Orchestre National de France Bernard Haitink (conductor) After a superb Mahler Sixth (following his already legendary Pelléas et Mélisande ), this third release with Bernard Haitink in the Radio France series is once more devoted to the great Austrian composer. Written during the summer months of 1901 and 1902 at a time of great happiness for Mahler (it is dedicated 'to my dear Alma', whom he had just married), the epic Fifth Symphony inaugurates the central trilogy of the composer's symphonic output. Like many of his works, it follows a course from darkness to light, from the powerful opening Funeral March, with its searing trumpet calls, to the boundless joy of the concluding Rondo. In between, the dumbfounded listener is steered through the storms of the second movement, the whirling Scherzo, and finally the intense meditation of the Adagietto. The latter movement for strings and harp, which has become world-famous since Visconti's film Death in Venice, constitutes one of the supreme tests for any Mahler conductor, who must breathe life into every note of a piece that is virtually motionless. A challenge taken up in masterly fashion by Haitink at the head of an Orchestre National de France in top form, possessed from start to finish by the irreplaceable thrill of the concert hall.