The Indian conductor Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra’s 2018 Asian tour with Zubin Mehta was voted No.1 in the “10 Top Concerts 2018” by Japanese critics. In January 2020, he conducted the memorial concert of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for their late chief conductor Mariss Jansons. This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on 28 February and 1 March 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

The Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony no.5 in E minor, op.64, the so-called “Fate Symphony”, in 1888. It was composed within just a few weeks at his country house Frolovskoye near Klin, and the first performance took place on 17 November 1888 in St. Petersburg with Tchaikovsky himself conducting. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. For the opening movement Tchaikovsky wrote: “Introduction. Complete surrender to fate or, which is the same, to the inscrutable predestination of Providence. - Allegro: grumbles, doubts, complaints, reproaches.” The third movement, a quiet waltz, is the only one in which the fate motif appears peripherally. In the finale, it is finally transformed into D major, forming a solemn conclusion. Together with his Fourth and Sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the Fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem Mazeppa is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth Etude d'exécution transcendante from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on 16 April 1854 (the subject bearing no relation to Tchaikovsky's opera Mazeppa, based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin, which was premiered three decades later). Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.