DuPage Symphony Orchestra "German Titans" - CANCELLED

The dazzling young pianist Yi-Nuo Wang, First Place Winner in the 2018 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, “embodies the rare combination of humble devotion to the score, great individual artistry and a special electrifying quality in her playing, all coexisting in perfect harmony.” She joins the DSO for the second contribution to its Beethoven 250th Celebration, with the “Piano Concerto No. 3 in c minor,” a mid-period work that both pays tribute to and transcends its Mozartian model. Gustav Mahler’s monumental “Symphony No. 1 in D Major,” the first of his four symphonies based on melodic material from his own “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” songs, caps the DSO’s final concert of the 2019-2020 season. A massive creation that the composer revised several times over a ten-year period, the so-called “Titan Symphony” exhibits the salient features of Mahler’s developing orchestral style: the union of song and symphony; references to the sounds of nature; a complex representation of life’s struggles; and sensitive harmonies and imaginative orchestration throughout. Mahler later expressed the belief that “The symphony must be like the world: it must embrace everything.” His initial contribution to the genre, in his “D Major Symphony,” already demonstrates that premise.