Manchester
BBC Philharmonic & Alina Ibragimova - Mahler Symphony No 4
If Mahler’s first three world-encapsulating symphonies come from an adult’s point of view, his fourth wonders how a child’s perspective might be different. But the childhood dreams Mahler weaves are not all naïve.
Though we eventually arrive at Mahler’s childlike vision of heaven – In Das himmlische Leben, the part he composed first – menace and terror are present too.
To create Swim, Cassandra Miller took two chords by Robert Schumann, repeated them until they blurred, and then took them through a series of variations as suggested in an essay on swimming by the poet Anne Carson.
Miller’s abiding image – of Robert Schumann, swimming in Carson’s Canadian lake – could only come from the mind of a committed dreamer.
In 1838, Felix Mendelssohn wrote to violinist Ferdinand David, describing ‘an E-minor theme that keeps running through my head, preventing me from thinking about anything else.’ From Mendelssohn’s dream came one of the great violin concertos.
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
John Storgårds conductor
Alina Ibragimova violin
Sheva Tehoval soprano
Cassandra Miller Swim
Felix Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 4
BBC Philharmonic & Alina Ibragimova - Mahler Symphony No 4 Tickets
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