The Lucerne Festival Orchestra has been thrilling the music world for the last 20 years. From the start, the ensemble’s magnificent performances of Mahler have been a sensation, with the Third Symphony in particular playing a key role. In 2007, under the direction of its founder Claudio Abbado, the orchestra gave two legendary performances of this mighty work, and the Third’s moving finale was also performed in 2014 during a memorial concert for the late maestro, bringing tears to the eyes of many who attended. Mahler’s Third is thus the ideal symphony to ring in the orchestra’s anniversary — and to launch the 2023 Summer of Paradise. For Mahler here presents a creation story of the world itself coming into being. In the beginning, we encounter inorganic nature, rocks, and mountains. Plants, animals, and, ultimately, humanity, are successively added to the picture. Yet our species is not the pinnacle. For Mahler, the highest form of existence is love, which he translates into music with a stirring, hymn-like theme. “What God tells me” was Mahler’s initial title for this final movement: music as a promise of blessing.
