
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
On this day in 1904, in Cologne, Germany, Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 5. It was not a success. Applause was light, with loud hissing from some in the audience. Even Mahler’s wife, Alma, complained so much about the orchestration that Mahler kept tinkering with the score until the last year of his life.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 has become a popular showpiece for virtuoso orchestras and its slow movement, marked Adagietto — supposedly Mahler’s musical love to Alma — has become one of Mahler’s best-loved pieces.
The American composer Jerome Moross also had a symphony premiered on today’s date. The year was 1943, Moross was 30, and Thomas Beecham conducted its premiere performance with the Seattle Symphony. Unlike Mahler, Moross wrote only one symphony, and the American hobo tune inspired the slow movement of his The Midnight Special.
Jerome Moross is best known his work in Hollywood. His 1958 score for The Big Country was nominated for an Academy Award. Moross also wrote the music for Wagon Train, a popular TV Western. As Moross once said, “a composer must reflect his landscape and mine is the landscape of America. I don't do it consciously, it is simply the only way I can write.”
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 5; Chicago Symphony; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 427 254
Jerome Moross (1913-1983): Symphony No. 1; London Symphony; JoAnn Falletta, conductor; Koch 7188
4.7
173173 ratings
On this day in 1904, in Cologne, Germany, Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 5. It was not a success. Applause was light, with loud hissing from some in the audience. Even Mahler’s wife, Alma, complained so much about the orchestration that Mahler kept tinkering with the score until the last year of his life.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 has become a popular showpiece for virtuoso orchestras and its slow movement, marked Adagietto — supposedly Mahler’s musical love to Alma — has become one of Mahler’s best-loved pieces.
The American composer Jerome Moross also had a symphony premiered on today’s date. The year was 1943, Moross was 30, and Thomas Beecham conducted its premiere performance with the Seattle Symphony. Unlike Mahler, Moross wrote only one symphony, and the American hobo tune inspired the slow movement of his The Midnight Special.
Jerome Moross is best known his work in Hollywood. His 1958 score for The Big Country was nominated for an Academy Award. Moross also wrote the music for Wagon Train, a popular TV Western. As Moross once said, “a composer must reflect his landscape and mine is the landscape of America. I don't do it consciously, it is simply the only way I can write.”
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 5; Chicago Symphony; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 427 254
Jerome Moross (1913-1983): Symphony No. 1; London Symphony; JoAnn Falletta, conductor; Koch 7188
44,014 Listeners
38,741 Listeners
8,715 Listeners
3,881 Listeners
925 Listeners
1,380 Listeners
360 Listeners
529 Listeners
179 Listeners
1,226 Listeners
13,521 Listeners
3,061 Listeners
248 Listeners
6,338 Listeners
2,619 Listeners
27,809 Listeners
13,274 Listeners
3,999 Listeners
5,487 Listeners
2,145 Listeners
13,892 Listeners
6,191 Listeners
224 Listeners
6,332 Listeners
638 Listeners