Gastkonzert: Mdr-rundfunkchor In Frankfurt – Alte Oper, Frankfurt am Main

About this event

Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony ranks among the most expansive, sonically powerful, and breathtaking symphonies ever written for the concert hall—an overwhelming work that pulls out all the stops in both expression and forces. Soprano and alto soloists, a large chorus, organ, harps, vast percussion, and, from afar, a second group with horns, trumpets, timpani, and percussion—this calls for a conductor who shapes the sound like an architect. The Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan is an ideal choice: he excels at structure and balance, yet also at letting go at the right moment. “Ecstasy yes, but always controlled,” is how he once described his Mahler conducting. “As a conductor you must beware of enjoying him too much.” Together with the First Symphony, presented a few weeks earlier by Susanna Mälkki, this “Second” illuminates Mahler’s “breakthrough into the unheard-of”: the early symphonic work of a composer who opened spaces for the genre that none before him had dared to imagine.

Cast & creative

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  Soprano

  Chen Reiss
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  Alto

  Michaela Schuster
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  Conductor

  Philippe Jordan
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  Composer

  Gustav Mahler
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  Librettist

  Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock