SIR MARK ELDER

British maestro Sir Mark Elder opens the OCV's season ticket concert series with two major works of Central European symphonic music. Mozart premiered Symphony No. 38 during his first visit to Prague, a city that had given an extraordinary reception to his Marriage of Figaro. Some melodic echoes of the famous opera appear veiled in this masterful score, which exudes artistic maturity, formal balance and surprising contrasts. A century later, Mahler transformed the symphony into a deeply personal, introspective and philosophical medium, as evidenced by Das Lied von der Erde, a symphony for tenor, contralto (or baritone) and orchestra, structured in six orchestral Lieder based on Chinese poems, where text and music merge to explore the human condition from within the soul, in the voices of the Mahlerian and expressive American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and British tenor David Butt Philip.