Nagano conducts Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony

The Philharnonia invites you into Gustav Mahler’s world – a world saturated with orchestral colour.

Since it was founded in 1945, the Philharmonia has given many outstanding performances of Mahler’s epic, all-embracing symphonies. In the orchestra’s 80th anniversary season, ‘superb’ (Opera Now) conductor Kent Nagano takes to the podium for the great Resurrection Symphony, scored for a large orchestra, two solo singers and chorus.

In his own programme notes for the symphony’s premiere, Mahler describes the work’s rollercoaster of an emotional journey: the first movement represents a funeral. Then come movements depicting happy memories, followed by the fear that life may have no meaning at all. But reassurance comes from the soprano who sings “I come from God, and to God I shall return.” In the monumental finale, soloists and chorus affirm “O believe, you were not born for nothing!”

Nagano has chosen to preface Mahler’s deeply spiritual work with a chant by the medieval abbess and visionary Hildegard of Bingen. Composed around 750 years before Mahler’s symphony, it sings the same song of faith and redemption.