Release album “Love Symposium”
February 12, 2026
The recording has been released today by Deutsche Grammophon and features Bernstein’s Serenade (after Plato’s “Symposium”), alongside works inspired by love, lyricism, and reflection, including Mahler’s Adagietto in a new chamber arrangement by Iain Farrington, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, Elgar’s Salut d’amour, and Never Enough from The Greatest Showman.
Esther Yoo on her new CD:
“We often think of love in music as something purely romantic and idealized. I wanted to create a sound world where we experience real love.”
“Love Symposium” explores love in all its guises - philosophical, personal, painful, transcendent.”
The chamber version of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is an indispensable entry in any musical meditation on love. Often described as Mahler’s love letter to his wife, Alma, the piece unfolds with a beauty in which time itself seems to stand still. Reflecting on the arrangement, Yoo notes:
In reimagining such a universally known work, we consciously took a certain risk, performing it with just nine players and without a conductor. It may sound familiar, yet fresh.