“The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything”, said Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. His monumental musical journey saturated with infinite love, the First Symphony in D major, is considered one of the grandest works in the classical symphonic repertoire. Every movement is gripping and emotionally inspiring, from dramatic and energetic themes to those full of contemplation and existential depth. The symphony contains many musical ideas or quotations from his own works or those of other composers, such as Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), the song Hansel & Gretel, a quotation from the Funeral March in Donizetti’s opera Dom Sébastien, folk dance motifs as well as obvious fascination with Liszt’s Dante Symphony and Wagner’s opera Parsifal. Mahler once wrote: “Composition is like playing with building blocks, using the same blocks over and over again to create new buildings”. The composer returned to the First Symphony several times; the score did not take its final four-movement form until 11 years after the first version had been written; the composer dispensed with the second movement Blumine, Andante and the programmatic title Titan.

The beauty of Mahler’s music is conveyed by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro Vilmantas Kaliūnas.