For anyone not yet familiar with Mahler’s music, his epic 5th Symphony makes an ideal ‘first date’. In this work, the composer was finally read to leave behind his quest for answers to the big life questions, and to focus with all his might and optimism on life.

The result is intense music that reflects both the force of nature of the Austrian mountains and his love for his wife Alma - in a moving Adagietto that has become world-famous thanks to Visconti’s film Death in Venice.