Join us as Dr. Thomas Kovach examines what many regard as Mahler’s most beautiful and moving composition from several different perspectives: the tumultuous political and social climate in turn-of-the-century Vienna, the interweaving of Chinese and European cultural elements (the texts are German adaptions of Chinese poems), and the crises in Mahler’s own life in the year preceding the composition of this work — the death of his daughter Maria due to illness, his resignation from his post as Director of the Vienna Court Opera, which was due in large part to the rampant antisemitism in Vienna, and his own diagnosis of a fatal heart condition. His preoccupation with his own mortality is reflected in his decision not to call the work a symphony, since it was his first orchestral composition since his eighth symphony, and Beethoven, Schubert, and Dvorak had all died following the composition of their ninth symphonies. Mahler’s settings of the poems all struggle with the shadow of mortality and seek to find some positive affirmation of life in spite of its brevity.​

This event is co-presented by the UA College of Humanities and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Seats are limited. RSVP to Celena Robles by email, or call (520) 620-9162.

About Dr. Kovach

Thomas Kovach received his B. A. in German from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University in 1978.  From 1978 to 1990 he was Assistant and then Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Utah, from 1990 to 1994 he chaired the German and Russian Department at the University of Alabama, and in 1994 he came to The University of Arizona to head the Department of German Studies, a position he held for ten years, until July 2004.  He was promoted to full professor in 2003.