned how this minor theme in the third movement later transforms into a celebratory dance tune. During the concert, I was completely captivated.  As I stood in the Stehplatz (standing room) section of the beautiful Musikverein concert hall in Vienna, I listened for the "Frere Jacques" tune and the song-like tunes in the first and second movements. I was haunted by the third movement and uplifted by the ending of the piece.  The First Symphony contains so many diverse parts, but I could not help but notice how they all fit  together to create a unified musical work. When I heard the grandiose ending of the fourth movement echo throughout the hall, I could feel excitement and inspiration swell up inside me. I am a bit embarrassed to say I even became a bit teary in the final moments of the piece. That evening, as I applauded for the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, I mused that I have almost never been more moved by a piece of music.

Throughout my 10 weeks in Vienna, I could not get my mind off of Mahler. I attended two performances of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, as well as concerts featuring his Second and Sixth Symphonies and his "Kindertotenlieder" song cycle. On our last weekend in Vienna, I , along with my friends Amy, Elizabeth, and Matt, who are also in the orchestra at Dartmouth, decided to follow in the footsteps of our conductor and make a pilgrimage to Mahler's grave.  We took a bus to Grinzing, just outside of Vienna, and climbed the hill to the cemetery in which Mahler is buried.  We settled in front of the grave for over two hours, playing Mahler symphonies on a laptop.  At one point, a blind woman walked by and, recognizing Mahler's music coming through our laptop speaker, exclaimed "Oh, Mahler!"  It was during this visit to the Grinzing cemetery that I got even more in touch with the immense power of Mahler's music.  As we packed up the laptop and meandered away from the grave - after plucking some grass for ourselves, I should add - I resolved to attend as many Mahler concerts as I could back in the States.

Elizabeth, Amy, Matt, and me by Mahler's grave - Vienna, Austria


Our Mahler grass

This weekend's concert with the ISO will therefore be an incredibly meaningful one for me. Even now as I sit at my desk writing this blog post, listening to the fourth movement of Mahler 1, I am eagerly anticipating the program this Friday and Saturday.  I cannot wait to hear the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, one of the most renowned orchestras in America, play the symphony that so inspired me. I hope that others in the audience will be similarly empowered and exhilarated as the echoes of Mahler's music emanate throughout the Hilbert Circle Theatre. And if during this weekend's performance, you see a brunette girl perched on the edge of one of those pink velvet seats, tearing up during the last movement, it's just me, once again being moved by Mahler.