BBC Proms 2020 Season - Leonard Bernstein conducts Mahler's Fifth Symphony [1987] (320kpbs .mp3)

In 2020, BBC Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Proms concerts.

BBC Proms: Bernstein appeared only twice at the Proms. In tonight’s selection from the Proms archive, we hear the first of those appearances, from 1987. Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, with its sublime slow movement, is the composer at his sunniest and most mellow, despite the fact that he was to die two months after its completion. Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a work especially associated with Bernstein, is by contrast the urgent work of a composer starting a new adventure, charged with new musical possibilities and a new love, expressed with impossible tenderness in its famous Adagietto.

Presented by Ian Skelly

01. Mozart - Clarinet Concerto in A major, K622
01a. Introduction to the Bernstein prom
02. Mahler - Symphony No 5 in C sharp minor
02a. Introduction to Mahler and interview with Bernstein
Peter Schmidl (clarinet)
Vienna Philharmonic
Leonard Bernstein (conductor)

(From the BBC Proms 1987, 10 September)