Mahler 8

Mahler Festival: Concertgebouworkest and Klaus Mäkelä - Mahler's Symphony No. 8

Klaus Mäkelä has been artistic partner of the Concertgebouw Orchestra since 2022 and will become chief conductor in 2027. Earlier in this festival, he already conducted the First Symphony, today the Eighth. The Concertgebouw Orchestra shares the stage with no fewer than four vocal ensembles: the National Radio Choir, Laurens Symphonic, the Choeur de l'Orchestre de Paris and the National Children's Choir.Mahler wrote to his friend Willem Mengelberg that his Eighth Symphony was his greatest work ever. 'All the other symphonies were anticipating this.' Moreover, he experienced it as if the piece of music was dictated to him in a vision. In two monumental movements, Mahler says he sings of the entire universe. 'There are no longer human voices sounding. They are planets and suns, revolving in their orbits.' Practically speaking, it is also a rather voluminous work. Mahler did often need very many performers, and in this Mahler's 'symphony of a thousand', there are close to four hundred. Or more: in 1912, Mengelberg conducted a version with two thousand musicians and singers.

Mahler Festival: Concertgebouworkest and Klaus Mäkelä - Mahler's Symphony No. 8

Klaus Mäkelä has been artistic partner of the Concertgebouw Orchestra since 2022 and will become chief conductor in 2027. Earlier in this festival, he already conducted the First Symphony, today the Eighth. The Concertgebouw Orchestra shares the stage with no fewer than four vocal ensembles: the National Radio Choir, Laurens Symphonic, the Choeur de l'Orchestre de Paris and the National Children's Choir.Mahler wrote to his friend Willem Mengelberg that his Eighth Symphony was his greatest work ever. 'All the other symphonies were anticipating this.' Moreover, he experienced it as if the piece of music was dictated to him in a vision. In two monumental movements, Mahler says he sings of the entire universe. 'There are no longer human voices sounding. They are planets and suns, revolving in their orbits.' Practically speaking, it is also a rather voluminous work. Mahler did often need very many performers, and in this Mahler's 'symphony of a thousand', there are close to four hundred. Or more: in 1912, Mengelberg conducted a version with two thousand musicians and singers.

Mahler Symphonie No. 8 with Philippe Jordan

Mahler Symphonie No. 8 with Philippe Jordan

Haas and Mahler

Pavel Haas (1899–1944) and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) emerged from similar roots in the Bohemia that is now Czechia: Haas from Brno and Mahler from Kaliste, 120 kilometers away. Both were Jewish, but Haas hailed from a Moravian-Jewish family and Mahler from an Austrian-Jewish one.Pavel Haas was deported during World War II to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, later to be murdered in Auschwitz. His only symphony remained unfinished. It wasn't until half a century later that the remaining material was orchestrated, and the work premiered in 1998. Haas' creative output is characterized by Bohemian and Jewish influences, with elements of folk music and jazz. The symphony is a remarkable, staggering piece.If darkness pervades Haas' symphony, Mahler's fourth symphony is brighter, lyrical, and playful. It's been dubbed "sky blue" at times, and the fourth movement features a soprano solo: "Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden," "We enjoy the heavenly pleasures."The soloist is our latest soprano star in the international music scene, Christina Nilsson. Conducting this captivating program with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is the American conductor Joshua Weilerstein, noted for his championing of rare works.

Haas and Mahler

Pavel Haas (1899–1944) and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) emerged from similar roots in the Bohemia that is now Czechia: Haas from Brno and Mahler from Kaliste, 120 kilometers away. Both were Jewish, but Haas hailed from a Moravian-Jewish family and Mahler from an Austrian-Jewish one.Pavel Haas was deported during World War II to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, later to be murdered in Auschwitz. His only symphony remained unfinished. It wasn't until half a century later that the remaining material was orchestrated, and the work premiered in 1998. Haas' creative output is characterized by Bohemian and Jewish influences, with elements of folk music and jazz. The symphony is a remarkable, staggering piece.If darkness pervades Haas' symphony, Mahler's fourth symphony is brighter, lyrical, and playful. It's been dubbed "sky blue" at times, and the fourth movement features a soprano solo: "Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden," "We enjoy the heavenly pleasures."The soloist is our latest soprano star in the international music scene, Christina Nilsson. Conducting this captivating program with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is the American conductor Joshua Weilerstein, noted for his championing of rare works.

Mahler and Nielsen

The concert begins with Demon by the British-American composer Freya Waley-Cohen (born 1989) – a co-commissioned work by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra premiered in 2023 by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She found inspiration in old folk tales from the British Isles, chilling stories where a demon can manifest anywhere - here as both menacing and playful orchestral music.Menacing indeed. Mahler's heartbreaking Kindertotenlieder – Songs on the Death of Children – has tragic points of connection with Mahler's own life, and the composition would also come to seem like a premonition: a few years later, Mahler's eldest daughter Maria died. The poems by Friedrich Rückert that Mahler chose deal with the parents' grieving process and the slow reconciliation with a painful reality. The world-renowned Nina Stemme is the soloist in this poignant music.Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra's chief conductor Ryan Bancroft leads the orchestra in this program, which concludes with Carl Nielsen. Nielsen's Fourth Symphony is subtitled "Det uudslukkelige" (The Inextinguishable). It's dramatic music written in the midst of the First World War, famous in part for its duel between two timpanists.Read more about chief conductor Ryan Bancroft

Mahler and Nielsen

The concert begins with Demon by the British-American composer Freya Waley-Cohen (born 1989) – a co-commissioned work by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra premiered in 2023 by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She found inspiration in old folk tales from the British Isles, chilling stories where a demon can manifest anywhere - here as both menacing and playful orchestral music.Menacing indeed. Mahler's heartbreaking Kindertotenlieder – Songs on the Death of Children – has tragic points of connection with Mahler's own life, and the composition would also come to seem like a premonition: a few years later, Mahler's eldest daughter Maria died. The poems by Friedrich Rückert that Mahler chose deal with the parents' grieving process and the slow reconciliation with a painful reality. The world-renowned Nina Stemme is the soloist in this poignant music.Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra's chief conductor Ryan Bancroft leads the orchestra in this program, which concludes with Carl Nielsen. Nielsen's Fourth Symphony is subtitled "Det uudslukkelige" (The Inextinguishable). It's dramatic music written in the midst of the First World War, famous in part for its duel between two timpanists.Read more about chief conductor Ryan Bancroft

Elder conducts Mahler

Goodnight, Vienna: Sir Mark Elder conducts Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, as the BBC Symphony Orchestra brings its season to an unforgettable close.

Daniel Barenboim conducts Mahler

Throughout the 60-year span of his collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Daniel Barenboim has never conducted the music of Gustav Mahler. Until now. Two late works can be heard, beginning with the expressive Adagio from the unfinished Tenth Symphony. Painful melancholy prevails here, as it does in Das Lied von der Erde (Songs of the Earth), which looks back on the lost beauty of life. Formally located between a song cycle and a symphony, this work was, according to Mahler, “probably the most personal thing I have done so far”.