Curated and introduced by Sunit Tandon

CONCERT
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3 in D minor
(106 min; 1991; dvd)

Florence Quivar, contralto
Tölzer Knabenchor
Chorus Master: Gerhardt Schmidt-Gaden
Women of the Enrst-Senff-Chor
Chorus Master: Hellwarth Matthiesen
Berliner Phlharmoniker
Conductor: Bernard Haitink

Mahler's Third Symphony is one of his sunniest, most extrovert scores. It is also his longest symphony, lasting at least an hour and a half. It needs large-scale performing forces and is, indeed, unconventional and all-encompassing. It ended up being six movements but started out as seven. Perhaps most interestingly, the Third Symphony also offers one of the most complete musical statements of Mahler's world view that the composer ever penned. Mahler used the sounds of nature to represent the "worldly tumult," a tumult not only of birdcalls, rustic dances, military marches, and other mundane sounds, but also of emotions. For Mahler, nature meant everything; it was the world. Jean Sibelius recalled Mahler saying something similar to him when the two met in 1907: "The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything."