Dedicated to you

‘How I love you, my sunshine.’ Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is a love letter. The work was composed over two summers on the shores of Alpine lakes. In 1901, the composer was recovering from an illness earlier that year that had brought him to the brink of death, and by the following summer he had returned to Austria in a completely different frame of mind, accompanied by his new wife Alma. The symphony takes the listener on an emotional journey from a funeral march to the Adagietto dedicated to Alma. Shostakovich, for his part, composed his first cello concerto for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich. The virtuosic and thrilling solo part is performed by Andreas Brantelid. The concert is conducted by Christian Kluxen, a former principal guest conductor of the TPO and a well known performer to Turku audiences.