PROGRAM NOTES

• Mahler’s Jewish family heritage is also in play here. We hear many references to Jewish musical traditions. Even though Mahler converted to Christianity (probably to further his career), those welcome and interesting Jewish influences remain.

• In much of Mahler’s music there’s a sense of irony. As listeners we’re asked to believe in something, only to find that it is quickly transformed into something else with an entirely different emotional profile, and then into something else again. It’s a kind of musical kaleidoscope that keeps turning and changing the view.

• Mahler’s knowledge of the orchestra, and his willingness to pull out all the stops (and add some new ones) are characteristic strains. Like Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss, the orchestra was for him a manageable instrument, and one that could always be advanced and used in new ways.

• And then there’s a certain straightforward and genuine religiosity that sometimes comes into play, a kind of optimistic and comforting redemption.

The fifth symphony is in five separate movements:

I Trauermarsch (funeral march) In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt. (In a measured pace. Strict. Like a cortege.)

Grief in many of its manifestations. Death was a constant reality in his life – 8 of his siblings died in childhood. There’s solemn ceremony (the opening trumpet call), there’s anger, there’s denial and memory and regret and sorrow and love and longing. It’s all there for us to feel. The recent movie Tár (2022) used this movement both at the beginning of the film and near the end of the film. At the conclusion of the movie the violence of the music’s grief led to actual violence on stage, an understandable Hollywood representation of the power of Mahler’s music. Very interesting that this movement has had such staying power.

II. Stürmisch bewegt. Mit grösster Vehemenz. (moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence)

The fantasy in music is usually understood to be a free-form piece often improvised by a keyboard player. The music moves dramatically between contrasting ideas and shows the players’ ability to portray different moods and styles, but somehow link them together into a coherent whole.

This movement is an orchestral fantasy, which one would think is impossible. With a symphony orchestra every detail must be carefully notated and rehearsed. But Mahler manages to make this movement sound like an improvised fantasy. It moves among many moods, textures, dynamic levels, instrumentation combinations, and tempi quite freely. In places it takes up pieces of the opening movement’s funeral march (Mahler tells us that the first two movements are connected, and should be played with only a brief pause); in another place there’s a triumphant brass chorale. There are also tender and heartfelt passages as well. Just about anything you can think of is in there. Don’t listen so much for coherence. Just be astonished and enjoy the ride.

III. Scherzo, Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (Scherzo, vigorously, not too fast)

A scherzo, yes, but not a joke. Instead it’s a good natured invitation to the dance, as the composer moves into a happier realm. At times it’s a Viennese waltz, at other times a more country-like, leisurely, tender, and elegant Austrian ländler. Things sometimes get worked up into complicated emotional confusion, but ultimately, we return to good nature. The orchestration is sublime (including some wonderful passages for solo French horn) and difficult to execute, and some harmonies are exquisitely modern. Accounts tell us that the first rehearsal didn’t go well, and Mahler said something like:

“The Scherzo is an accursed movement! It will have a long history of suffering! For fifty years conductors will take it too fast and make nonsense of it. The public – oh, heavens –how should it react to this chaos that is eternally giving birth to a world that then perishes in the next moment, to these primordial sounds, to this blustering, bellowing, roaring ocean, to these dancing stars, to these shimmering flashing breathing waves?” Just one of the many challenges this symphony has to offer.

IV. Adagietto, Sehr langsam (very slow)

The adagietto is one of the most beloved movements in the entire symphonic repertoire, a love song to his beloved Alma. The orchestration is astounding, using just the string section (including harp), and Mahler’s portrayal of peace and beauty on the one hand, and pain and heartache on the other is very striking. It’s no wonder that Visconti chose to use it in his film “Death in Venice” (1971).

V. Rondo-Finale

Finally, the sky has cleared, and we have a lighthearted and playful finale. Lots of cheerful interchange between various instruments, as well as plenty of fugue-like polyphony (probably a consequence of Mahler’s recent serious study of Bach’s music). There are some dark moments, but the movement returns to its cheerful colors and ends in a rousing virtuosic joyous conclusion that’s very far from the opening movement’s emphasis on grief and mourning.

