Gustav Mahler Given Ghostly Part in ‘Duet’

Gustav Mahler, who died in 1911, will be a ghostly accompanist at three Pacific Symphony events at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, beginning tonight, thanks to a piano roll he made in 1905.

At an introductory lecture before the orchestra’s open rehearsal, the composer’s piano-roll performance will accompany soprano Maurita Phillips- Thornburgh in “Das himmlische Leben,” the last movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G, tonight at 7.

Tickets to the lecture and rehearsal are $7. (The “What Goes On” column in Sunday’s Calendar incorrectly indicated that the event is free.)

The “duet” will be repeated at preconcert programs at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Friday. The concerts, which open the orchestra’s second season at the center, will consist of Mozart’s “Ave, verum corpus”; Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” with piano soloist John Browning, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”

The Pacific Chorale will be heard in the Mozart chorus and the final movement of the Mahler symphony.