Following recordings of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet, LSO Live returns to Valery Gergiev’s acclaimed Mahler cycle with the release of the Fourth Symphony. Using a reduced orchestra, unusually without any lower brass, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 was influenced by the trend to revive the classical style of Haydn and Mozart, as a reaction against the monumental ‘Wagnerian’ Romanticism of its predecessors. The work is based around the final movement, written some years earlier – its childish and naïve text giving shape to the other movements.

CONCERT REVIEWS:

“Those who think of Mahler’s Fourth as the gentlest of his symphonies would have found their ideas challenged by Valery Gergiev’s probing interpretation of it. Far from being a sunny, carefree idyll, this was something more prone to anxiety and tension than to tranquil nostalgia. It was perhaps this tussle between serenity and apprehension that made the performance so fascinating and the music so disquieting ... the overall impression was of a Mahler Fourth that was freshly conceived and deeply compelling” Daily Telegraph

“In the slow movement, Gergiev achieved something transcendent and genuinely mysterious by propelling the music forward without losing sight of its inherent numinosity. The performance was worth it just for that” The Guardian