One last movement to say goodbye
Farewell
Symphony Concert
Program
JOSEPH HAYDN [1732–1809]
Symphony No. 45 in F sharp minor, Farewell Symphony
GUSTAV MAHLER [1860–1911]
The Song of the Earth
In the final symphonic concert of the season, the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin says farewell with two works whose extraordinary final movements deliver a brilliant and bittersweet goodbye: while the lights go out one by one in Joseph Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, an entire world seems to fade in the twilight with Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth.
According to legend, the court musicians of the wealthy Prince Esterházy were so overcome with homesickness during the gruelling summer of 1772 that Haydn devised a musical protest: in the final movement of his Symphony No. 45, he instructs the musicians, one after another, to stop playing, stand up with their instruments, and leave the concert hall.
By contrast, Mahler achieves his farewell not by thinning out, but by darkening: in the last movement of The Song of the Earth, he bids the world a mesmerizing adieu. It was in 1908 that this master of foreboding composed a symphonic song cycle using poems adapted from ancient Chinese sources, reflecting a deep admiration of nature—a work he would not live to see premiered in 1911.
JOSEPH HAYDN [1732–1809]
Symphony No. 45 in F sharp minor, Farewell Symphony
GUSTAV MAHLER [1860–1911]
The Song of the Earth
In the final symphonic concert of the season, the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin says farewell with two works whose extraordinary final movements deliver a brilliant and bittersweet goodbye: while the lights go out one by one in Joseph Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, an entire world seems to fade in the twilight with Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth.
According to legend, the court musicians of the wealthy Prince Esterházy were so overcome with homesickness during the gruelling summer of 1772 that Haydn devised a musical protest: in the final movement of his Symphony No. 45, he instructs the musicians, one after another, to stop playing, stand up with their instruments, and leave the concert hall.
By contrast, Mahler achieves his farewell not by thinning out, but by darkening: in the last movement of The Song of the Earth, he bids the world a mesmerizing adieu. It was in 1908 that this master of foreboding composed a symphonic song cycle using poems adapted from ancient Chinese sources, reflecting a deep admiration of nature—a work he would not live to see premiered in 1911.