PERFORMERS
- CreArtBox Ensemble
- Le Train Bleu Ensemble
- Ranson Wilson, conductor
ABOUT THE CONCERT
Gustav Mahler composed his Symphony No. 4 in G major in 1899-1900, building it around a song, "Das himmlische Leben," that he had written in 1892. That song - a child's beaming vision of heaven - crowns the finale, sung by a solo soprano. More modest in scale and gentler in tone than the vast symphonies around it, the Fourth calls for a comparatively restrained orchestra and unfolds with an almost classical grace shaded by irony: sleigh bells, folk-like tunes and a serene slow movement lead to that heavenly close. Mahler, the Bohemian-born Austrian conductor and composer who bridged late Romanticism and modernism, premiered the work in Munich in 1901. CreArtBox performs it in a chamber-orchestra arrangement.