About this recording:

On 18.May 2011 was the 100th anniversary of Gustav Mahler's death. I had hoped that by that time I would have a new music rendition of another movement from his symphonies, but the weeks before 18.May I had been occupied with other things and had not found any time. So the big anniversary came - and I had nothing. Except the finalisation of the rendition of Symphony No.1. But in the evening, when I looked through my music scores of Mahler's symphonies, I noticed that the "Urlicht" was only 6 pages,and to be played slow. That means few notes, and it might be doable on one evening. so I started at 20:09 with the rendition, and was finished around 3:00.

The score has no tempo or metronom annotations, except a few ritardandi and "nicht schleppen". The latter means "do not drag", an indication that Mahler had intended that this movement should not be played too slowly. Many of the recordings I know play it very slow, but I decided to follow the original instructions and not to drag it. A faster tempo is also more suitable for an "electronic" renditions, because listening to looped samples for a long time is not too enjoyable...

Since there was no live mezzo-soprano around when I recorded this, I used a solo cello for this solo voice. If there is somewhere a female singer who would like to sing with my orchestra to complete this recording, please contact me!