Berliner Philharmoniker

One of the very finest orchestras devotes itself to the world of the child. For Gustav Mahler, this was the highest there was: he even placed the playing, questioning child above the angels and love. It was this idea that gave rise to the musical world of his Fourth Symphony. Like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, it combines the naive with the enigmatic. It’s easy to forget that it was premiered in the twentieth century, so Schubertian does this masterpiece sound: for a while sparkling with Viennese good cheer, and then, like when death reaches for the fiddle, full of black humor.