End-of-Season Finale with Gaffigan
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 symphony concert of the season, the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin bids farewell with two works whose extraordinary final movements offer a brilliant and bittersweet farewell: While the stage lights go out in Joseph Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony,” Gustav Mahler, in his Das Lied von der Erde, lets an entire world fade into the light of farewell.
According to legend, the court musicians of the fabulously wealthy Prince Esterházy were already sick with homesickness during the long summer of 1772, when Haydn remedied the situation with a composed “warning strike”: For the final movement of his Symphony No. 45, he arranged for one musician after another to stop playing, extinguish his light, and leave the concert.
Everything also darkens when Gustav Mahler, in the final movement of his enchantingly beautiful Song of the Earth, takes his leave of the world. In 1908, the master of foreboding, driven by a deep admiration for nature, set ancient Chinese poems to music in a symphonic song cycle—a premiere he would, in fact, not live to see 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 symphony concert of the season, the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin bids farewell with two works whose extraordinary final movements offer a brilliant and bittersweet farewell: While the stage lights go out in Joseph Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony,” Gustav Mahler, in his Das Lied von der Erde, lets an entire world fade into the light of farewell.
According to legend, the court musicians of the fabulously wealthy Prince Esterházy were already sick with homesickness during the long summer of 1772, when Haydn remedied the situation with a composed “warning strike”: For the final movement of his Symphony No. 45, he arranged for one musician after another to stop playing, extinguish his light, and leave the concert.
Everything also darkens when Gustav Mahler, in the final movement of his enchantingly beautiful Song of the Earth, takes his leave of the world. In 1908, the master of foreboding, driven by a deep admiration for nature, set ancient Chinese poems to music in a symphonic song cycle—a premiere he would, in fact, not live to see in 1911.