MAHLER GROOVES. It’s well attested that this accolade dates back to bumper stickers produced in black block type over neon red by the Mahler Society of Los Angeles in the 1970s. In the archive of the New York Philharmonic, they’ve got one that Leonard Bernstein pasted over the opening of the master’s Symphony No. 6, obliterating several wind parts but not the silent brass section or a suite of percussion instruments that have nothing to play on that page anyway. Reviving the slogan in the market it comes from, Gustavo Dudamel has cooked up a Mahler Fiesta in five programs. The pièce de resistance of the first is the popular orchestral song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with the excellent soloists Ekaterina Gubanova and Simon Keenlyside (February 20 to 23). Next up is the full-evening Symphony No. 7, commonly known as the “Song of the Night,” though Dudamel prefers to describe it as a “symphony of everything: from chaos to glory, sarcasm to tenderness, from a funeral march to a seductive tango” (February 27 to March 1). The grand finale (March 6 to 9) casts a spotlight on Mahler’s wife Alma, née Schindler, a woman of legendary appetites and ambitions. A composer in her own right, Alma received no encouragement from her husband (au contraire). Sasha Cooke opens the program with five of Alma’s rarely heard dozen-odd songs, widely reckoned her finest work. The rest of the evening belongs to Gustav’s Symphony No. 5, which bears the imprint of the couple’s courtship and incorporates, in the Adagietto movement, his wordless love letter. A staggeringly ambitious and rather long two-part “Mahlerthon” on March 2 showcases youth and university ensembles from across the City of Angels. —Matthew Gurewitsch