Bolzano Festival Bozen 2026 - Mahler Academy Orchestra

The Gustav Mahler Academy continues its internationally acclaimed originalklang project: the Mahler Academy Orchestra will perform Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony under the direction of Philipp von Steinaecker, on original Viennese instruments dating from around 1900 and in accordance with the performance conventions of the time. The concert takes place on 4 September in Bolzano and on 5 September in Dobbiaco, followed by a recording for the Alpha Classics label and a tour with stops in Milan, London, Cologne, Amsterdam, Linz, Vienna and Hamburg.

The Mahler Academy Orchestra brings together 50 academy students alongside 50 professionals from Europe's leading ensembles, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Dresden, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris.

Mahler's Fourth Symphony presents a humorous vision of humanity suspended between earthly life, death and the afterlife. With the naïve yet infinitely precise gaze of a child, Mahler redraws the philosophical world picture he had outlined in epic proportions in his Third Symphony. Inspired by the poet Jean Paul, whom Mahler revered, humour arises from the contrast between the sublime and the everyday. From this detached vantage point, the symphony traces a path toward overcoming the suffering rooted in Schopenhauer's concept of the will — philosophical treatise, guide to happiness, subtle humour, Austrian classicism, orchestral masterstroke and formal revolution all in one.

The concert opens with Janáček's wind sextet Mládí, written for the same Viennese wind instruments as Mahler's Fourth. Mahler and Janáček were contemporaries and never truly came to know each other — one of the great missed encounters in musical history. Mládí carries Mahler's sound world into the next generation.

Programme:

Leoš Janáček – Mládí, wind sextet

Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 4 in G major

Soprano: Johanna Wallroth
Conductor: Philipp von Steinaecker