Bold Tendencies: Mahler Symphony No. 1 by Mahler, Fra (2023/2023), Dirigent Elena Schwarz, Bold Tendencies, London, United Kingdom

Mahler wrote of his First Symphony: “My whole life is contained in it: I have set down in it my experience and suffering.” Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 offers a fitting ending to the 2023 Bold Tendencies season: his radical thinking, his singing of nature, and his rich sonic world providing inspiration for generations to come. The epic Symphony opens with barely audible notes, which bloom into a lush evocation of a spring dawn. Full of military fanfares, yodels, nursery tunes and birdsong, it ends with a movement so electrifying that the horn section can’t stay sitting down.