In 2016, I wrote in relation to Asher Fisch’s Mahler 2 with West Australian Symphony Orchestra that “his mastery of both the work’s massive architecture and its often-exquisite minutiae was nothing short of miraculous”.

Asher Fisch conducts Mahler’s Third Symphony, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, 2022. Photo © Rebecca Mansell

Two years later, we had Fisch’s equally impressive take on Mahler’s shorter, chamber-like Fourth Symphony. Of that performance, Laura Biemmi noted for Limelight that “WASO has achieved some of its finest music making under Fisch’s baton and with Mahler’s symphonic scores; their performance of Mahler 4 is no exception”.

Finally, on Friday night, Mahler’s gargantuan Symphony No 3 in D minor (1896) came steaming into a packed Perth Concert Hall like a Titanic without the tragic end.

Just looking at Mahler’s score and scoring is dizzying enough: 254 pages. An orchestra including quartets of flutes, oboes, bassoons trumpets and trombones, eight horns, an expanded percussion section. Strings? Basically, as many as you can fit on stage. Then there’s the addition of an alto soloist and women’s and boys’ choirs – though admittedly a reduction in vocal forces from the...