Ellington Black, Brown and Beige
Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D major
The Cambridge Symphony Orchestra begins its 49th season with pieces by two composers, Gustav Mahler and Duke Ellington, whose musical output was revolutionary for their time. These selections foreshadow thematic undercurrents that will run throughout the rest of season—namely, the choice to acknowledge the world’s beauty even amid society’s darkest moments. The composers featured in our 2023-2024 season bore witness to war, fascist governments, and pervasive racism and antisemitism—but their compositions transcend this ugliness, reflecting a more hopeful view of humanity.
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Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige demonstrates the composer’s attempt to bring American music, specifically jazz, into the same spotlight that shines on European music of the Classical and Romantic periods. The three movements, Black, Brown and Beige, each represent a period in Black history: the lives of slaves; emancipation and American military service; and contemporary Black America (20s, 30s, and WWII), respectively. In the composer’s own words spoken at the piece’s 1943 Carnegie Hall premiere, “…this is a parallel to the history of the American Negro. And of course, it tells a long story.”
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Gustav Mahler wrote his first symphony in 1888. Originally titled “A Symphonic Poem in Two Sections,” it was poorly received by the audience at its first performance in 1889. It wasn’t until four years later that it was performed again, after having gone through several revisions. This performance received far better reviews. After the third performance, Mahler permanently dropped the title “Titan,” which he had used in the second and third performances, and simply described the work as “Symphony in D Major.” The four-movement version audiences are familiar with today begins with nature-inspired sounds, then moves to an Austrian folk dance, a funeral march, and finally, arrives at a triumphant finale that opens with a sound that Mahler likened to a bolt of lightning ripping through a black cloud.
