Wiener Philharmoniker

Small? Not at all. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s so-called «small» Symphony in G minor, K. 183, bears its deceptive nickname only because of its later, famous sister in G minor. The 17-year-old Salzburg native completed his 25th symphony in 1773. Gustav Mahler finished his First Symphony 115 years later. Strictly speaking, it was the first version of his symphony, as he revised it repeatedly, finetuned it, and discarded movements. Building a «whole world» in sound takes time. And it became a great, fairytale world: mysterious sounds of nature and folk song melodies; exaggerated dance scenes, flanked by tender melancholy; the grotesque scene of a funeral procession in which the animals of the forest carry the hunter to his grave — and a finale in which the gates of hell open up and heaven triumphantly claims victory.