´óÏó´«Ã½

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO dive headlong into the dream-world of Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, and welcome the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Singers for a special performance of an intricate work by Poulenc.

Gustav Mahler once said that the symphony should be like the world – ‘it should embrace everything’. In his huge Seventh Symphony, he sweeps from an overcast Alpine lake through love songs, nightmares and moonlit marches to a roof-raising finish hung with jangling cowbells and laced with pitch-black humour. In short, Mahler doesn’t get more Mahler-ish than this.

Not that Sir Simon Rattle needs telling. He’s been conducting Mahler since he was a teenager, and this wild, fantastic fairy-tale of a symphony is particularly close to his heart. ‘There’s only one Mahler – he takes in everything’, he says, and tonight he dives headfirst into a world of soaring emotion and untrammelled sonic imagination.