In the complete edition compiled by BR-KLASSIK, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of its long-time principal conductor Mariss Jansons explores Mahler's symphonic oeuvre. This complete recording of Mahler's impressive symphonies is further enhanced by revealing rehearsal recordings and interesting interviews.

In his nine symphonies, Gustav Mahler built up an entire world for himself and his listeners. More than almost any other composer, he tried in his symphonic works to get to the very bottom of the cycle of life, that eternal process of becoming and expiring – so what better complete set of symphonies to express the finest qualities of a modern-day conductor and the unique sound of a leading orchestra?

Mariss Jansons found simple and clear words to express what it was that so fascinated and moved him about Mahler's music throughout his life. He said that the composer’s work always related to what was universal and contained absolutely everything that exists in the world. In his symphonies, said Jansons, Mahler captured nature, faith, love, death, pain, tragedy, happiness, humour, utopia, irony, sarcasm – everything that makes up human existence. Jansons regarded his music as posing questions that ultimately every thinking person has to ask, and everyone can find something in it where they recognise themselves as if in a mirror. There are nevertheless no definitive answers in Mahler, "nothing triumphant that is at one with itself." When he first encountered Mahler’s music, this experience struck Jansons like a bolt from the blue. He felt that "he was in heaven" – and was, as he himself put it, never disappointed. Gradually, he developed into one of the leading Mahler conductors of his era. The fact that he had the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks as a partner here – an orchestra that can look back on a long Mahler tradition - was certainly a very fortunate coincidence (its former principal conductor, Rafael Kubelík, had founded the orchestra's Mahler tradition in the early 1960s). Deeply respectful of the Munich orchestra's vast experience of Mahler’s music, Jansons waited three years after taking up his post as its principal conductor before conducting a Mahler symphony for the first time. In 2006, he opened with the extremely complicated Fifth (which he had already guest conducted with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in 1995), and displayed something that would also go on to characterise his later Mahler interpretations: a balance between emotionality and control that was in many ways ideal, combining maximum intensity with a keen sense of just how far to go in terms of expression. Over the years, Jansons performed all of Mahler's symphonies in Munich, conducting only the Fifth and the Seventh a second time, each with a ten-year break in between.

In addition to the recordings of Mahler's nine symphonies, this 12-CD box set from BR-KLASSIK also includes 2 bonus CDs with revealing rehearsal recordings of the Third (2010) and Fifth symphonies (2016), a concert guide to the Seventh, and interviews with Jansons on the Fourth (2010) and seventh symphonies (2007). Jansons's fascination with Mahler's music is vividly conveyed in his comments during rehearsals and in the interviews.