Symphony No. 7 in E Minor by Mahler, Fra (2023/2023), Dirigent Yutaka Sado, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria

«Here roars nature», Gustav Mahler is supposed to have said of the distinctive tenor horn solo at the start of his Seventh Symphony. This monumental work sums up the symphonic cosmos the composer had been developing up to this point with powerful gestures – and in sounds of twilight and nightfall. And not just because the second and fourth movements bear the title «night music» – right from the first movement, the work conjures a dream-world between madness and idyll. In the central scherzo, ghostly shadows dance a waltz of grotesque tatters. But after all these nocturnal tribulations, the finale celebrates the brightness of day in the form of a barnstorming carnival: a masterpiece for master conductor Yutaka Sado.