The CSO brings the soaring emotional peaks and valleys of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony to Chicago audiences before performing it on Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw stage. The “hammer blows of fate” in the finale seem to foreshadow the tragedies in Mahler’s life, including his own fatal illness. But the symphony brims with life’s pleasures, too, from memories of mountain pastures (listen for the cowbells) to a rapturous portrait of the composer’s wife, Alma.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/mahler-6-with-jaap-van-zweden

CSO Artist-in-Residence Daniil Trifonov, “without question the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times of London), takes on Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, as remarkable for its rich orchestral writing as for its simultaneously glittering and muscular piano part. Dvořák’s turbulent Seventh Symphony is both an expression of the composer’s personal crises and a lyrical tribute to the Czech spirit.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/makela-and-trifonov

Beethoven, Mozart & Tchaikovsky - Broadcast by CSO Association

In his Third Symphony, Mahler portrays the whole of earthly existence. Its six movements — written for a massive orchestra, two choruses and a contralto soloist — explore humanity’s relationship with nature using fanfares, marches, folk dances and bird calls. Children’s voices portray angels while the sixth movement is a pantheistic love song to all of creation.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/makela-conducts-mahler-3

Dancers from Chicago’s world-renowned Joffrey Ballet join the CSO with newly commissioned choreographies. Symphonies by Haydn and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges abound in witty and joyful melodies while two 20th-century works are full of popular influences: Perkinson’s jazz-tinted Sinfonietta No. 1 and Milhaud’s rollicking Brazilian postcard, The Ox on the Roof.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/cso-and-the-joffrey-ballet

Canellakis & Gerstein - Broadcast by CSO Association

Earth, in all its marvelous vitality and fragility, has inspired generations of composers. In The Oceanides, Sibelius conjures the water nymphs of Greek mythology and the broad majesty of the sea. Dvořák’s The Wild Dove is based on a dark folktale about a dove’s prophetic song. Childhood memories shape Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, his sumptuous masterpiece.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/canellakis-and-rachmaninov

Pierre Boulez at 100 - Broadcast by CSO Association

Journey up the Rhine River, as lovingly portrayed in Robert Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony. Listen for the flowing water and contemplate the majesty of the Cologne Cathedral. To begin, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider leads and performs the rich and alluring melodies of Bruch’s First Violin Concerto. Pierre Boulez’s iridescent Livre pour cordes marks the centenary of the composer’s birth.

This program will also be performed at Wheaton College on Friday, March 28.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/bruch-and-schumann-rhenish

Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony unfolds with the immediacy of a newsreel as it depicts the harrowing events of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Brimming with rebellious anthems and prisoners’ songs, the Cold War-era score is widely heard as a veiled critique of the Soviet regime. Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, a farewell to Russia, features the captivating Simon Trpčeski.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/hrusa-trpceski-and-rachmaninov