BBC Philharmonic - Mahler Symphony No. 4

On dreams, dreaming, and nightmares

Saturday 24 October 2026 7.30pm

Book Tickets
https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co.uk/52754/52778

The Bridgewater Hall

Tickets £12.00 to £42.00

(All ticket prices include £3.25 booking fee)

Students (limited availability)£6.50
Senior citizens & claimants 10% off (excl. booking fee)
Under-30s (limited availability)30% off (excl. booking fee)

To book wheelchair seats or other access requirements please email supervisors@bridgewater-hall.co.uk or call the Box Office on 0161 907 9000

Event Timings Auditorium Doors: TBC
Concert Start: TBC
Interval: TBC
Concert Finish: TBC

Timings will be updated closer to the concert date. Please check the website on the afternoon of the performance for up-to-date information. All timings are approximate and are subject to change.

BBC Philharmonic - Mahler Symphony No. 4

Book Tickets

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
John Storgårds conductor Alina Ibragimova violin Sheva Tehoval soprano

Cassandra Miller Swim Felix Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 4

If Mahler’s first three world-encapsulating symphonies come from an adult’s point of view, his fourth wonders how a child’s perspective might be different. But the childhood dreams Mahler weaves are not all naïve. Though we eventually arrive at Mahler’s childlike vision of heaven – In Das himmlische Leben, the part he composed first – menace and terror are present too.

To create Swim, Cassandra Miller took two chords by Robert Schumann, repeated them until they blurred, and then took them through a series of variations as suggested in an essay on swimming by the poet Anne Carson. Miller’s abiding image – of Robert Schumann, swimming in Carson’s Canadian lake – could only come from the mind of a committed dreamer.

In 1838, Felix Mendelssohn wrote to violinist Ferdinand David, describing ‘an E-minor theme that keeps running through my head, preventing me from thinking about anything else.’ From Mendelssohn’s dream came one of the great violin concertos.

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