Orchestre des Champs-Elysées by Various, sek 15 geg 2022, Nuo (2022/2022), Dirigentas Philippe Herreweghe, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, France

Das Lied von der Erde(The Song of the Earth) inaugurates Mahler's last style and was composed in the summer of 1908 at the end of the most dramatic two years of the composer's life which had seen him lose his beloved daughter, leave the direction of the Vienna Opera and learn of the heart disease that was to take him away in the spring of 1911. An ideal fusion of Lied and symphony, the orchestra here is adorned with an intimate refinement that is close to the spirit of chamber music. The voices are treated there as real instruments in their own right of the orchestra, creating a perfect balance between the legibility of the song and the orchestral power. Originally, the work was written for tenor and baryon, but the female contralto and mezzo voices have often found a dream setting here. It is also one of Mahler's most famous pages, hailed by nearly 150 different recordings since its creation (including the legendary version by Kathleen Ferrier and Bruno Walter in 1952). Magdalena Kožená could not resist it and she recorded it in turn in 2018 under the direction of Simon Rattle with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. One can only salute the dramatic power of the mezzo theca when listening and its intelligence of the text which works wonders there.