Spokane Symphony opens 80th season with work to ‘embrace the world’ in ‘Masterworks 1: The Mahlers’

The Spokane Symphony will open their new season celebrating 80 years by giving the audience a window into a classical love triangle for the ages, as well as the music of a composer that was silenced.

During this weekend’s Masterworks performances, the symphony will explore the music of iconic composer Gustav Mahler alongside that of his all-too-forgotten wife, Alma Mahler. But first comes Alexander Zemlinsky’s Intermezzo from Act I of “Es war einmal … (Once upon a time…),” a piece from his renowned fairy-tale opera.

The buoyant, light opening piece from Zemlinsky also gives the audience an initial look into the history of Alma and her own compositions. Before marrying Gustav, she studied composition with Zemlinsky, which resulted in a romantic relationship between the two.

While remaining in such a relationship with Zemlinsky, Alma began an affair with Gustav and the two were even engaged before Alma and Zemlinsky had separated.

After marrying Gustav, Alma was forbidden from composing by her new husband, even though she was a lifelong musician and already an incredibly talented composer by this time.

“Famously, Gustav Mahler said to her, ‘Well there’s only room for one composer in this marriage and it’s going to be me,’ ” said the Spokane Symphony’s Music Director James Lowe. “So, she basically gave up composing by the age of 25.”

Over the course of the season, the symphony will very intentionally be exploring the “silent voices” of female composers from the 19th and early 20th century who, despite their talents, had their composing careers cut short.

“Their composing periods didn’t really go past the age of the mid-20s because for one reason or another they had to give up composing,” Lowe said. “We don’t really have their mature works past the age of 25 because they didn’t write anything.”

Alma is a textbook example of such incidents. Although her works were highly progressive, perhaps even more so than Gustav in some areas, only a few of her delicate, poetic compositions would go on to be published.

Of those publications, Colin and David Matthews collected and orchestrated seven of them to create “Sieben Lieder,” offering a glimpse into the composer that unfortunately never was.

The symphony will conclude by performing Gustav’s landmark Symphony No. 1 in D Major, also known as “Titan,” and for good reason. From its epic, diverse sound exploring folk music, attributes of nature, and a massive finale culminating in a battle between fate and death, the piece remains an intense sonic journey to this day.

With 90 people found in the orchestra on stage, this piece is most likely the most grandiose the Spokane Symphony will perform this season.

“It is an epic, epic work,” Lowe said. “Mahler said famously that, ‘A symphony should embrace the world,’ and it does.”

The Spokane Symphony will perform at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox on Saturday evening as well as Sunday afternoon. Tickets for the Saturday performance start at $24 while the Sunday matinee starts at $39.

Tickets can be purchased through the Fox Theater website.