While leafing through his newly composed song symphony Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”), a song of praise to the twilight zone between life and death, Gustav Mahler put his finger on a few bars from the eerily beautiful closing movement. “What do you think?”, he asked a friend. “Can you endure it? After hearing this, won’t people spontaneously kill themselves?” Ensemble Oxalys performs Mahler’s musical testament in a lavish chamber music version, with the beautiful voices of mezzo Christianne Stotijn and tenor Mati Turi.

Programme

Gustav Mahler
Das Lied von der Erde (arrangement: Arnold Schönberg & Rainer Riehn)

Christianne Stotijn, mezzo
Mati Turi, tenor
Oxalys