Osmo Vänskä, the conductor on this album, won a Grammy Award in 2014 for Best Orchestral Performance with the Minnesota Orchestra for their recording of Sibelius's First and Fourth Symphonies.
Composition History
Gustav Mahler completed his Sixth Symphony over the summers of 1903 and 1904, and it was first performed in 1906.
Performer Biography
The Minnesota Orchestra, founded in 1903, became the first American orchestra to perform in Cuba in 2015 following a thaw in relations between the two countries.
Compositional Technique
Mahler's Sixth Symphony is unique among his symphonies for not ending in a major-key tonality, rejecting his usual narrative arc of progression from problem to resolution.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Mahler declared that his Sixth Symphony would pose 'conundrums that only a generation that has absorbed and digested my first five symphonies may hope to solve'.
Recording & Production
This recording was made in November 2016 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, USA, and utilizes BIS's recording teams' specialized equipment from Neumann, DPA, Schoeps, and other brands.
Critical Reception
Early critics found Mahler's Sixth Symphony to be 'another hard nut' to crack, but it quickly gained traction as 'musicians' music' among connoisseurs.
