“To write a symphony is to create a world”, said Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. The Fifth Symphony was written during perhaps the most successful period of his life, the summer holidays of 1901–1902, when the composer was staying at the family villa in southern Austria. The emotional musical canvas, lasting over an hour, begins with a mournful march and ends with a full-blown apotheosis in the finale. The Fifth Symphony is grouped into three major divisions: movements 1 and 2 – the first division, movement 3 – the second, movements 4 and 5 – the third. The 4th movement Adagietto (tempo indication in German Sehr langsam) is the most frequently performed work in Mahler’s oeuvre. It is an exquisitely poetic meditation, an island of calm in the turbulent bustle of the Fifth Symphony, a love song without words, dedicated by the composer to his beloved wife Alma.

Mahler’s masterpiece is performed by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Victorien Vanoosten.