Manfred Honeck & Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra - Mahler: Symphony No. 4 (2010) [SACD]

This new 2-channel Hybrid SACD recording of the Fourth Symphony in G Major is the second release by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and its new director of music Manfred Honeck in a series of recordings of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. The singer featured in the last movement is the Korean soprano Sunhae Im.

The Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck began his career as conductor of Vienna's Jeunesse Orchestra which he co-founded, and as assistant to Claudio Abbado with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Vienna. After several highly successful guest appearances as conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he was appointed its ninth Music Director in 2008.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G Major was written between 1899 and 1901. The last movement incorporates a song for soprano entitled "Das himmlische Leben" which was originally written in 1892, and presents a child's vision of Heaven. The symphony has a neo-classical structure and, due to the reduced orchestra size, offers a seemingly simple and naive sound world. The effect of the music however is a strange mixture of the eerie and the idyllic, and this brings a distinctive mood to the work.