Stravinsky Apollon Musagète (1947 version) Mahler Symphony No 4 Berliner Philharmoniker Sir Simon Rattle conductor Christine Schäfer soprano Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker’s London concert series continues tonight in the Barbican Hall. Stravinsky wrote his ballet Apollon Musagète for a new production by George Balanchine which featured costumes designed by Coco Chanel. Scored for an orchestra of just 34 stringed instruments, the ballet is a masterpiece of restraint and extraordinary beauty and was described by Diaghilev as "music somehow not of this world, but from somewhere else above’. How was Mahler to follow his monumental, universe-encapsulating Third Symphony? The answer, confounding many a critic, was with his shortest symphony, the Fourth Symphony, which is a comparatively intimate, neo-classical work, opening with sleigh-bells and concluding with a child's vision of heaven sung by a soprano. The fourth movement, taken from Mahler's earlier song-setting, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is here sung by soprano Christine Schäfer, her voice a perfect match with the elegant beauty of Mahler's setting. Her fellow visitors from Germany – the Berlin Philharmonic – need no introduction. Nor, indeed, does their British conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, one of today's leader Mahlerians. The musical relationship between the star British conductor and one of the most prestigious of all ensembles is keenly followed by all music lovers in pursuit of rich rewards.