People have debated the issue of coherence in the symphony as a whole. It’s a long and complex work, so how exactly does it hold together (if it does)? Most agree that while the music can sprawl a bit here and there and go off in many different directions, it’s really a depiction of a very personal story, a journey through a complex and varied musical, cultural, and emotional landscape.

MUSIC DIRECTOR & CONDUCTOR

Mitchell Sardou Klein Music Director & Conductor

Music Director and Conductor Mitchell Sardou Klein brings extensive conducting experience in the US, Europe, Australia and Japan to his leadership of the Peninsula Symphony. During his 36 years on the Symphony’s podium, he has guest conducted the Seattle Symphony, New Polish Philharmonic, Suddetic Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Eastern Philharmonic and many other orchestras in the US and Europe. In California he has led Symphony San Jose (formerly Symphony Silicon Valley), the San Jose Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Inland Empire/Riverside Philharmonic, Ballet San Jose, the California Riverside Ballet and the Livermore-Amador Philharmonic and others. He co-founded and is Music Director of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, which he has taken on concert tours of England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Belgium, Holland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Latvia, and Estonia.

Maestro Klein directed over a hundred concerts as Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic (where he was also Principal Pops Conductor and Principal Conductor of Starlight Theater, the Philharmonic’s summer home), and also served as Music Director of the Santa Cruz Symphony. He also has extensive experience in conducting ballet orchestras, including the Kansas City, Lone Star, Oakland, and Westport Ballets, as well as the Theater Ballet of San Francisco and les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Before turning to the podium, he performed as a cellist for many years. Known to most everyone as Mitch, he enjoys travel, photography, jazz and visual arts in his spare time.

Since 1984, he has been Director of the Irving M. Klein International String Competition. Held in San Francisco each June, the Competition has become one of the most prominent in the world, featuring prizes totaling over $35,000, attracting applicants from more than twenty nations annually, and launching numerous major international concert careers.

Critics have consistently praised his work. The San José Mercury described his performance with Symphony Silicon Valley in 2012 as a “gorgeous performance; big, enveloping and wonderfully luxuriant.” The San Mateo County Times described him in 2007 as “Super Conductor: Mitchell Sardou Klein, music director of the Peninsula Symphony, led his musicians through another triumphant concert. The Peninsula Symphony just keeps getting better and better. Great works and great performances by all.” The Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza proclaimed, “The American conductor quickly established a fine rapport with his orchestra. Klein is a musician who has the musical score in his head, rather than his

MUSIC DIRECTOR & CONDUCTOR

head in the score, which he demonstrated ably. The creative conception and artistic shape which he brings to his work comes from deep inside him.”

Maestro Klein is a winner of many prestigious awards, including the 2008 Diamond Award for Best Individual Artist, the Silver Lei Award from the 2009 Honolulu Film Festival (for the World Premiere of Giancarlo Aquilanti’s La Poverta), the 2000 ASCAP Award for Programming of American Music on Foreign Tour, the 2001 Jullie Billiart Award from the College of Notre Dame for Outstanding Community Service, a 1996 award for the year’s best television performance program in the Western States (for the one-hour PBS program about him and the Peninsula Symphony) as well as the 1993 Bravo Award for his contribution to the Bay Area’s cultural life.

Mr. Klein was born in New York City, into a musical family that included members of the Claremont and Budapest String Quartets. He began cello studies at age four with his father, Irving Klein, founder of the Claremont Quartet. His mother, Elaine Hartong Klein, danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

Cited for his “keen judgment, tight orchestral discipline, feeling for tempo, and unerring control,” Maestro Klein has conducted many significant world, American, and West Coast premieres, including works by Bohuslav Martinu, Meyer Kupferman, Joan Tower, Hans Kox, George Barati, Benjamin Lees, Giancarlo Aquilanti, Melissa Hui, Rodion Shchedrin, Brian Holmes, Ron Miller, Lee Actor, Michael Thurber, Jonathan Russell, Alvin Brehm, and Margaret Garwood. He has appeared frequently on national and international broadcasts, including National Public Radio, the Voice of America, the WFMT Fine Arts Network, PBS Television, and KQED television. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife, violist Patricia Whaley. Their daughter, Elizabeth, lives and works in Washington D.C.