Lucerne 2005 – Mahler, Berg, Schubert

Lucerne 2005 – Mahler, Berg, Schubert

Maestro Claudio Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in this 2005 Lucerne Festival concert, recorded at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center (KKL), Switzerland. The program opens with Alban Berg’s Altenberg Lieder, Op. 4, beautifully performed by star soprano Renée Fleming, followed by three songs for soprano and orchestra by Franz Schubert: Nacht und Träume (D 827), Die Forelle (D 550), and Gretchen am Spinnrade (D 118). The concert concludes with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7. In the years between the completion (1906) and premiere (1908) of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7, the composer's life changed rather dramatically. He quit his position at the Wiener Staatsoper, his first daughter died, and he was diagnosed with a cardiac anomaly. Because of the ‘dark’ character of several movements (the second and fourth movement are titled ‘Nightmusic’, and the third movement is titled ‘Schattenhaft’, meaning shadowy), the symphony is nicknamed ‘Song of the Night’, though Mahler himself rejected this title.