Copland / Mahler

In 1949 Aaron Copland wrote the hymn for the United Nations, entitled Preamble for a Solemn Occasion, which will open this concert on occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The texts accompanying the work will be recited in Basque. Next, Juraj Valcuha, Music Director of the Houston Symphony, will delve into Mahler's first great symphony creation, nicknamed “Titan” for its heroic shift from darkness to light and which Bruno Walter described as “a symbolic romance whose real hero is the music”. If Mahler believed that “a symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything”, this idea is already latent in the opening bars of his Symphony No. 1, which starts with an ethereal note spread across the orchestra's entire range, like a vast blank canvas on which the dazzling soundscapes that will follow will take shape.