STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Alasdair Neale will provide a “User’s Manual” for Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 during an Upbeat with Alasdair talk Tuesday, Jan. 8.
The talk will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Ketchum’s Community Library. While free, seating is limited. Reservations can be made at info@svsummersymphony.org or 208-622-5607.
Details of the 2019 summer season will be announced this in January. But you can rest assured one of those evenings will feature Symphony No. 2. In fact, it will be the summer season's finale
Neale says he first heard this particular symphony at age 13.
“It rocked my world—I had never imagined music could have that level of visceral, emotional impact,” he said.
Symphony No. 2 is known as the “Resurrection Symphony.” Written between 1888 and 1894, it was first performed in 1895 and became one of the Austro-Bohemian composer’s most popular and successful works.
The 90-minute symphony is designed to express Mahler’s view of the beauty of resurrection and the afterlife as it takes listeners through love, hope, nostalgia, humor, despair, a “face-melting shriek of death” and, finally, a glorious resurrection.
It was voted the fifth-greatest symphony of all time in a survey of conductors by BBC Music Magazine.
Neale's talk can be viewed via video livestream on the symphony's website at www.svsummersymphony.org.