Marin Alsop, conductor.

“A symphony must be like the world,” Mahler said. “It must contain everything.” Marshaling the profound energy of the CSO for Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, Marin Alsop leads a riveting search for meaning in a complex, rapidly changing world. Moving through moments of idyllic nostalgia to devastating fanaticism and fateful blows, this monumental work perfectly anticipates the challenges and longing of the 21st century.

Writing for NPR, Alsop elaborates: “I'm not sure there has ever been a more fitting symphony for our time than Mahler's Symphony No. 6,” adding “Today, as we have become immune to shock, where nothing seems too extreme and where hyperbole rules, Mahler and his Sixth Symphony seem to fit right in.” More than a century after its premiere, the Sixth still confronts audiences with its prophetic intensity and unflinching emotional truth.

For all its thunder and tragedy, the Sixth is also a refuge: a vast emotional landscape where beauty and brutality coexist, and where life’s biggest questions are asked with fearless honesty. Leonard Bernstein, Alsop’s mentor and one of Mahler’s most passionate champions, called him “the prophet of the 20th century.” In this searing performance, Alsop and the CSO reveal why Mahler’s voice speaks just as urgently to our own time.

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