Gustav Mahler:
Origins and Legacy

Part 1: Origins (National premiere June 23, 2011 at 9pm)
(check your local listings)

From the sounds outside his bedroom window—a kind of sonic goulash of military marches, ethnic dance bands, church bells, ritual prayer, and nature itself—Gustav Mahler fashioned symphonies of cosmic scale, great beauty, and jarring emotional twists and turns. And he did it all in the brief moments he could spare from his day job as one of Europe’s preeminent conductors. Join Michael Tilson Thomas as he returns to the provincial Austro-Hungarian city of Mahler’s childhood, traces his musical roots, his rise as a young conductor, and, with the help of the San Francisco Symphony, escorts us through the stunning creation and shocking premiere of Mahler’s First Symphony.

Production Credits

Symphony No. 1 in Concert (National premiere June 23, 2011 at 10pm)
(check your local listings)

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, “Titan” to give viewers the full experience however our audiences having watched the documentary will be far better prepared than the Budapest audience of 1888. The “live on tape” performance was part of the SFS’s Mahler09 Festival which took place in Davies Symphony Hall in September and October of 2009.

Production Credits

Part 2: Legacy (National premiere June 30, 2011 at 9pm)
(check your local listings)

In an astonishingly productive twenty-five years, Gustav Mahler created an entire universe of emotion in music. In his 45 songs and ten symphonies, he looks into the depths of the human soul, explores the fragile nature of beauty, and tells us to hold on to wonder in spite of life’s sorrow. In this episode of Keeping Score, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony bear witness to Mahler’s grand achievements and great sorrows—his career-crowning appointments in Vienna and New York, and the sudden, tragic death of his daughter—and show how his stormy inner life inspired new heights of creativity.

Production Credits

 A Mahler Journey (National premiere June 30, 2011 at 10pm)
(check your local listings)

This concert includes the pivotal repertoire explored in Part 2: Mahler: Legacy. Featuring world renowned Baritone Thomas Hampson, a noted interpreter of Mahler’s songs, performing Songs of a Wayfarer, the program also includes his famous and poignant love song, Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, the Scherzo from Mahler's Seventh Symphony and the Rondo Burleske from the Ninth. These highlights of San Francisco Symphony’s 2009 Mahler Festival: Origins and Legacies featured some of Mahler’s most accessible music. Taped over four consecutive nights in September 2009, Michael Tilson Thomas offers insight into the man and the inspiration for his compositions.

Production Credits