Mahler's first is one of the most thrilling symphonies - but it suffered a long time from an identity crisis. This is a work that went through many revisions before Mahler arrived at the version we ...

Berlin Philharmonic/Harding/Nelsons/ Dudamel/Nézet-Séguin/Petrenko/Rattle/ Haitink/Abbado (Berliner Philharmoniker, 10 CDs & 4 Blu-ray Discs, or download) This ...

Give Mahler a cheery nursery-rhyme ditty and he’ll turn it into the bleakest of gallows marches. Don’t believe us? Have a listen to the opening of the third movement of the First Symphony. It’s Frère ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. There has to be a reason for a new Mahler cycle, when so many exceptional recordings have appeared in recent ...

Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D went through many variations before arriving at the version we know today. Originally composed between late 1887 and March 1888 the work was badly received at its premiere ...

Inevitably there were misses as well as hits, but thirty years on, there’s no doubt that the theatre scene is considerably richer and more sophisticated for this intense period of reinvention. One of ...

Caught by accident on the radio two years ago from the Proms, Iván Fischer's Mahler 1 was immediately gripping and very special, and this CD captures its qualities of absolute directness and clarity.

‘Breathtaking’ also describes large stretches of this recording. Right from the beginning, Fischer combs through every nuance in Mahler’s score, his brilliant rendering of orchestral sonorities – both ...