With Christianne Stotijn - mezzo soprano

Gustav Mahler surrounded by his compatriots Franz Schubert and Anton Bruckner.

Tickets

Program:
Franz Schubert (1797–1828) – Overture for String Quintet in C minor, D8
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) – Rückert-Lieder*
Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder
Liebst du um Schönheit
Mitternacht
Gustav Mahler – Blumine
Gustav Mahler – Rückert-Lieder*
Ich atmet’ einen Lindenduft
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Anton Bruckner – Intermezzo for String Quintet in D minor, WAB 113
Gustav Mahler – Lieder des Knaben Wunderhorn*
Verlor’ne Müh’
Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen
Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?

*Arranged for string quintet by Esther van der Eijk

Schubert was one of the pioneers of the Romantic Austrian musical tradition, a legacy that Mahler embraced more than half a century later and carried forward to the threshold of modernity. Mahler, in turn, was familiar with Schubert’s music and even arranged his famous string quartet Der Tod und das Mädchen for string orchestra. In the Rückert-Lieder, you can hear how Mahler builds upon what Schubert initiated. Their songs share unmistakable tonal worlds.

Serving as a bridge between these two musical poets is the deeply devout country boy Anton Bruckner. His music reflects heaven on earth—monumental, expressive, and spiritual. Gustav Mahler studied under Bruckner in Vienna. According to Mahler, his early works followed the path laid by the older master. Over time, he increasingly deviated from it, yet Brucknerian elements remain audible even in Mahler’s final compositions.

PENTA has arranged Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, Blumine, and selected songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn as a tribute to Gustav Mahler and as a continuation of a tradition in which Mahler himself participated, as evidenced by his arrangement of Schubert’s string quartet.

A program exploring the Romantic 19th-century values that inspired Schubert, Bruckner, and Mahler: love, loss, death, the relationship between humans and nature, and a connection to the supernatural.