Strauss & Schubert
Saturday, May 18, 2024 | 7:30 PM | $5-$75
Nick Pfefferkorn will give a pre-concert discussion at 6:30 PM
Macky Auditorium, 1595 Pleasant Street, Boulder

This is a rare opportunity to hear Strauss’ exhilarating work with a massive orchestra. We will have 103 musicians performing, including 54 strings, nine French horns, four Wagner tubas, two alphorns, and offstage brass.

• SCHUBERT arr. MAHLER | String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”
• STRAUSS | An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64

Kenneth Woods, conductor
MahlerFest Orchestra

Mahler and Strauss were were a bit like Abbott and Castello, Mozart and Haydn, or Ali and Foreman. They were mirrors which reflected each other and rivals who encouraged one another. Their greatness and their achievement is, in part, measured against the other. They both went out of their way to champion each other’s works. Strauss helped facilitate the first performance of Mahler’s second symphony. This was the most difficult project of Mahler’s life to get off the ground and it would not have happened without Strauss’s help. Mahler conducted the premieres of Strauss operas and tone poems, exporting that repertoire throughout the world.

When Mahler died in 1911, Strauss began working in earnest on An Alpine Symphony. This work became his memorial to Mahler. The simple story of the climber who ascends and descends is much more than simply a pictorial description of a day’s hike. It is a metaphor about life and death. It is a wonderful evocation of a friend, of the struggle we all face in life, of that feeling of what it takes to get to a summative life, and that terrible feeling of knowing once you’re there that you can’t stay. Eventually, we all have to descend back into the darkness.

What to Expect

Macky Auditorium is a very cool building. Its history begins with Andrew J. Macky, a Boulder pioneer, gold rush settler, carpenter, and founding director of the First National Bank of Boulder. A primary figure in Boulder’s history until his death in 1907, Macky bequeathed $300,000 to the University for an auditorium. It took 13 years to build, delayed due to legal issues, and was completed in 1922. Since then, it has been home to everything from commencement ceremonies to the Conference on World Affairs and music from the Boulder Philharmonic and Yo-Yo Ma to Chick Corea and Trey Anastasio.

Parking can be difficult so we’ll let the Unviversity tell you about it here: https://www.colorado.edu/macky/your-visit/parking.

Unless you approach it from the quad, you will most likely walk up the hill from the back side. You will need to walk around the front to the rather grand entrance. There is a small outer lobby where you can purchase tickets if you still need them. The inner lobby is warm and spacious and opens into the main hall which is large and beautiful. It’s truly a magnificent place to see and hear a concert.

Photo by Glenn Ross

For this performance there will be no seating in the balcony. There are three seating areas – Gold Circle, Orchestra 1, and Orchestra 2 – but within each section, seating is general admission. We’ll open the doors at about 6 pm for the pre-concert discussion. Come early to get the best seats, though there aren’t any bad ones. This is Boulder so feel free to dress up or attend in casual attire.

Return to the MahlerFest 37 homepage.