Organization

Conductor

Sebastian Weigle

Instrumentalist

Melina Mandozzi

Violin

Singer

Mezzo-soprano

Claudia Mahnke

Mezzosopran

Tenor

Issachah Savage

Orchestra

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

Das Lied von der Erde

Bergen

Norway

Grieghallen

Griegsalen

Das Lied von der Erde: Poster

Public

Kunstnerens fortvilelse foran de antikke fragmenters storhet

Romance for Violin and Orchestra in F Major No. 2, Op. 50

The Song of the Earth

Approved

Das Lied von der Erde: Kunstnerens fortvilelse foran de antikke fragmenters storhet Hagen, L. P. (+2 More)

Gustav Mahler’s late works constitute a moving farewell to life, more loving and content than tragic and bitter. Nowhere is that better heard than in Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler’s culminating synthesis of song and symphony. It is the first work Mahler wrote knowing he was soon to die - an examination of the questions and paradoxes of life in the form of six songs possessed of extraordinary clarity and depth.

Sadness and exultation, celebration and resignation mingle in Mahler’s unfathomably beautiful songs, sung here by Issachah Savage and Claudia Mahnke under the baton of the Frankfurt Opera’s Sebastian Weigle. It is hard to think of a work that can sit easily with Mahler’s ‘Song of the Earth’ but one that can is The Artist’s Despair Before the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins by Norwegian composer and director of the Bergen Festival, Lars Petter Hagen. This resonant and witty piece reflects on the power and legacy of untouchable works of art just like Mahler’s, and comes before Melina Mandozzi’s performance of Beethoven’s impeccably graceful second Romanze for violin and orchestra.

norsk

The evening's opening work was written for the Oslo Philharmonic in 2010. Lars Petter Hagen has borrowed the title Artist's despair before the grandeur of ancient fragments from a painting by the Swiss Johann Heinrich Füssli, and precisely explores the contemporary encounter with the great masters and the classical canon.

"This is the most personal thing I have written," Mahler is said to have said to his friend about this gigantic work. A synthesis of symphony and song, about life's great emotions, about pain and loneliness, but also about youth and beauty, written towards the end of life. Das Lied von der Erde is in many ways Mahler's farewell to the world.

Our concertmaster Melina Mandozzi is the soloist in Bee

English

Das Lied von der Erde by Hagen, L. P., Beethoven, Mahler, From (2023/2023), Conductor Sebastian Weigle, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Ensemble

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues