Symphony’s Scales Mt. Mahler

There’s just one piece on the program for Santa Barbara Symphony’s pair of concerts this weekend, but it’s a big one: Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 6 (“Tragic”). The 112-year-old, nearly 90-minute work scored for more than 100 musicians is finally making its debut with the Symphony 64 years after the ensemble was founded and a dozen years into the tenure of maestro Nir Kabaretti on April 21-22 at the Granada. As Kabaretti himself noted, it’s an important artistic statement to perform a work of this magnitude, one that indicates both increasing ambition and confidence. In a nod to the enduring disagreement among musicologists as to the work’s proper movement sequence, Kabaretti and colleagues will perform Mahler 6 – known for its “nerve-wracking intensity” and hammer strokes, or so-called “blows of fate,” that arise at climactic points in the work’s finale – in both forms. The movement order for Saturday’s concert will be Allegro-Andante-Scherzo-Finale with the two interior movements reversed for Sunday afternoon. Tickets start at $29 and can be purchased at www.granadasb.org or by calling 899-2222.