Programme Guide

Listening to it, it is easy to concur with Mahler’s assessment. For although Das Lied von der Erde exudes a certain exotic strangeness through the use of 8th century Chinese poetry, the listener always has the feeling of being addressed directly and intimately by the composer. Firstly, because Mahler forgoes the gigantic orchestral forces of his symphonies, and secondly, because the listener always feels that the sadness of these songs is not a pose. Mahler, who was already terminally ill at the time of composition, poignantly expresses his farewell to life.

The final scene from Leoš Janáček’s operatic fable The Cunning Little Vixen which opens the concert, reveals fascinating parallels to Das Lied von der Erde. Janáček, born like Mahler in what today is an area of the Czech Republic, creates a wonderfully delicate scene in which the Forester ponders life – and in turn bids farewell to youth and beauty.