Symphony No. 5 & Kindertotenlieder

Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra
'The beauty of Mahler always hurts,' conductor Iván Fischer once said. At the Mahler Festival, he conducts both the Second Symphony and, today, the Fifth. A powerful work from a heyday in Mahler's life. Turbulent, full of life and passion. Mahler, having just met his great love Alma, seems to express his feelings in the beloved Adagietto.

Mahler's Symphony No. 5
'Each part has its friends and its enemies', Mahler wrote of his Fifth Symphony. He was thrilled that this work raised such extremes of emotions. After three partly vocal symphonies, the Fifth is a purely instrumental. But therefore no less intense: sometimes jubilant, sometimes gloomy, always fiery. 'The work has come to represent the total of all the suffering that life brought to me.'