After some 20 minutes spent playing this old chestnut, the brass section and everyone else in the orchestra was ready to turbo-charge the Mahler after intermission. One of the marks of a great conductor, such as Muspratt, is an ability to sense things that will enhance his orchestra’s music making. Muspratt several times spoke about the “fine orchestra” on stage. He allowed the first horn to enter on her own in the opening movement to make music on her own terms and one other time.

Conductor Muspratt at these moments did not feel the need to “show off” with useless dramatic sweeps of his baton. Muspratt used long pauses between the five parts of the Mahler 5th. These pauses, some as long as a minute, allowed the players and audience let the last played notes fade from our mind and cleared the way for the thrills to come.

Mahler, who lived at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, absorbed all the romanticism of the past and married it to the erupting violence of the new age of the first military-industrial-governmental complex. This clash of cultures was Mahler’s musical speciality. Mahler’s symphonies are full of the most gorgeous waltzes that exist side by side with dark, dissonant waltzes.

Tracings of the two giants of music both called Richard Strauss and Wagner, find their way into Mahler’s music. His symphonies are complex and episodic that race hot and cold between sweetness and tragedy. But always at the core of Mahler’s music are expressions of physical and romantic love. Mahler’s Adagietto, the 4th section of this symphony, is a great example of his passion for romantic love.