Mahler Festival: Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer in Mahler's Symphony No. 2

The Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Great Broadcasting Choir, conducted by Iván Fischer, perform Mahler's Second Symphony. An emotionally charged work about the resurrection that follows after death.

Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer

"The beauty of Mahler always hurts," conductor Iván Fischer once said. Today he leads his own Budapest Festival Orchestra in a key work from their repertoire. Mahler's Second Symphony, full of drama and extremes, is also known as "Resurrection. After, among other things, a death march, haunting trumpets and a real final judgment, a purification follows. With Fischer at that moment, "the heavens truly open," Gramophone wrote impressively.

Mahler's Symphony No. 2

He who calls us gives us eternal life - that is what the Great Broadcasting Choir sings toward the end of Mahler's Second Symphony. In this emotionally charged work, Mahler expresses his ideas about life after death. Bliss and melancholy are both given space. Pure, penetrating and moving.

Mahler Festival

From May 9 through May 18, 2025, The Concertgebouw will host a grand Mahler Festival for the third time. After Mahler Festivals in 1920 and 1995, all of Mahler's symphonies will once again be heard in the Great Hall. They will be performed by the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, among others, which was once conducted by Mahler himself. A host of top soloists and choirs devote themselves to these monumental works, led by conductors such as Iván Fischer and Jaap van Zweden. More information about the Mahler Festival can be found here.