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Mahler's Third Symphony from the Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra play Mahler's Third Symphony. Paavo Järvi conducts the fabled orchestra at the opening concert of the Lucerne Festival.

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra plays Mahler's Third Symphony.
Paavo Järvi conducts this legendary orchestra - with members brought together from the world's top ensembles - at the opening concert of this year's Lucerne Festival.

Mahler's six movement symphony recounts nothing less than the story of the Creation through to a final ode to divine love and calls for a contralto soloist, a children's choir, a women's choir, and a huge orchestra including an off-stage post horn.

Presented by Fiona talkington.

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 in D minor

Wiebke Lehmkuhl (alto)
Women of the Bavarian Radio Chorus
Luzerner Kantorei
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Paavo Järvi (conductor)

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra has been thrilling the music world for the last 20 years. From the start, the ensemble’s magnificent performances of Mahler have been a sensation, with the Third Symphony in particular playing a key role. In 2007, under the direction of its founder Claudio Abbado, the orchestra gave two legendary performances of this mighty work, and the Third’s moving finale was also performed in 2014 during a memorial concert for the late maestro, bringing tears to the eyes of many who attended. Mahler’s Third is thus the ideal symphony to ring in the orchestra’s anniversary — and to launch the 2023 Summer of Paradise. For Mahler here presents a creation story of the world itself coming into being. In the beginning, we encounter inorganic nature, rocks, and mountains. Plants, animals, and, ultimately, humanity, are successively added to the picture. Yet our species is not the pinnacle. For Mahler, the highest form of existence is love, which he translates into music with a stirring, hymn-like theme. “What God tells me” was Mahler’s initial title for this final movement: music as a promise of blessing.

2 hours, 28 minutes

Music Played

  • Gustav Mahler

    Symphony No. 3 in D minor

    Orchestra: Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Conductor: Paavo Järvi. Singer: Wiebke Lehmkuhl. Choir: Women of the Bavarian Radio Chorus. Choir: Luzerner Kantorei.
  • Robert Schumann

    Piano Sonata No 1 in F sharp minor, Op 11

    Performer: Sir András Schiff.
    • Robert Schumann: Geistervariationen.
    • ECM New Series.
    • 4-7.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Keyboard Concerto no.4 in A major BWV.1055

    Performer: Sir András Schiff. Orchestra: Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
    • Piano Masterworks The World's Favourite Piano Classics.
    • Decca.
    • 1.

Broadcast

  • Mon 18 Sep 2023 19:30