This is a re-release of the SWRmusic bestseller 93.164, containing Mahler's Symphony No.4 - one of his most famous and beloved works, here conducted by Roger Norrington, famous for his "Stuttgart Sound." Though it was writing in 1899 and 1900, Mahler's Symphony No. 4 incorporates a song that was originally written in 1892, "Das himmlische Leben." The song presents a child's vision of heaven, and it is sung by a soprano in the work's fourth and final movement. Sir Roger Norrington was born in Oxford, and comes from a musical University family. He was a talented boy soprano, studying the violin from the age of ten and singing from the age of seventeen. He read English Literature at Cambridge University, and spent several years as an amateur violinist, tenor singer, and conductor, before attending the Royal College of Music as a postgraduate student of conducting, studying with Sir Adrian Boult. Norrington's work on scores, orchestral sound and size, seating and playing style has had a growing effect on the perception of 18th- and 19th- century orchestral music. He is in great demand as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras worldwide, working regularly with orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London.