Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado)

Recorded live at the Lucerne Festival, Summer 2009
Concert Hall of the KKL Luzern, August 2009

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado - conductor

0:30 I. Langsam, schleppend (16:38)
17:16 II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell (7:32)
24:50 III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen (11:29)
36:19 IV. Stürmisch bewegt (22:09)

Whenever Claudio Abbado conducts the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, music lovers are in for a very special event. Such was the case in the summer of 2009, when the charismatic Italian conductor opened Lucerne's tradition-rich Festival with a concert featuring Mahler's First Symphony and Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto. In 2003 Abbado, together with Artistic and Executive Director Michael Haefliger, founded the orchestra, which consists of internationally renowned soloists and chamber musicians - just as did its model, the elite body of musicians that Arturo Toscanini gathered around hirn at the Festival's founding in 1938. lt was with this first-class ensemble that Abbado offered a vividly inspired interpretation of the Mahler. In truth - as the audience's response demonstrated - it left nothing to be desired. The twenty-two-year-old Chinese Pianist Yuja Wang likewise earned enthusiastic applause for her account of the Prokofiev Concerto, which she played with character and nuanced expression.
The theme of nature served es the guiding thread for all the programming choices during the summer of 2009 - a theme with obvious relevance for the LUCERNE FESTIVAL, which is held amid one of the most beautitul landscapes of Europe: its concerts incIude unforgettable views of Lake Lucerne and Alpine panoramas. This theme, es it happens, has eminent musical significance es well: 'Like a sound of nature' is the direction Mahler inscribed at the very beginning of the First Symphony.