“Authors and Editors – The MahlerFest XXXVI Symposium”
Saturday May 20, 2023 | 9 AM to 4:30 PM | FREE
Mountain View United Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place
Tickets not required. You are welcome to attend any sessions and to come and go as needed.
Lunch information is below.
Hot of the press – Thomas Hampson will be “zooming” in to the first two of the talks!
The symposium will be live-streamed on our YouTube Channel.
- Dr. Renate Stark-Voit – Editor of the critical edition of Mahler’s Second Symphony,
International Gustav Mahler Society (Board Member) - Joseph Horowitz – Author of The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York
- Kenneth Woods – Colorado MahlerFest Artistic Director
- April Fredrick – Soprano; opera, concert and recording artist
- Peter Davison – Former Artistic Consultant to The Bridgewater Hall, author of Wrestling with Angels
Dr. Renate Stark-Voit
9:00 AM | The Pleasure and Challenges of Editing Mahler’s Works | Renate Stark-Voit feels privileged for having had the opportunity to work with original sources in Mahler’s hand for nearly 40 years. She will offer insights into the many challenges of scholarly editing, show source material, and demonstrate that the works Mahler composed before 1900 (especially the 2nd and 4th Symphonies) pose a wealth of questions and problems for editors. Indeed, Mahler revised these works unceasingly from the first drafts until just before the end of his life, and ultimately even signed a contract with his publisher, Universal Edition, that stipulated that only scores and parts containing his final revisions were to be published.
Joseph Horowitz
10:15 AM | Re-Imagining Mahler – and Why his Brief New York Philharmonic Tenure was Truly a ‘Failure’ | Using excerpts of his recent book, The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York, along with music examples and recorded testimony of musicians who knew Mahler in New York, Joseph Horowitz will discuss why the New York period of Mahler’s career was (truly) a failure. He will also address creative fiction as a vital tool for the cultural historian.
Peter Davison
1:00 PM | Midnight Songs and Forest Murmurs | Mahler was fascinated by the tensions of the opposites such as the contrast between darkness and light, the eternal and the temporal. Drawing on symbols from the fairy-tale world of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the mystical writings of Angelus Silesius and German romantic poets, Mahler’s music (including the Second Symphony) grants nocturnal insights, evoking twilight to mark the transition from night to daytime, sleep to consciousness, even from death to rebirth. Musicologist, Peter Davison, explores how Mahler recreates intense experiences of the natural world to convey ecstatic moments of transcendence and renewal.
2:15 PM | What’s in a Song: from Magic Folk Horns to Resurrection | April Fredrick traces Mahler’s journey from his youthful absorption of folksong and Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with its purity, simplicity, and disarming honesty, to his use of those songs and his own words in the tapestry of Symphony no. 2, plumbing the heights and depths of human experience. When words fail—write your own—and add a choir and soloists!
What to Expect
Mountain View United Methodist is a beautiful building located in the Frasier Meadows neighborhood. There is plenty of free parking in the lot on the west side of the building and the surrounding surface streets. The main doors are on the west side of the building just south of the sanctuary (and north of the school wing). You’ll enter there and make your way through a spacious lobby to the sanctuary. The church holds about 250 people with chairs on the main floor and pews in the balcony.
The symposium is a casual affair. There will be a short break between each talk. Lunch will be available for a small fee providing you the opportunity to mingle with other Mahlerites and a chance to chat with the symposium speakers.