Into the Music (Inn i musikken) with Timothy Miller begins at 18:30.

Mahler’s all-encompassing third symphony was written in 1893-1896, and is the most joyful of his work. The symphony can be described as a tribute to spring and nature springs into life. Originally, Mahler’s program had a second movement entitled “What the Wild Flowers Tell Me”. The piece embodies typical Mahler-esque movements, characterized by folk song melody, and is engaging, charming, and expressive. Benjamin Britten, a lifelong admirer of Mahler, reoriented the work in 1950. Britten did not intend to enhance Mahler’s orchestration, but, on the contrary, make the work more accessible by simplifying the orchestration.

We will hear Mahler’s version in full on the 24th of January.

Friedrich Rückert wrote the collection of poems entitled Songs on the Death of Children in 1833-34. These gripping and personal poems were based on his own sorrow from losing two children to scarlet fever. The texts are very pain-stricken, but also have aspects of reconciliation and hope. Mahler premiered five of these poems from 1901 to 1904.

Every poem he chose tells about light and dark, and symbolizes eternal life and hope, more than despair and death. The songs are written in Mahler’s late-romantic style, with a greater emphasis on the sound of the single instrument, rather than the orchestra’s full sound.

Franz Schubert wrote his symphony No. 4 in 1816, when he was only 19 years old. As with his first three symphonies, the piece is reminiscent of Haydn and Mozart, but now with more daring harmonics. Schubert himself called the piece the “tragic” symphony. This was his first symphony in a minor key, but the mood may have more of a sense of longing and hope than tragedy. A melancholic introduction paves the way for a stormy and dramatic first movement. The second movement is a beautiful poem entirely in Schubert’s style – prolonged, melodic, full of tenderness and hope. The third movement has the title Menuetto, and is more like Hayden’s country dances, than Mozart’s elegant ball dances. The inescapable final movement gives us a reminder of the symphony’s self-imposed nickname: the tragic symphony.