• Tracks

"The Fifth is a cursed work. Nobody understands it." (Gustav Mahler) The year 1901, when Mahler drafted the first sketches of the Fifth Symphony, mark the beginning of his "middle" phase, dominated above all by the three purely instrumental Symphonies nos. 5, 6 and 7. Famed as an intense, personal and highly emotive Mahlerian interpreter, these Mahler readings capture Klaus Tennstedt during his brief time as Chief Conductor of the NDR. An equally personal, dramatic singer, mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender is heard as soloist in Mahler's overwhelmingly moving Kindertotenlieder.