A trumpet sounds an ominous fanfare, the orchestra cries out, and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony thunders into life. But that’s just the beginning – and, after all, this is Mahler! 68 minutes later, the whole orchestra is punching the sky in triumph. It’s an epic struggle from darkness to light, as powerful as any Hollywood blockbuster and every bit as colourful, filled with horn calls, dark visions and, of course, Romantic music’s most passionate love letter – the famous Adagietto that Mahler wrote for his young wife Alma.
It’s powerful stuff, so Vasily Petrenko has paired it with the rapturous Violin Concerto that Mahler’s protégé Erich Wolfgang Korngold dedicated to Alma when they were both exiled to California. Based on themes that Korngold had written for the silver screen, you can feel the poetry as well as the sunlight, and few living violinists play it with more panache than Ray Chen.
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