CANCELLED due to Coronavirus - The new colors of Mahler and Larcher

Like Gustav Mahler, his compatriot Thomas Larcher manages to elicit unheard-of sounds from the orchestra. The songs of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn provide a beautiful foundation for Larcher's Third Symphony a commissioned composition.

Soulmates: Larcher and Mahler
On the face of it, they seem soulmates: Thomas Larcher and Gustav Mahler. Larcher, born in Innsbruck and raised in the Tyrolean Alps, Mahler who spent his summers in a composer's hut high in the mountains. Larcher who wrote vocal cycle after vocal cycle. Mahler who used his Wunderhorn songs as a gold mine for his symphonic work.
There are differences, too. Larcher is now fifty-five and can look ahead to his next symphony. Mahler died at fifty-one and left nine symphonies and stacks of songs otherwise virtually nothing. Larcher wrote an extensive body of work in all possible settings, even an opera, a genre Mahler conducted but did not compose.

How can an orchestra sound too?
The main similarity between the two is the curiosity about sound. Mahler radically changed the orchestral face of the symphony, but after half a century was assured of the admiration of his audience. In the two symphonies that sounded earlier at the Saturday Matinee, Larcher follows him closely. Soulmates.