Karina Canellakis with Mahler's First Symphony

Karina Canellakis leads the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler's grand First Symphony. Also on the program is music by two fascinating female composers.

Compositions by two women
Two female composers are the focus of the first half of this program. Henriëtte Bosmans was the first woman in the Netherlands to successfully profile herself as a composer from the very beginning. The romantic Poème for cello and orchestra was her first major orchestral work. Soloist is French cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière, 2017 winner of the first cello edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition.
Dame Ethyl Smyth was not only a composer but also an advocate for women's rights in England. Her opera The Wreckers, of which On the Cliffs of Cornwall is the prelude to the second act, had such quality that Mahler took the initiative to perform it with his Vienna Court Opera.

Mahler's First Symphony
The second half of this concert with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by principal conductor Karina Canellakis is devoted entirely to Mahler's First Sym phony. "A symphony must be like the world, it must encompass everything," a statement by the composer that he more than lives up to in his symphonic first. It is an orchestral journey that begins sweetly with the awakening of nature and continues across the highest peaks and deepest valleys of life. But when you are in danger of plunging into the hellish abyss, Mahler brings you to the glorious heights of paradise in the finale.