Tempe Center for the Arts

The Shifting Sky by Asuka Kakitani (b. 1985)
Mahler: Symphony no. 1, original 1889 version
Avril Coleridge-Taylor,  Sussex Landscape
Gustav Mahler just wanted to be loved, and he knew his first big work in 1889 was going to bring adoration. It didn’t. Critics called it so much noise. Audiences shunned him. So the neurotic Mahler revised it and renamed it his Symphony no. 1, Titan. If audiences were cold to the transparency of the music, he would pile on more instruments, more bombast. If they didn’t like the sublime Blumbine movement, he’d cut it and make the symphony bigger and louder. And still, there was no love for what Mahler came to call his “symphony of sorrows.” Acclaim wouldn’t come until he was long dead. When you hear the original Symphonic Poem, only recently recreated, it will sound familiar and new all at the same time. And hearing this gorgeous, transparent music, you’ll wonder why Mahler couldn’t leave well enough alone. 

This project is partially funded by the City of Tempe – Community Arts Grant