The Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5, performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester under the baton of its chief conductor Christian Măcelaru on February 06, 2021 at the Kölner Philharmonie.

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 5, IV Adagietto

WDR Symphony Orchestra
Christian Măcelaru, conductor

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○ Introduction to the works
Alma and Gustav Mahler were an unlikely couple. Their wedding on March 2, 1902 in Vienna's Karlskirche was soon followed by disillusionment. Close friends already warned against the union. The conductor Bruno Walter, for example, wrote at the time: "He is 41 and she is 22, she a celebrated beauty, accustomed to a brilliant social life, he so distant from the world and loneliness-loving."
Gustav Mahler's (1860 - 1911) fifth symphony, composed from 1901 in idyllic Maiernigg on Lake Wörthersee, where the couple spent the summer months, dates from the still happy first years of marriage. It contains one of Mahler's most famous movements, the Adagietto, played only by strings and a harp. The instrumentation is reminiscent of the music-making angels known from the Viennese art nouveau of Gustav Klimt. Although this Adagietto is in the major key, it exudes a melancholy aura with numerous sighs. The lyrical melodic arc in this movement resembles a vocal piece; the proximity to Mahler's Rückert song "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" (1901) has been noted. On the other hand, the Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, who was a friend of the composer, interprets the Adagietto from the Fifth, which was premiered on October 18, 1904, in the Gürzenich in Cologne, as a love greeting to Mahler's young wife Alma.
(Text: Matthias Corvin)