Walking in Mahler’s footsteps

The New York Philharmonic has opened its return to the Vail Valley with a focus on the works of Gustav Mahler, an Austrian composer from the late 19th and early 20th century known for channeling the sound of nature into his symphonies.

Mahler spent his summers in the Austrian Alps, where he would take long walks in the lush alpine environment for musical inspiration. He wrote his works from an isolated one-room cabin in the woods, where there would be as little distance and distraction as possible from the surrounding landscape.

As a mountain music festival, Bravo! Vail and the New York Philharmonic recognized a unique opportunity to allow listeners to literally walk in Mahler’s footsteps. This past Saturday, the festival partnered with Walking Mountains Science Center to host “Naturally Mahler: Adventure Walk,” a 40-minute hike along the Gore Creek interspersed with snippets of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, performed by a brass quartet.

Hikers were encouraged to listen to the running of the creek, the breeze in the aspens, the notes of calling birds and to absorb the sounds with intention, as Mahler would have on morning walks to his writing cabin. After spending time immersed in the origins of Mahler’s raw creative material, the resulting music was performed live, right in the midst of the wildflowers, recreating the immediate connection that Mahler experienced while composing it.

This deeper connection to the music was complemented with a greater understanding of Mahler’s personal history, provided through short lectures by Gabryel Smith, the director of archives and exhibitions for the New York Philharmonic.

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Smith described how the Sixth Symphony, often called “The Tragic,” was written during the happiest summers of Mahler’s life, but foreshadowed terrible events to come, including the death of his daughter and diagnosis of his own fatal illness. In cohesion with this narrative, the nature hike along a sunlit creek was fittingly cut short by a thunderstorm rolling in, giving hikers a full spectrum of natural scenes to match both the joy and tranquility found in certain of Mahler’s movements, as well as the power and pain in others.

The short walk offered a new way to encounter nature through music, and those who were unable to make the event this weekend can replicate the experience of hiking and listening to Mahler’s symphonies on their own. Bravo! Vail has always celebrated the intimate connection between art and nature, and continues to find new ways to bring the two together in the spirit of Mahler’s own words:

“Those who, in the face of nature, are not overwhelmed with awe at its infinite mystery, its divinity — we can only sense it, not comprehend or penetrate it — these people have not come close to it… in every work of art, which should be a reflection of nature, there must be a trace of this infinity.”