Esa-Pekka Salonen: Mahler 3

The first of five Mahler symphonies this season: written beside an Austrian mountain lake, Mahler’s Third Symphony forms an epic, six-movement ode to the natural landscape, where ‘nature acquires a voice and tells profound secrets’. Mahler’s sound-world is all-encompassing.

Flowing from the intense summer heat of the first movement’s driving fanfares and marches, the third movement journeys to a moonlit forest before a descent in the fourth into darkness, its eerie rocking motif ushering in a haunting mezzo-soprano solo. Finally, the music breaks out onto Mahler’s vision of heaven in a staggering slow movement, its immense final bars issuing thundering timpani to bring everything on earth to a triumphant standstill.   

General booking opens 8 February 2017 9:30 am