Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Jaap van Zweden

Only a few composers have bestowed as many futuristic aspects to orchestral music as Mahler. A sought-after conductor with an international career himself, when composing, he intimately knew about the limits of the orchestra and could exhaust and repeatedly push them. In his magnificent and sombre Symphony No. 6, the most obvious sign of Mahler’s gift for innovation is a novel percussion effect: the famous hammer blow, which conjures up the apocalypse in the tragic final movement and thereby became the symbol of this entire work. This is, however, somewhat curtailed because the rest of the symphony is no less emotional, stirring and brilliant. A huge work of fiction in notes, captivating from the first to the last second!