Following the success of volumes 1-3, Simon Gaudenz conducts the Jenaer Philharmonie in the fourth of a series of recordings of the complete Mahler Symphonies, interspersed with world-premiere recordings of pieces by Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini that reflect each symphony and pay homage to Mahler's soundworld.

This fourth volume features Mahler's gargantuan Symphony No. 8 bookended by Scartazzini'sAnima and Enigma, both composed in 2024, before concluding with Mahler's deeply moving and valedictory Symphony No. 9.

Mahler's symphonies represent an extraordinary body of work, and it is fascinating to hear them contrasted and commented upon by a new piece specially created to shed light on or pay tribute to that symphony. Since 2018, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini has been Composer-in-Residence with the Jenaer Philharmonie, in which role he has been writing these new companion pieces to each of Mahler's symphonies, which are being performed in Jena as a cycle in chronological order.

Reflecting Mahler's use of Goethe's Faust as the inspiration for Part II of his extraordinary Symphony No. 8, Scartazzini's Anima is a setting of Goethe's Song of the Spirits over the Waters. Mahler's epic vision for this symphony, at the time marketed as the 'Symphony of a Thousand', begins with a setting of the medieval hymn 'Veni, Veni Creator' in a vast work in which the chorus is integral throughout, joined by an orchestra of unprecedented scale and a host of soloists articulating the work's central theme of redemption.

Of Enigma, Scartazzini explains: "My Enigma is more strongly modelled on Mahler's language than any other piece in this cycle. The late Romantic harmony and slow tempo create a reference to the fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony, especially to the final adagissimo bars with which the work fades away. In Enigma, the music rises higher and higher until it finally disappears completely." Mahler's Ninth Symphony is more introspective than the Eighth, with a finale that is one of the most devastatingly beautiful in the repertoire. This latest volume in this series of recordings encapsulates the breathtaking scope that makes Mahler's music so endlessly fascinating.