Lucerne Festival Orchestra 4

An exciting debut: Sir Simon Rattle, the charismatic British conductor, will lead the Lucerne Festival Orchestra for the very first time! For his inaugural appearance with the ensemble, he has chosen a work that could hardly be more attuned to the Festival’s “Open End” theme. Gustav Mahler’s moving Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”), which marks the beginning of his late work, is a farewell to the beauty of this world and at the same time offers consolation with its pantheistic vision of the unity of humanity, nature, and the cosmos. Everything continues, even after death. “The dear Earth, everywhere it blossoms in spring and greens anew!” proclaims the mezzo-soprano at the end. “Everywhere and forever, the light of the distance is blue.” Mahler has the voice merge entirely with the orchestra, couched in the ethereal timbres of celesta, harp, and mandolin. The First Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich, a Mahler admirer, in contrast sounds more earthy and burlesque, an early stroke of genius by a 19-year-old composer. With exuberant delight in his own imagination, Shostakovich combines wit and pathos, echoes of Wagner and Russian folk songs, a funeral march and a waltz: he was always a brilliant ironist.