Bolzano Festival Bozen 2026 - Gustav Mahler Academy Ensembles

Students of the Gustav Mahler Academy present at Palazzo Mercantile, as part of the Bolzano Festival Bozen, a stylistic exploration of Brahms's chamber music as a path toward Gustav Mahler — performed on gut strings, alongside an ensemble of experienced chamber musicians and scholars.

The two String Quartets op. 51 by Johannes Brahms rank among the supreme achievements of the genre. They also offer a unique historical window: the musicians who knew Brahms and played with him were in many cases the same individuals who later championed Mahler's music. Few works could be better suited to investigating style and understanding how musicians played in late nineteenth-century Vienna.

Joining the students are quartet players Volker Jacobsen (Artemis Quartett) and Stefan Arzberger (Leipziger Streichquartett), cellist-conductors Bruno Weinmeister and Philipp von Steinaecker, and musicologist Clive Brown, the leading authority on Brahms performance practice.

The programme is completed by Alexander von Zemlinsky's Humoresque for wind quintet. Zemlinsky was Alma Mahler's composition teacher and was held in high esteem by Gustav Mahler. Although written in 1939 during American exile, the work is deeply rooted in the spirit of turn-of-the-century Vienna — and is accordingly performed on Mahler's original Viennese instruments of that era.

Programme:

Johannes Brahms – String Quartet in C minor, op. 51 No. 1

Johannes Brahms – String Quartet in A minor, op. 51 No. 2

Alexander von Zemlinsky – Humoresque for wind quintet