The symphony contains a soaring theme dedicated to Alma Mahler in the first movement and ends with tragic hammer blows.

This week, we hear Jakub Hrůša’s CSO debut concert program, Smetana’s Má vlast. Opening the broadcast is Pierre Boulez conducting Mahler’s Totenfeier from a 1996 Deutsche Grammophon recording.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is the violin soloist.

Season Premiere: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the SF Symphony in Gustav Mahler’s glorious Symphony No. 2 with vocalists Golda Schultz and Michelle DeYoung and the world premiere of Push by Trevor Weston.

CSO music director-designate Klaus Mäkelä returns to the Symphony Center podium.

The new music director designate is just 28 years old. He’ll be the youngest in orchestra history when he takes the baton.

The CSO celebrates Easter Sunday in music by Schumann, Goldmark, and Mahler.

Alan Gilbert conducts Mahler’s Third Symphony on our next New York Philharmonic broadcast. Mezzo-soprano Petra Lang joins the orchestra, along with the Women of the Westminster Symphonic Choir and the American Boychoir.

Plus chamber music and ensemble appearances from renowned Chicago artists.

This valedictory score contains the many hallmarks of Mahler’s symphonies — their grand scale, profound emotions, and folk dance themes — capped by an ethereal finale that achieves a sense of transcendent rapture.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association has announced its 2024-2025 season, a full year of concerts in its mainstage subscription series, as well as chamber, solo, family, and other programming.

Performed by the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus directed by Leonard Bernstein.

Pierre Boulez conducts two historic performances taken from the orchestra’s archives, with one featuring the great Jessye Norman.

Violinist Ning Feng performs Zhao Jiping’s beautiful violin concerto with the National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra in a performance led by Lü Jia.

Michael Tilson Thomas leads the CSO in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with soloist Jeremy Denk.

The broadcast features works by Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Berg, Debussy and Carter plus some of Mr. Boulez’s own music.

Another packed summer of live music awaits.

We conclude the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra broadcast season in triumphant fashion, with an excerpt from Britten’s Peter Grimes and Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.

This broadcast celebrates the CSO’s sixth music director, Fritz Reiner!

Pianist Inna Faliks plays music by Fazıl Say and a broadcast premiere by Richard Danielpour. Plus a virtuosic piano four hands arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6.

Part three of an exploration of German conductor Klaus Tennstedt’s performances of Gustav Mahler.

Part two of an exploration of German conductor Klaus Tennstedt’s performances of Gustav Mahler.

Part one of an exploration of German conductor Klaus Tennstedt’s performances of Gustav Mahler.

Wanderers, farewells, and sightseeing; people are always on the go. This week, Bill calls up, “A Little Traveling Music, Please” from the pens of Handel, Smetana, Duke Ellington, and more. Reflections from such travels infuse themselves into their works, as we will discover throughout the week. We will hear selections from Beethoven’s Les Adieux, Schubert’s Die Schöne Mullerin, and Haydn’s …

“Throughout the work you can feel the desperate search for relief and happiness … but, for me, there’s always the sense that it is on the verge of collapse.”