Edinburgh International Festival 1999 To understand his third symphony,
Mahler told a friend, 'you would have to plunge with me into the very depths of nature". He wrote it during the summers of 1895 and 1896 in the foothills of the Alps near
Salzburg. The scale of the work - it is his longest symphony - seems to reflect both the scale of the mountain landscape which surrounded him and his subject matter: the idea that the whole of nature is animate and extends in a great chain of being towards God the creator.
Michelle DeYoung (mezzo), Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior
Chorus, Edinburgh Festival Chorus, BBCSO, conductor Bernard Haitink Mahler Symphony No 3