The CSO prepares to take its place on world’s stage at Mahler Festival 2025

Orchestras around the world regularly present tributes and showcases devoted to Gustav Mahler, but few if any of these events compare in scope or scale to the Mahler Festival 2025, presented by the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

The May 8-18 event will feature five of the world’s top orchestras performing all nine of Mahler’s symphonies in chronological order. Also included will be his unfinished 10th Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde, a hybrid six-movement work that’s a combination song cycle and symphony.

“To my knowledge, it is the only festival in the world to do that and to do that at this level with these kinds of orchestras,” said Concertgebouw spokesman Jacob van der Vlugt.

Representing North America at the event will be the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Dutch-born guest conductor Jaap van Zweden, a former concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, who knows the hall and city well. Together, they will present Mahler’s Symphony Nos. 6 and No. 7.

“It’s one of the best orchestras in the world, of course, and I think there is a strong connection with Dutch conductors,” said van der Vlugt, referring in part to Bernard Haitink, who served as the CSO’s principal conductor in 2006-10 and had a long history with the ensemble.

“I think the combination of Chicago and Jaap van Zweden, who himself was playing his last concerts as a concertmaster with the Concertgebouw [for the last Mahler Festival] in 1995 is perfect for the festival.”

As an essay by Phillip Huscher, the CSO’s program-book annotator  notes, the CSO established itself as a top Mahler orchestra in the 1960s and ’70s under the leadership of Fritz Reiner and Georg Solti. Frederick Stock led the orchestra’s first Mahler program in 1907, a performance of the Fifth Symphony, a little more than three years after the work’s world premiere.

The other orchestras taking part in the festival’s symphonic cycle are the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Symphony Nos. 1 and 8), Budapest Festival Orchestra (Symphony Nos. 2 and 5), Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra (Symphony Nos. 3 and 4) and Berlin Philharmonic (Symphony Nos. 9 and 10 and Das Lied von der Erde).

But the orchestral concerts in Concertgebouw’s Main Hall the are not the only attraction. Also in the line-up are performances of all Mahler’s art songs (in the Recital Hall), as well supporting events such as talks and discussions and an introductory concert May 8 with the Netherlands Philharmonic.

“This is huge — the biggest event for the Concertgebouw in 30 years,” said van der Vlugt. “It creates a lot of excitement in all kinds of ways. We’re putting a festival stage outside so people can watch the concerts for free, because everything has been sold out for a year.”

This year’s event is the third edition of the Mahler Festival, which first took place in Amsterdam in 1920, under the leadership of Willem Mengelberg. He was the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s chief conductor from 1895 through 1945 and was key to its emergence as one of one the world’s top orchestras.

To mark his 25th anniversary in the post, Mengelberg, a longtime Mahler champion, chose to pay tribute to the composer, who had died nine years earlier. Major composers and musicians from all over the world, like Arnold Schoenberg, attended the event, as well as Mahler’s wife, Alma, who presented the orchestra with the manuscript to his Seventh Symphony.

Stock, the CSO’s music director in 1905-1942, traveled to the festival and heard the Seventh Symphony. He arranged for the CSO to present the American premiere of the work on April 15, 1921 — the only Mahler symphony that the CSO introduced to this country.

In the late 1980s, then managing director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Martijn Sanders, read about the Mahler Festival in the 1920 and conceived the idea of re-creating it in 1995, on its 75th anniversary. Like this year, several important orchestras were invited to perform, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic.

“It seemed natural that we would give it another try in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the first one, but for obvious reasons, that was canceled,” said van der Vlugt, referring to the COVID-19 shutdown that year.

It took five years for the third edition to be rescheduled because of the challenges getting the schedules of the participating orchestras to align. “We have even extended the reach of the festival by inviting orchestras from Japan and the United States to show the reach of Mahler’s music and his cultural impact,” he said.

At first, the Netherlands might seem an odd location for a major Mahler festival, considering that the German-speaking composer was born in Bohemia, then part of the Austrian empire, and spent much of his life in cities such as Hamburg, Leipzig, Prague and Vienna, where he ultimately died.

But Mahler, who was also a major conductor, led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra several times at the beginning of the 20th century, at the invitation of Mengelberg. “Mahler was very happy when he discovered the quality of the orchestra and how well it was prepared,” van der Vlugt said. “What Mengelberg did is prepare the orchestra super well so Mahler could really work on the details.”

Mengelberg hosted Mahler at his home just a few streets away from the Concertgebouw. “At first, Mahler was reluctant, but then he appreciated the hospitality,” van der Vlugt said, with the composer even describing Amsterdam as his second musical home.

To coincide with the Mahler Festival, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is presenting through June 2 an exhibit titled  “Gustav Mahler in the Netherlands,” which includes the Seventh Symphony manuscript, as well as photographs from Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock (1862–1921), a friend of Mahler. Mahler visited the Rijksmuseum on Oct. 23, 1903, and related Rembrandt’s famous painting, “The Night Watch,” with the two Nachtmusik (Night Music) sections in his Seventh Symphony.

“Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw is a natural location for a Mahler festival, because the Mahler tradition continues to exist here, with all the conductors championing his music here,” van der Vlugt said.

The CSO’s May 14-15 performances at the Mahler Festival are part of a five-city, eight-concert European tour that will include stops in Dresden and Hamburg, and the ensemble’s debut appearances in Prague and Wrocław, Poland.

Before the tour, van Zweden is leading two sets of concerts at Symphony Center, which will feature the Mahler works that the CSO will perform on the tour, including the Symphony No. 6 in A Minor (May 8-9).

In all, van Zweden, who has guest-conducted the CSO regularly since his 2008 debut, is spending about 3½ weeks with the orchestra in April and May, both in its home hall and on the road in Holland, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.

The CSO’s Mahler Festival 2025 programs are scheduled for future broadcast locally on WFMT-FM (98.7) and on the orchestra’s nationally syndicated radio broadcast series, with details to be announced.