This weekend, the Nashville Symphony completes a passion project of Artistic Director Giancarlo Guerrero: performing all of Gustav Mahler’s nine symphonies.

Mahler was one of the last great Romantic composers, and his orchestral music is every bit as grand, expansive and just plain huge as music of that era could be. While some classical or baroque era music calls for fewer musicians than are found in a modern orchestra, Mahler’s scores are so big that most ensembles have to call in all the extra instrumentalists they can muster. Several call for a choir or two, plus solo vocalists. At times, the composer even directs the orchestra to split into two ensembles, or for some parts to be played by additional, offstage musicians — the muffled sound of their instruments wafting in from afar.

The orchestra’s trip through the Mahler cycle began in the very first season Guerrero conducted in Nashville. The January 2009 performance of Mahler’s Sixth was actually scheduled by Leonard Slatkin, who served as Artistic Director in the interim between conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn’s death and the hiring of Guerrero.

For some orchestras, that would have been enough Mahler for a while. But when the new maestro got his chance to design an entire season, Guerrero scheduled Mahler’s Fifth — and signaled his intention to keep working through the composer’s catalog. Since then, the NSO has performed one or two from the Mahler cycle each year.  

The Third seems a fitting finale to the undertaking. Musically, it’s quite closely related to others (numbers two through four were all essentially outgrowths of his work on a set of songs known as the “Wunderhorn”). It’s a great example of a very Mahler tendency to use the human voice as another instrument alongside strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. What’s more, it is the longest Mahler symphony, often clocking in at 90 minutes.

The Nashville Symphony will perform the Third this weekend with singers from the Nashville Symphony Chorus, Blair Children’s Chorus and mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor. However, audiences won’t have to wait long to hear Mahler in Nashville again. The NSO will reprise the Second symphony, known as the “Resurrection,” in its September season opener.

Timeline of the Nashville Symphony’s Mahler Cycle:

January 2009: Symphony No. 6 in A: “Tragic”

April 2010: Symphony No. 5

November 2011: Symphony No. 4

June 2011 (season closer): Symphony No. 2: “Resurrection”

September 2012 (season opener): Symphony No. 8 in E flat: “Symphony of a Thousand”

May 2013 (season closer): Symphony No. 1: “Titan”

January 2014: Symphony No. 7 in D

March 2015: Symphony No. 9

May 2016 (season closer): Symphony No. 3