Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor

Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 witnessed a surge in popularity due to its presence in the film Death in Venice by the celebrated Italian director Luchino Visconti. Inspired by the eponymous short story by Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann, Visconti not only borrows the languid, twilight tones of Mahler’s composition, but also models his protagonist on the figure of the German composer. The plot, in fact, narrates the tale of composer Gustav von Aschenbach’s burning passion for an ethereally beautiful boy, Tadzio. In Mann’s novel, we read: “Aschenbach understood once again with pain that if language can celebrate beauty, it is incapable of expressing it!” These very words echo the lines Mahler wrote for his wife, Alma: "Wie ich Dich liebe, Du meine Sonne, / ich kann mit Worten Dir's nicht sagen" ("All the love I have for you, my ray of sunshine, I can't convey in words"). Fortunately, as the saying goes, music can take you where words cannot: that is the grand achievement of Symphony No. 5! Listen to this immortal declaration of love in music on medici.tv.