NOSPR / Alsop / Inauguration of the season 2025/2026 - NOSPR

Parody, pathos, and exaggeration; subtlety and lyricism; poetic expression and epic breadth combined; elegy and satire; the literal and the metaphorical. Fanfares that summon the living alongside a funeral march for the dead, an infernal dance and one of the most exquisite declarations of love in the entire musical canon. References to realms beyond music and inspirations drawn from numerous poetic sources beside music that is entirely devoid of any programmatic intent. How, then, to characterise Mahler’s Symphony No 5 in C-sharp minor? As a musical journey from darkness into light, echoing Beethoven’s topos per aspera ad astra? Or, following Constantin Floros’s suggestion, as a sound depiction of the incipit from the antiphon Media vita in morte sumus? Either way, certainly Mahler’s Fifth lives up to the composer’s own claim that a ‘symphony’ means ‘building a world with all the resources of the available techniques’*.

Two other works offer a contextual frame for Mahler’s masterpiece in this programme. The first one, namely The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, was written during the period in which Mahler himself was living in the United States. Like Mahler, Ives poses the metaphysical question: ‘What is the meaning of human existence?’ Yet his response is radically different – silence, accompanied only by the music of the spheres. The second piece, The Rock You Stand On by John Adams, was composed to mark the upcoming 250th anniversary of signing the Declaration of Independence. The eponymous ‘rock’ serves as a metaphor for the Declaration itself as it codifies the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice that lay – at least in theory – at the foundation of American statehood. How has this American post-minimalist, namesake of the nation’s second president, conveyed those ideals through the non-verbal language of music? We shall be the first on the Old Continent to find out.

Piotr Matwiejczuk

*The quotation from the original text in English is cited here after John Mangum ‘Symphony No. 3’, LaPhil.com (accessed on 10th June 2025): https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/3958/symphony-no-3