This recording is a live performance from Munich, Philharmonie im Gasteig, recorded on November 3rd and 4th, 2005.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony, despite its outwardly cheerful appearance, embodies his complex worldview where life and death, beauty and transience, and nature and its cruelty are intertwined.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Mahler's unique sense of humor, which he distinguished from wit or cheerful mood, was often misunderstood even by those close to him, as he noted in letters to his wife Alma.
Compositional Technique
The Finale of Mahler's Fourth Symphony uses a text from the Bavarian folk poem 'Der Himmel hängt voller Geigen' from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a source Mahler frequently set to music.
Performer Biography
The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, featured on this album, has a long tradition of performing new music and has been led by notable chief conductors such as Rafael Kubelík and Mariss Jansons.
Performer Biography
Bernard Haitink, the conductor on this album, had a distinguished career, serving as Music Director for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
Composition History
Mahler's Fourth Symphony was initially conceived as a shorter symphonic humoresque, and its Finale, 'Das himmlische Leben' (The Heavenly Life), was composed as early as 1892.
