Neuland.Lied | Zyklen und Kreise

The triple on Saturday evening: three epochal cycles have been put on the program by the two master interpreters of lieder. An die ferne Geliebte from 1816 is the first significant compilation of its kind par excellence. The cycle has been called »a tremendously extended song« because the six pieces are especially carefully combined into musical unity. Beethoven set verses by Alois Jeitteles, a gentleman from Brno who was completely unknown as a lyricist, but whose content corresponded directly with his own longing for the »immortal beloved«.

Schumann's Liederkreis op. 39 (1840), based on poems by Joseph von Eichendorff, is considered one of the high points of Romantic song writing; the composer himself called it »my most Romantic«. Here it is the poetic density of the natural moods between nocturnal magic, melancholy and loneliness that provides emotional unity.

In 1884/85, Gustav Mahler, who was in his mid-twenties, took up not only Schubert's Wanderer theme, but also the imagery of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Even the early piano version conveys the dramatic force of Mahler's late Romanticism, which makes the composer an orchestral visionary par excellence.

Concert with intermission

In cooperation with Heidelberg University

Neuland.Lied is sponsored by