Work of the Week – Gustav Mahler / Yoel Gamzou: Symphonie Nr. 10

8 Feb 2026

Portrait of Yoel Gamzou (dark hair, beard, black shirt) in dramatic illustration. Golden musical fragments swirl like sparks through deep blue shadows. A beam of light cuts the scene, symbolizing Mahler's emotional abyss.

Some chapters in music history feel less like a composition and more like a crossing of boundaries. Gustav Mahler’s Tenth Symphony is one of them. When Mahler set down his pen for the last time on September 5, 1910, he left behind a gateway to the unknown—a world forged from pain, love, and a startling modernity. It seems like a stroke of fate that exactly a century later, on September 5, 2010, a then 23-year-old conductor named Yoel Gamzou would breathe new life into these sketches with a radical, soul-baring reconstruction.

The Legacy of the Unfinished: Mahler’s Tenth and Yoel Gamzou’s Vision

A Century-Long Echo Mahler composed this music amidst a profound personal crisis and the looming shadow of his own death. In the margins of the manuscript, one finds cries of despair: "The devil dances it with me," he wrote over the fourth movement. For decades, the Tenth was viewed as an untouchable fragment. But Gamzou, who had been obsessed with Mahler since the age of seven, didn't see a museum piece; he saw a living, breathing necessity.

Gamzou, often described as one of the most uncompromising minds in classical music today, didn't just "fill in the blanks." His version is a "further development," a deep dive that catapults Mahler’s spirit into the present day. The 2010 premiere in Berlin was a watershed moment, presenting a reading that doesn't shy away from the raw intensity of the original sketches.

Milan: The Italian Premiere

On February 13, 2026, this journey reaches the Auditorio in Milan. Conducted by Gamzou himself, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi will present the Italian premiere of this monumental version. It’s a meeting of two powerful forces: the rich tradition of a Milanese orchestra and the visionary obsession of a conductor who doesn't just lead Mahler, but inhabits him. From the profound opening Adagio to the shattering Finale, this performance promises to be an experience that transcends time.