Lucerne Festival 2007

Lucerne Festival 2007

Gustav Mahler’s third symphony is, with its unequalled length of approximately 95 minutes, an exciting, mysterious, overbearing and moving piece. In the six parts of this marvellous symphony, Mahler expresses his musical vision on nature, and the place of mankind in nature. The composer uses, much in the same way as he did in his second symphony, material from his earlier 'Wunderhorn Liederen', closing the fourth movement with a beautiful alto solo set to a Friedrich Nietzsche poem, and closing the fifth movement with a mixed female-boys-choir. The symphony originally consisted of seven movements, but Mahler cut the seventh part eventually and used it as the last movement for his fourth symphony. Performed and recorded in 2007 by Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, the Wien Tölzer Knabenchoir, and mezzo-soprano Anna Larson.