MAHLER

G. MAHLER, Symphony No. 9 in D major

Performed on original instruments

The closing concert of the Festival, held for the occasion at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, features the young instrumentalists of the Mahler Academy Orchestra, conducted by Philipp von Steinaecker. The orchestra, largely composed of young musicians aged between 18 and 27, is formed each year as a complement to the training program of the Gustav Mahler Academy; the latter was founded in 1999 in Bolzano by Claudio Abbado to create a place where exceptionally talented young musicians could receive decisive impulses for their musical careers. In recent years, the Mahler Academy Orchestra has been conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniel Harding, Pablo Heras-Casado, Lahav Shani, and Mark Minkowski.

The performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 is part of the originalklang project, which sheds entirely new light on the performance practices of Mahler’s time. The idea is to bring together in Dobbiaco—where Mahler composed his final works—the young students of the Mahler Academy with 55 musicians from some of Europe’s finest ensembles, reviving late-century music on historical instruments.

To make this project possible, the Euregio Cultural Center Foundation of Dobbiaco has created a collection of instruments that meticulously reconstruct those used by the Vienna Opera Orchestra around 1900.