Tomas Hampson
has played at the world’s most prominent concert halls and opera houses with the most well-known singers, conductors and orchestras. He has an extraordinary-sized repertoire, and along with his many opera roles he is regarded in the music world as one of the most competent performers of song literature, primarily of the works of
Schumann, Mahler, and Wolf
. This evening he will sing Mahler’s Songs on the Death of Children in his wonderful baritone, conducted by Domonkos Héja.
Haunted by tragic premonitions, Mahler was expecting that his life would end with Symphony No. 9. “The fundamental mood of Symphony No. 10 is the certainty, the pain and the mocking of death…” – writes Mahler’s widow in the preface of the symphony’s surviving manuscripts.
The Adagio of the symphony
, which was planned to be a five-movement piece, is worthy of its author, of his flowing passion and true romantic poetry.
Friedrich Rückert was inspired to write his 428-piece song cycle, serving as the basis of
Songs on the Death of Children
, also by Mahler, by the untimely death of two of his children. Mahler picked five poems from Rückert’s cycle for his work, composed between 1901 and 1904, which will be performed by American baritone and celebrated song and opera singer Thomas Hampson.
Schubert started composing the symphony known as “
Unfinished
” and erroneously numbered eighth in October 1822. The manuscripts were lost, and were only found in 1865, years after the composer’s death. The surviving drafts reveal that Schubert didn’t plan for the symphony to only have two movements, but he did not get to finish the third. At the concert featuring the works of Mahler and Schubert, the orchestra of Concerto Budapest will be conducted by
Domonkos Héja
, founder of the Danubia Symphonic Orchestra and former music director of the Hungarian State Opera.
