Mahler's Fifth on Symphony @ 7

In Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5, we hear one of the most intense and dramatic expressions of the Romantic notion of music as a struggle from darkness to light, a journey from despair to triumph.  It's like Beethoven's Fifth ratcheted up a couple of notches, and it takes twice as long to get to the light at the end, but what a journey it is! This evening, we are nearing the end of our countdown of Mahler symphonies in the order of the number of recorded releases from least to most.  In our next to last "Mondays with Mahler," we stand at 130 releases for Symphony No. 5. By 1902, when this symphony was completed, Mahler balanced his conducting career with writing music by composing mostly during the summer months on holiday at his cottage in the country.  The previous three symphonies (2, 3, and 4) were for voice and orchestra, but the next three (5, 6, and 7) were purely instrumental.  Symphony No. 5 is relatively conventional in form, although it is in five, rather than the more usual four movements.  There is also a dramatic dichotomy between the intensity of the first two movements and the more optimistic mood beginning in the third. The symphony opens with a solo trumpet leading into an intense funeral march, followed by an even more turbulent 2nd movement, marked "Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence."  Rays of light enter in the 3rd movement scherzo, a large-scale Laendler, the Austrian country dance.  The famous and beautiful Adagietto 4th movement, scored for strings, follows.  This serene interlude was made famous in Leonard Bernstein's performance with the New York Philharmonic at Robert Kennedy's funeral service in 1968, and in its use in the 1971 film "Death in Venice," based on the novella by Thomas Mann.  After all of this, the exuberant and lively rondo-finale in classical style dispels any remaining darkness and brings the symphony to a glorious conclusion. This evening's presentation of Mahler's Symphony No. 5 on Symphony @ 7 comes from a 1987 live concert performance with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic in what is considered one of his finest Mahler recordings.  I hope you can join us--here's a sample: http://youtu.be/eRy6CRHSBTw