‘Belgian National Orchestra, Hermus & Karg’

Richard Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder are a haunting tale of farewell and death. The 84-year-old composer wrote these songs in Switzerland in 1948, just after the Second World War - which had left the whole of Europe in ruins - and in the knowledge of his own imminent end.

Where Richard Strauss stoically accepts his own finitude and that of the world, Gustav Mahler, in his Seventh Symphony, makes the opposite journey; from a dark night to the bubbling light of life. In the fifth and final movement, Mahler does everything in his power to welcome the dawn. From apotheosis to apotheosis, the jubilant final movement soon degenerates into a "sich zu Tode feiern".