Mahler: Symphony No. 1

Mahler’s First Symphony forms his autobiographical testament to the adventures and misadventures of youth, charting his hero’s progress among birdsong, a country dance and a ghostly rendition of the nursery rhyme Frère Jacques before the exhilarating finale of a symphonist come of age. From first to last words, the pages of Bartók’s Viola Concerto were found not quite finished at the composer’s New York hospital bedside, left to be completed by his devoted pupil, before which Lawrence Power performs Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Pentatonic Etude for solo viola.