Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor
Karen Cargill Mezzo-soprano
Alma Mahler Select Songs
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 7
Program Notes
In a Young People’s Concert explaining his own lifelong fascination with composer Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein said Mahler “is like a child; his feelings are extreme, exaggerated, like young people’s feelings. Once you understand that secret … you can really love his music.” Mahler himself wrote that his music was “about life,” and in it you hear all that the heart can feel, in all its perplexity and contradiction: sorrow amid joy, triumph in tragedy, irony, wit, love, despair. Mahler’s Seventh Symphony stands out in its audacious orchestral effects, from the opening tenor horn solo to the inclusion of such instruments as guitar, mandolin, cowbell, and tam-tam (gong); and he pushed the conventional limits of the sound of more standard orchestral instruments, with violins and solo trumpet at the height of their upper register, and instructions to the cellos and double basses to “pluck the strings so hard that it hits the wood.” The result is a dramatic soundscape capable of conveying the raw emotion Mahler clearly felt when writing the work.
A beauty, muse and intellect, Alma Schindler was just 22 and a composer of growing reputation when she met Gustav Mahler. Upon their marriage, he insisted that she give up composing to concentrate on being “a loving companion and understanding partner.” She struggled with her decision to follow his wishes, writing “I sit down at the piano, dying to play, but musical notation no longer means anything to me. My eyes have forgotten how to read it. I have been firmly taken by the arm and led away from myself. And I long to return to where I was.” Her domineering husband eventually capitulated, not only “allowing” her to return to composing but arranging to publish her works. Of the more than 50 songs Alma Mahler created, few survive; they offer a tantalizing glimpse at a unique talent, painting with words and music the intricacies of life and love. Performing some of them here is acclaimed mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, who sang in the Orchestra’s performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis in 2022—a voice the Times (London) calls “luxuriant, spellbinding … a real jewel.”