Minnesota Orchestra

Osmo Vänskä

Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Gustav Mahler

I. Andante comodo

Ii. Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers

Iii. Rondo-burleske

Iv. Adagio

Mahler: Symphony No. 8 in E-Flat Major "Symphony of a Thousand" (Live)

Antal Doráti

Antal Dorati Conducts Minnesota Orchestra & London Symphony Orchestra

The shimmering string harmonics at the opening of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony bring to mind the suspended breath of spring, and will have signaled even to the very first audiences that a new symphonic era was being ushered in. Soon enough the composer introduces some of the elements that would become key components of his musical language: sounds of nature (here cuckoo calls) are combined with quasi-militaristic fanfares and ‘high-art’ chromatic wanderings in cellos, as if to illustrate Mahler’s view of the symphony as an all-embracing art form. The symphony, which the composer originally gave the subtitle ‘Titan’, borrows extensively from the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. But Mahler also incorporates elements of Moravian popular music (in the second movement) and – in the slow third movement – famously quotes a minor-mode version of the children’s rhyme Bruder Martin (also known as Frere Jacques). The finale transports the listener to a world of Gothic theatricality reminiscent of Grand Opera, before arriving – after a number of false starts – at the symphony’s heroic chorale-like ending. This symphonic ‘world-in-microcosm’ is here brought to life by the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska on the fourth installment in a series which has earned the team the description ‘among the finest exponents of Mahler’s music’ on the website allmusic.com.

Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major "Titan"

Albert Camus once wrote ‘when I describe what the catastrophe of modern man looks like, music comes into my mind – the music of Gustav Mahler’. If asked to specify a particular work, it is quite possible that Camus would have proposed Symphony No. 6 in A minor – the symphony that Bruno Walter claimed portrayed ‘a terrifying, hopeless darkness, without a human sound’. Nevertheless, the period during which Mahler wrote his Sixth was one of the most successful and happiest of his life – prior to any marital difficulties, at the time of the birth of his second daughter Anna, his professional reputation growing. Alma Mahler, in her memoirs, suggested that the symphony was in fact predicting instances of future distress in the composer’s own life, and she and various commentators have proposed various interpretations of different elements. Most famous of these are possibly the hammer strokes in the Finale, falling, according to Alma, like ‘blows of fate’ on the ‘hero’ of the symphony. But Osmo Vanska has a reputation for engaging with even the most iconic scores at face value, avoiding preconceived ideas and ‘time-honoured’ traditions. His and the Minnesota Orchestra’s recording of Mahler’s Sixth follows upon the 2017 release of the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Nominated to a 2018 Grammy Award, that interpretation has been described as ‘at once committed and detached, intense and transcendentally timeless’ (Norman Lebrecht) and ‘an exceptional performance that promises great things to come.’

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A Minor "Tragic"

Sibelius: Kullervo, Op. 7: II. Kullervo's Youth

Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 3, 6 & 7

https://image.joox.com/JOOXcover/0/e8b7d3aaa8b99cb8/300

Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Song List

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