What the Universe Tells Me:
Unraveling The Mystery of Mahler’s Third Symphony
Music, philosophy, and dramatic images combine to create an all-encompassing experience in this in-depth exploration of Gustav Mahler’s stirring and questioning Third Symphony:
How did we get here? What is our life’s purpose? Does God exist? Why do people suffer?
Engaging these questions, Mahler’s Third is one of the largest and most ambitious symphonies ever composed. The emotional charge of this work steadily mounts, from the chaos of creation in the first movement, to “the summit, the highest level from which the world can be surveyed” in the last. It involves the audience in the drama of emerging consciousness, as it unfolds and develops from the world of rocks, plants, and animals “through all the stages of evolution, step by step,” to its ultimate flowering in humankind’s capacity for love.
From the volcanoes of the South Pacific to the Alpine peaks and meadows where Mahler composed, dramatic images from the natural world give shape to the Third Symphony’s evolutionary saga.
Thinkers such as Howard Gardner and Catherine Keller join with Mahler experts Henry-Louis de La Grange, Donald Mitchell, Peter Franklin, and Morten Solvik to introduce this masterpiece to new audiences.
Oscar nominee and Emmy Award winner Stockard Channing narrates the documentary.
Produced and Directed: by Jason Starr
Narrated by: Stockard Channing
Featuring: baritone Thomas Hampson and mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn with the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra & Chorus, conducted by Glen Cortese
Thomas Hampson, baritone
What the critics are saying…
Amazon.com Staff Editorial Review
Magnificent! What the Universe Tells Me is probably the deepest, most painstakingly detailed but also approachable attempt to decipher the inner dynamics of a complex work of art ever entrusted to any recording medium.
–Joe McLellan
Jason Starr’s brilliant and haunting documentary about the Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler is an artistic performance executed to perfection. Starr is an exceptional craftsman, a skilled visual artist who steers his camera the way an aerobatic pilot might steer his airplane through a world championship. When I was through watching, my first reaction was to call everyone and say they had to see this.
–Tess Crebbin
A must-buy! I can’t praise the thinking, planning, filming and engineering that went into this enough. It truly is a model for what such enterprises ought to be.
–Stephen Chakwin
A tremendously ambitious film by Jason Starr… a visual and philosophic exploration of Mahler’s great paean to Nature with a challenge to imagine a music that tries to capture the forces of Creation.
–Gary Lemco
This masterful interpretation of music comes the closest to translating the experience into another medium… with stunning and wonderfully matched visuals.
–Igor Grobman