Benjamin Britten wrote about the concluding "Abschied" of : "It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful."

Just perfect. Singer, conductor, orchestra (and English horn player!) are IDEAL!

26:30 might be the most exquisite music ever written.

Absoluta maravilla. Una de las cimas de la historia de la música.

Ottima fusione tra canto e orchestra. Larsson possiede una autentica voce drammatica , plastica ed insinuante nei colori orchestrali. Ottimo il conduttore.

Exquisite!

Excelente, maravilhoso, encantador.

"relentless negativity" (previous comment) is a phrase attributed to various music critics who couldn't compose their way out of a paper bag. Mahler did apparently remark that people would go home and "shoot themselves" after hearing it. But he was joking! You don't put your entire musical life in front of people without having some doubt about how it will be received. It's up to the listener in the end. I see the work as positive, realistic, an optimistic view of life itself. Die liebe Erde allüberall Blüht auf im Lenz und grünt aufs neu! Allüberall und ewig blauen licht die Fernen! Ewig... ewig...

She makes it look so effortless. Is there an Anna Larsson fan club I can join?

EXCUISIT. indeed. Ms, Larsson.

The best version after bruno Walter , Kathleen Ferrier and julius Patzak ... From afar ! ... forget others ... Anna Larsson , incredible voice . i discover today and my brain is really twisted ... Listen also the beautiful voice ( mezzo-soprano ) of Jean Rigby , so near from kathleen Ferrier , very sensitive and so respondent , in another " registre "... Roger B : Thank you very much for that !

Devine.

"Para muchos es el testamento sinfónico del autor, formado por 6 canciones, de manera que las 5 primeras, juntas, suman un tiempo similar a la duración de la sexta: La Despedida".

❤

And so at the very last three minutes of this 60 minute work, the celeste finally gets to play. And does that make a huge difference/impact on the ending.

Not since the Ferrier/Walter recording have I been so moved. My only qualm is what I take to be the effects of multi-miking but I soon forgot that.

Does anyone know when this fantastic version has been recorded?

Surely the longest and most poignant farewell in the history of music.

I don't know why, but Anna Larsson in this recording sound extremely pitchy to me.

Si on a Ferrier dans l'oreille, ça ne passe pas, belle voix, mais où est l'émotion ?

Anna Larsson's performance is stupendous. Better to just listen to the music and not to watch the video, besides the video's quality being poor (too dark and unfocused), one sees Larsson generally conferring with the sheet music ... Bernard Haitink's interpretation is emotionally undercooked from my perspective, the orchestra's resultant performance a touch too silky, lacking the sense of the momentousness of a terminal event. One could understand this last song as Mahler's attempt to reaffirm his unrequited love for Alma, that, despite their divorce, it will last "ewig", for ever. The motif at 11:25 is adopted from the Adagietto of the 5th symphony. "Der Abschied" can thus be sensed as a coda in every sense of the word to the "love letter" of the Adagietto.