This recording of Mahler's Fifth Symphony was captured live at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in London.
Compositional Technique
Mahler's Fifth Symphony uses a unique five-movement format grouped into three parts, with a long central Scherzo framed by two pairs of movements.
Performer Biography
Jaap van Zweden, the conductor, began his musical career as a violinist and became the youngest ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at age nineteen.
Cultural Impact
The Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony is often associated with Luchino Visconti's film Death in Venice, though the booklet states it is not about death but pure love music.
Composition History
The period of the Fifth Symphony's composition included two significant events in Mahler's life: a near-fatal haemorrhage in February 1901 and his marriage to Alma Schindler in March 1902.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Mahler's Fifth Symphony forces tragic and joyful feelings to jostle side-by-side, bound together by his personality and command of large-scale symphonic construction, as described by Mahler commentator Deryck Cooke.
Composer Biography
Gustav Mahler composed his Fifth Symphony at his retreat by the Wörthersee in the summers of 1901 and 1902.
