Powerful Mahler 5 

This year too, we invite a top European orchestra for the festive opening of Flanders Festival Ghent to perform a monumental symphony in St Bavo’s Cathedral. 

Following two unforgettable editions with Bruckner, it is the turn of Gustav Mahler, the composer whose music embodies our festival theme better than anyone. Mahler always seems to be standing with one foot on the other side. He was a spiritual artist, fascinated by both Christian mysticism and Eastern religion. His symphonies are musical essays on life and death, on immortality and resurrection. We feel his tragic battle with fate in the earthly life, but the eternal light always shines out again from the other side. 

The London Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor Edward Gardner cross the Channel for a performance of Mahler’s powerful Symphony No. 5. At the premiere, more than a hundred years ago, the work was barely understood. Today it is one of Mahler’s best-loved symphonies. Five substantial movements of pure symphonic eloquence, including of course the moving and famous Adagietto.