Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at Carnegie Hall

In the midst of writing his Fifth Symphony, Gustav Mahler’s life changed: He met Alma Schindler, the beautiful daughter of a renowned landscape painter, herself a composer and the woman who would inspire him for the rest of his life. The Fifth contains what might be called Mahler’s “greatest hit”: The Adagietto, often performed as a stand-alone piece, is a hymn to his love for Alma, rapturously slow and caressed by lustrous strings and harp.