It is the grand return of the much-loved former chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in the orchestra’s 125th anniversary season. And Philippe Jordan will be bringing along no less a work than Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony, the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’. The greatest success the composer ever experienced: the applause at the premiere in Munich in 1910 lasted 20 minutes.

Mahler himself considered the 8th Symphony to be his most important work. ‘Imagine that the universe begins to sound and resound. It is no longer human voices, but planets and suns orbiting,’ he wrote about the symphony to the conductor Willem Mengelberg.

The concerts, with a large-scale cast – three choirs, eight vocal soloists and an orchestra of well over a hundred instrumentalists, will take place on November 7, 9 & 10 at the Vienna Konzerthaus.