New NZSO Music Director opens season with mighty Mahler 3

Gustav Mahler Symphony No 3
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in association with Crowne Plaza Auckland
Edo De Waart, conductor
Charlotte Hellekant, mezzo soprano
Auckland Choral
Auckland Boys Choir
NZSO Chorale
Wellington Young Voices 
Auckland, Town Hall April 1, Wellington, Michael Fowler Centre  April 2

Conductor Edo de Waart begins his tenure as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s music director with one of the symphonic repertoire’s greatest works – Mahler’s colossal Symphony No. 3 in B minor.

This is the first of a series of masterworks the NZSO will perform under the esteemed Dutch conductor’s baton this year. Mr De Waart says: “I’d like to begin our journey together by presenting the masterpieces I revisit time and again for the good of the soul. That is the music of Mahler, Beethoven and Brahms. These symphonies and concerti are core repertoire for a reason: they flawlessly distil in music how it feels to be alive.”

Grand in scale and the longest of all the Mahler symphonies, his impressive Symphony No. 3 comprises 104 orchestral musicians, an adult female choir, a children’s choir and Swedish mezzo soprano Charlotte Hallekant who is known for her strong stage presence and vocal expressiveness. In Auckland, members of the Auckland Choral and Auckland Boys Choir join forces for the performance, with the Wellington concert featuring the NZSO Chorale and Wellington Young Voices.

Once described by Mahler as a “gigantic musical poem,” Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 offers one of the most complete musical statements of the Austrian composer’s world view. Each movement represents an element in the universe – plants, animals, people, angels – culminating in a “tranquil, deeply felt” finale, the celebration of divine love and culmination of the entire work’s giant structure. Mahler once said: “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.”

Mr de Waart says  a Mahler symphony is  “like a book you read repeatedly or a painting you return to at a gallery. There is something about experiencing a symphony which refreshes your soul. It recalibrates you. A masterwork never loses its colour; each time you hear it, you hear it anew.”

A specialist in Mahler’s works, Mr de Waart has an international reputation for evoking the spirit of Mahler in some of the most authentic and satisfying performances of his works.

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