The Cape Symphony Orchestra presents Voices of Spring: Mahler 5 at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center on May 30, 2026 at 4:00 PM and May 31, 2026 at 3:00 PM.
Ticketholders are invited to a discussion of the concert program led by Assistant Conductor Joseph Marchio one hour before each performance.

Download a printable version of these Program Notes.

THE CAPE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Alyssa Wang, Conductor

This roster lists the musicians performing today’s concert, and is subject to change. Cape Symphony’s official roster, including recognition of our musician chair supporters, is here.

CONCERT PROGRAM

LILI BOULANGER (1893–1918)
D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning)

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun)

Intermission (20 minutes)

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860–1911)
Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor

PART I
Trauermarsch
Stürmisch bewegt

PART II
Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell

PART III
Adagietto
Rondo-Finale

ABOUT "VOICES OF SPRING: MAHLER 5"

In the years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, Europe stood at a crossroads between tradition and modernity. Scientific discovery, industrial growth, political unrest, and rapid cultural change reshaped daily life and artistic expression alike. In Paris, the 1900 world’s fair exhibited astounding innovations to more than fifty million people. The world felt itself on the brink of major change on every front. Composers began searching for new musical languages to capture a world that felt increasingly unstable and complex.

Today’s program traces that transformation across just a few remarkable decades, through Lili Boulanger’s youthful brilliance and bittersweet vitality, Claude Debussy’s poetic imagination, and Gustav Mahler’s vast emotional universe. Each, in their distinct voice, expanded what orchestral music could express.

Lili Boulanger composed D’un matin de printemps (“Of a Spring Morning”) in 1917–18, in her early twenties and already one of the most extraordinary composers in France. She had made history as the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, proving herself a major artistic voice at a time when women composers were rarely taken seriously.

The years surrounding this piece were marked by the devastation of World War I. Parisians lived in the shadow of conflict and uncertainty. Boulanger’s own health had drastically deteriorated (this was one of her last completed works). Rather than sounding somber or tragic, though, D’un matin de printemps fairly sparkles with movement and color. Its constantly shifting textures evoke flickering sunlight, birdsong, and fresh spring air, with a sense of playful spontaneity and brightness. It is pure loveliness.

Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), premiered in 1894, was inspired by the symbolist poem of the same title by his friend Stéphane Mallarmé. Paris was then a center of artistic experimentation. Painters, poets, and composers were rejecting rigid academic traditions in favor of suggestion, ambiguity, and mood.

Rather than tell a literal story, this music creates a sensual, dreamlike atmosphere, as if suspended between reality and fantasy. A mythical woodland creature, half-human, half-goat, experiences an afternoon of languor and reverie. The opening flute solo drifts freely and the music unfolds with harmonies that blur traditional expectations. Foregoing the heroic climaxes that audiences were accustomed to, Debussy allowed sounds to shimmer, dissolve, and reappear like fleeting thoughts or half-remembered dreams. He transformed the orchestra into something atmospheric and painterly.

Though today’s audiences often hear this work as lush and peaceful, it was so unconventional as to shock 1894’s listeners.

Intermission

Your Cape Symphony Orchestra will now perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. “The idea of a fifth symphony has been cemented in composers’ psyches as a significant endeavor ever since Beethoven’s Fifth, and a long line of composers like Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and indeed Mahler, have all felt that weight when writing their own,” says Music Director Alyssa Wang. “Mahler’s is a complex, fulfilling masterpiece that is technically rigorous for all performers involved, and deeply exciting for audiences.”

Mahler began composing it in 1901, after a near-fatal hemorrhage forced him to confront his own mortality. Soon afterward, his life changed in another profound way: he met and fell in love with Alma Schindler, and they married in 1902. The symphony reflects both darkness and renewal, moving from funeral march to exuberant affirmation.

At the time, Mahler was one of the most famous conductors in Europe. As a composer, he was controversial. His symphonies were vast, emotionally intense, and structurally unconventional, stretching the orchestra’s limits and embracing extremes of tenderness, grief, triumph, and even grotesque humor. Today, Mahler’s Fifth is recognized as one of the great symphonic achievements of the twentieth century: monumental, and deeply human.

The symphony opens with a stark trumpet fanfare leading into a funeral march of immense gravity. The second movement erupts with turbulence and anguish, while the central Scherzo shifts into something earthier, full of swirling dance rhythms and mood swings. Mahler makes extraordinary demands of the orchestra, from massive power to chamber-like delicacy.

The fourth movement, the glorious Adagietto, has become one of Mahler’s best-known works, “considered to be one of the most romantic pieces of classical music, as a stand-alone,” says Concertmaster Jae Cosmos Lee. Scored only for strings and harp, it unfolds with intimacy and warmth. Its luminous beauty provides a moment of stillness before the energetic finale bursts forth with joy and momentum. By the symphony’s end, Mahler has wrested victory from profound struggle.

Thank you for attending today’s concert.  We hope you enjoyed it and that we’ll see you again soon. 

BEHIND THE SCENES

PRODUCTION TEAM

Director of Operations
Patrick Gallagher

Stage Manager
Kimberly Monteiro

Assistant Stage Manager
Brendan Gallagher

Stage Crew
Jay Ivanof
John Bishop

Audio Engineer
Jay Sheehan

Lighting Designer
Kendra Murphy

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR
Joseph Marchio

BOX OFFICE
Rebeka Broitman, Supervisor
Charlotte Baxter
Eleanor Fothergill

HOSPITALITY COORDINATOR
Charlotte Baxter

LIBRARIAN
Victoria Krukowski

MANAGING ARTISTIC PRINCIPAL
Jae Cosmos Lee

PERSONNEL MANAGER
Wesley Hopper

USHER SUPERVISOR
Betty Morse

Cape Arts & Entertainment Staff and Board of Trustees

Cape Symphony’s Masterpiece series concerts are sponsored by Cape Cod 5.
 

SUPPORT YOUR CAPE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Ticket sales cover only part of the cost to maintain a professional orchestra on Cape Cod. Generous donations and community support make the difference.

Donating is easy, online at www.capesymphony.org/donations or by mail to Cape Symphony, 2235 Iyannough Road, West Barnstable, MA 02668. For more information about ways to support Cape Symphony, please contact Director of Development This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thank you!

Program Notes by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., ©Cape Arts & Entertainment. References include: B. Grun, The Timetables of History; keepingscore.org; J.C. Lee, pers. comm.; K. Spraker, pers. comm.; W. Thompson, The Illustrated History of the Great Composers; A. Wang, pers. comm.