Gustav Mahler
Symphony Nr.4

Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra
Jeannette Wernecke, Soprano
Gabriel Feltz

catalog number 21072

"… What I was attempting here was exceedingly difficult to realize. Imagine the uniform blue of the skies, which is more difficult to paint than all changing and contrasting shades. This is the fundamental mood of the whole. Only sometimes it darkens and becomes ghostly, gruesome. But heaven itself is not darkened; it shines on in an eternal blue. Only to us it suddenly seems gruesome, just as on the most beautiful day in the woods, flooded with light, we are often gripped by a panic and fear. The Scherzo is mystical, confused and eerie so that your hair will stand on end. But in the following Adagio you will soon see that things were not so bad - everything is resolved."
(Gustav Mahler in a letter to his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner, 1900)