San Francisco Symphony Podcasts

Gustav Mahler revived one of his earliest compositions to use in his first symphony; he ultimately cut it, and it was forgotten for almost sixty years. Now, one hundred years after it was written, this musical orphan finally has a chance to bloom on its own.

Late in his career, Gustav Mahler told his critics, "My time will come," but his unique vision and unmistakable sound were evident in his very first composition: the epic cantata "Das klagende Lied."

However you like your Messiah - big or intimate, modern or period, authentic or interpreted—when you listen you become part of an almost 300-year tradition of what may be classical music's most beloved masterpiece.

An often criticized social misfit during his time in Vienna, Bruckner's success with his Symphony No. 7 came as a happy and restorative surprise to the composer, described by his friend Gustav Mahler as "half simpleton, half God." Speaking to today's audiences with sin­gular directness, Bruckner 7 remains the most loved of his nine symphonies.

Brahms's Symphony No.2 is generally thought of as his most lighthearted, but it's actually built on the contrasts between light and dark, between sunshine and clouds. Kind of like life.

Claude Debussy's ballet Jeux was almost completely ignored after its premiere in 1913, but it's now considered one of the fundamental works of 20th-century music.

Considered at first to be a composer of popular music and not a great symphonist, it was Brahms who believed in Dvořák enough to set him up with an important publisher. Written for the London Symphony, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 is a personal catharsis and a masterpiece in tragedy.

Even Mozart realized that his 29th Symphony was something special. In many ways, it's the work in which Mozart became "Mozart."

Debussy's Images is music that "never looks back," and it still sounds new, more than a century later.

Serge Diaghilev was turned down by four composers before turning to Igor Stravinsky to write the music for a new production by the Ballet Russe. Luckily, Stravinsky, eager to try his hand at a ballet, had already been working on the music for a month, and their artistic relationship went on to produce Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.

After Shostakovich's first opera landed him in hot water with the Soviet authorities, the success of his first Piano Concerto gave him the confidence to keep composing, and put him back in the government's good graces—at least, temporarily.

It's the most famous four-note pattern in all of music. But it's also the key to Beethoven's 5th Symphony—and maybe to Beethoven himself.

Sibelius' Symphony No. 3 is deliberately anti-Romantic. There is no story, no imagery and no drama except the drama of the music itself.

American Maverick Steve Reich celebrates his 80th birthday in 2016. There's always a pulse at the heart of his music, and his "Three Movements" lets the full orchestra feel the beat.

Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, by Gustav Mahler opens with a first movement originally composed as a stand-alone work entitled Todtenfeier (Funeral Rites). Five years later, following his appointment as principal conductor in Hamburg, Mahler realized that this was, in fact, the first movement of his second symphony.  Following Symphony No. 1, which tells the story of a Hero’s life, the second symphony opens with the funeral rites of the Hero. The second and third movements are retrospective intermezzos, and the fourth and fifth movements depict the Last Judgment and Resurrection.

Upon visiting Stravinsky in late 1910, expecting to find him immersed in composing the Rite of Spring, Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballet Russe, was quite surprised to find him instead composing the ballet of an anthropomorphized puppet.  The story recounts the rise and fall of mischievous Petrushka, a puppet brought to life by a magician as he courts the Ballerina and fights the Charlatan.  The work was premiered one hundred years ago, with Nijinsky dancing the title role. Former SFS Music Director Pierre Monteux conducted the work’s world premiere.

Leonard Bernstein's On the Town has been a hit since it opened in 1944—a funny, lyrical, exuberant affirmation of life in the midst of wartime.

Schumann's reputation as a composer of symphonies has suffered over the years, and the failure of his Symphony No. 4 at its first performances didn't help. Even his revisions have been criticized. But he may simply have been ahead of his time.

The plot of Prokofiev's opera The Love for Three Oranges may be almost incomprehensible, but the symphonic suite is anything but: whimsical and dramatic, with one of the most famous marches ever written.

As World War II was winding down, the Soviet Union was waiting for Shostakovich's 9th Symphony, and they expected a great victory symphony, like Beethoven's 9th. What they got was something very different.