“In Mahler you have to find the balance between chamber music and explosions”
The first question is always the same – if you remember when you heard the music of Gustav Mahler for the first time?
Nelsons: You know, it’s very interesting. The first time I consciously heard the music of Gustav Mahler – I’m sure I must have heard it earlier, but the first time I was aware that it was Gustav Mahler – was when I heard his Symphony No. 1 on a tape. At the time I was very interested in nature sounds, in music about nature. I had recordings of water sounds and of bird songs, and one day I asked somebody what music they could recommend to listen to if I liked that kind of music, just out of interest. This person was not a musician, but he gave me a tape and said ‘There is this one composer …’ He had forgotten the name, but it was Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. The beginning, this chord of strings, it is also a sound of nature, absolutely … [sings]. This was the first piece by Mahler that I heard, I think I was maybe 11 or 12 years old, and I fell in love with Mahler’s music. It’s interesting that it grew out of my love to, and interest in, nature. It also came because I was doing martial arts at the time, I started quite early and I wanted to meditate to different music, to think and to relax [laughs]… Afterwards, in music school, we studied all the symphonies, and then of course I started to play them myself in the orchestra. So I played the Symphony No. 1 and other symphonies and then conducted them myself. But the first influence was Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and it was through a love of nature that I encountered his music.
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