Mahler’s Third

The World in Symphony

📍 This event takes place at Powell Hall

🕒 1 hour, 50 minutes (including intermission)

Friday, May 7, 2027, 7:30pm View Subscriptions Sunday, May 9, 2027, 3:00pm View Subscriptions

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Program

Stéphane Denève, conductor
Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano
Treble voices of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus | Erin Freeman, director
St. Louis Children’s Choirs | Dr. Alyson Moore, artistic director

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 3

About this Concert

“The symphony must be like the world,” said Gustav Mahler. “It must embrace everything!” The SLSO concludes a tremendous classical concert season with the most extraordinary symphony of them all, Mahler’s Third. Over the course of six movements, Mahler leads us on a transformational, complex, emotional journey. Through the trials and triumphs of life, the mysticism and terrors of natural forces, and the intimacy of conversations between God and man, Mahler’s Third Symphony is earth-shattering and deeply heart-stirring. It is, indeed, everything.

- In one of Mahler’s most hauntingly beautiful moments of Symphony No. 3, a solo voice sings: “Man, take heed. Deep is the world’s pain, but deeper still is joy.”
- During his work on the Third Symphony, Mahler told a close friend that this particular piece “almost ceased to be music; it is hardly anything but sounds of nature.”
- This symphony is one of the largest in orchestral repertoire, both in length and in scope of required personnel, calling for many extra musicians across the orchestra, as well as a full women’s choir and a children’s choir.