In 2013, Jörg Widmann composed his first—and to date his only—song cycle. Das heiße Herz (“The Hot Heart”) is based on the works of a wide range of authors, including Clemens Brentano, Heinrich Heine, Klabund, and Peter Härtling, as well as lesser known poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Christian Immler and Andreas Frese, who have won acclaim for their collaboration on the cycle’s premiere recording, perform Widmann’s songs opposite works by Schumann and Mahler.
“No other composer has had a more profound influence on me and taught me more than Gustav Mahler,” says Thomas Hampson. Having won universal acclaim for his performances of Mahler’s songs, the baritone has also immersed himself in the composer’s life more thoroughly than almost any other singer. Joined by his longtime piano partner Wolfram Rieger, he takes the audience on a musical journey to Mahler’s eventful times that also includes works by his contemporaries Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander Zemlinsky, Anton Webern, and Richard Strauss, as well as his personal companion and wife Alma Mahler.
In an extraordinary and highly personal program, mezzosoprano Fleur Barron and pianist Kunal Lahiry explore the echoes of global colonial history in music and poetry. Artists who share dual Asian and Western heritages, they examine diverse perspectives of identity and belonging, repression and freedom, in both familiar and lesserknown works from the past 150 years.
On the operatic stage, Austrian mezzosoprano Sophie Rennert is acclaimed for her portrayals of Baroque heroines—including her celebrated debut as Galatea in the staged production of Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo in November 2023 at the Pierre Boulez Saal. Together with pianist Joseph Middleton, she now gives voice to her other great passion: the lied repertoire. In addition to a selection of works by Franz Schubert, the duo performs Mahler’s moving Rückert Songs.
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