David Bernard, Park Avenue Chamber Symphony - Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (2022)

Recursive Classics has announced the upcoming release of Mahler's Symphony No. 5, featuring David Bernard leading the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony. This album will be available on December 2nd, 2022 at all major retailers, download sites and streaming services.

Mahler's Fifth represents this intersection of two important changes in the composer's conception of the symphony. First, unlike in his earlier set of Wunderhorn symphonies that telegraph context and meaning through embedded text or quotations of songs with related text, in the Fifth, Mahler leaves us without an explicit word-music connection. Second, through the Fifth, Mahler realizes his vision for a new symphonic style that focuses on contrapuntal transparency.

"In conceiving his Fifth Symphony, Mahler was absolutely obsessed with the horizontal dimension and contrapuntal transparency," says Conductor David Bernard. "The proximity of the genesis of the Fifth and Mahler's deep dive into the works of Johann Sebastian Bach may have been the catalyst for this new style-a style that pervades the work on both the micro-level-featuring pronounced linear voicing crafted and propelled through careful succession of consonance and dissonance, and on the macro-level-featuring flamboyant contrapuntal episodes and a finale that brings a tour-de-force display of Mahler's own 'Grand Style'-evoking Mozart's similar display of contrapuntal prowess in the Finale of his "Jupiter" Symphony."

TRACKLIST

1. David Bernard - Symphony No. 5: I. Trauermarsch. In gemessenen Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt
2. David Bernard - Symphony No. 5: II. Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz
3. David Bernard - Symphony No. 5: III. Scherzo. Kräftig, nicht zu schnell
4. David Bernard - Symphony No. 5: IV. Adagietto. Sehr langsam
5. David Bernard - Symphony No. 5: V. Rondo-Finale. Allegro