Performers
- Agata Zubel soprano
- The NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra
- Ernst Kovacic conductor
Programme
Alma Mahler Five Songs (Fünf Lieder, arr. Agata Zubel) [13’]
The silent town (Die stille Stadt)
In my father’s garden (In meines Vaters Garten)
Mild summer night (Laue Sommernacht)
I feel warm and close with you (Bei dir ist es traut)
I wander among flowers (Ich wandle unter Blumen)
Alma Mahler Four Songs (Vier Lieder, arr. Agata Zubel) [11’]
A nocturnal light (Licht in der Nacht)
Woodland rapture (Waldseligkeit)
Storm (Ansturm)
Harvest song (Erntelied)
Gustav Mahler Songs of a Wayfarer (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, arr. Ernst Kovacic) [17’]
When my love has her wedding-day (Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht)
I walked across the fields this morning (Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld)
I’ve a gleaming knife (Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer)
The two blue eyes of my love (Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz)
Gustav Mahler Songs after Rückert (Rückert-Lieder, arr. Ernst Kovacic) [20’]
If you love for beauty (Liebst du um Schönheit)
I breathed a gentle fragrance (Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft)
I am lost to the world (Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen)
Do not look into my songs! (Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!)
At midnight (Um Mitternacht)
Concert description
Until recently, Alma Mahler remained on the margins of music history. She was remembered as the mother of Manon Gropius, after whose untimely death Alban Berg wrote the Violin Concerto To the Memory of an Angel, and especially as Gustav Mahler’s wife, who, just for him, gave up her musical ambitions and focused on fostering the musical community centered around her artistic salon.
She played the piano from childhood, and studied composition with Josef Labor and Alexander von Zemlinsky. She wrote chamber music, piano music, and even an opera scene. However, only 17 songs for voice and piano, often arranged for orchestra (she destroyed some of the manuscripts herself!) have survived to this day. She even published 14 of them under the names Schindler-Mahler and Mahler. Despite several marriages and love affairs, she considered herself Gustav’s wife until the end of her life.
In addition to symphonics, the most important part of Gustav Mahler’s work was songwriting. The song cycles based on Rückert’s poetry, the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and his own words are considered, along with the works of Hugo Wolff or Richard Strauss, the most powerful and important works in this genre in late Romanticism.
– Dominika Micał, “Ruch Muzyczny”