NSO: Ní Ríain, Mahler

National Symphony Orchestra
Jessica Cottis conductor
Karen Cargill mezzo-soprano 
Samuel Sakker tenor 
 
Ailís Ní Ríain The Land Grows Weary of its Own [Irish Premiere]
NSO co-commission with BBC Radio 3 and Manchester International Festival.
Mahler Das Lied von der Erde 

Two works which speak of a deep love of life and living and of the world in all its riches. Three superb artists who are widely praised on the operatic stage, Jessica Cottis, Karen Cargill and Samuel Sakker. 

Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde is a profound and exquisitely beautiful song cycle from a man facing his own end and recognising how precious this world is. Inspired by the lyrics of U2’s A Sort of Homecoming, Ailís Ní Ríain imagines ‘a world that is wearied by the actions and inactions of its human destructors’, and in particular, ‘the effects of climate change on birds’.

Did you know?

Ailís Ní Ríain is deaf/hard of hearing and unable to hear birdsong. Her work imagines what birds sound like and is a response to the threat of climate change on avian life.

The texts of Mahler’s last song cycle were inspired by ancient Chinese poems dealing with the beauty of the natural world and the inevitability of death.

Recognising its scale and intricacy, conductor Leonard Bernstein called it Mahler’s ‘greatest symphony’.

Mahler himself, conscious of falling health, wrote its last lines poignantly concluding with the repeated phrase ‘Forever, forever…’.

Listen out for…

How Mahler switches between the emotional force of the full orchestra (in the first, fourth and sixth songs) and the almost chamber-like intimacy that mark the others.

How he alternates tenor and mezzo-soprano voices to chart and illustrate the cycle’s rollercoaster ride of emotions torn between light and darkness.

The desolate oboe that haunts the opening of the extended last song, and the heartbeat silence before the mezzo’s resigned entrance.

Presented by NCH