Gustav Mahler composed most of the score to his Symphony No. 3 in the summers of 1895 and 1896 in a composing hut he had built at the edge of the Alpine lake at Steinbach am Attersee. Natalie Bauer-Lechner, a close family friend, recalled Mahler being overwhelmed with musical ideas for what would become the second movement of his new symphony upon arriving at the idyllic retreat in early June 1895: ‘On the very first afternoon, as he was gazing out of his little house that lay entirely nestled amidst grass and flowers, it was sketched and completed in one sitting.’ During the following ten weeks the composer worked out the musical material for what would become movements 2–6. By mid-August Mahler was able to report to a friend with considerable satisfaction: ‘The summer brought me the Third – probably the most mature and the most unique that I have done up to now.’
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
alto Sara Mingardo
Piccoli Cantori Veneziani Children Choir
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro La Fenice
Conductor Myung-Whun Chung
maestro del Coro Claudio Marino Moretti
alto Sara Mingardo
Piccoli Cantori Veneziani Children Choir
La Fenice Orchestra & Choir
Conductor Myung-Whun Chung
Chorus Master Claudio Marino Moretti