Description
Karina Canellakis, Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, takes us inside Mahler’s First Symphony ahead of her performance at the Southbank Centre in London on Friday 6 November 2026. Tickets here 🎟: https://lpo.org.uk/event/alice-sara-ott-plays-beethoven/
Karina explains how Mahler’s First Symphony transports you into a world of forests, mountains and birdsong, and why she has chosen to perform it with the rarely heard ‘Blumine’ movement, which Mahler later cut. This short, tender movement featuring a solo trumpet is, in her words, like a delicate droplet on the petal of a flower. She then guides us through each movement. The first opens at dawn, and quotes Mahler’s song Ging heut’ Morgen übers Feld. The second (after ‘Blumine’) is a rustic dance, and the third turns Frère Jacques into a funeral march. The finale bursts open with an explosion and ends in one of the most thrilling build-ups in the orchestral repertoire, with the horns standing up and the whole orchestra in full voice.
Chapters
00:00 Mahler’s world of nature and longing
00:49 Restoring the Blumine movement
02:25 First movement: a nature painting at dawn
03:46 Second movement: a rustic dance
04:18 Third movement: Frère Jacques as a funeral march
05:14 Finale: the explosion
06:49 The final build-up
#Mahler #LondonPhilharmonicOrchestra #ClassicalMusic #Symphony
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