Runnicles dives into Mahler’s 7th – JH News&Guide

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) left behind only a couple dozen complete works, but what he lacked in prolificacy he more than made up for with ambition that traced a definite arc. That arc went from mostly programmatic, folk-inspired romanticism to a quest for an “absolute” music that hinted at abstraction, and then on to thorny and sublime explorations and expressions of the mysteries of existence itself that presaged modernism.

Sir Donald Runnicles, music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, is well known for his penetrating interpretations of the work of the Austro-Bohemian conductor-composer, in particular his symphonies. And yet, over his decades guiding orchestras and audiences through his musical treks, he has never conducted Mahler’s Symphony No. 7.

Until this weekend, when he will lead the Festival Orchestra in two performances of the 80-minute journey through a progression of keys and a range of emotions representing the complex realities of the human experience.

read the full story