Symphony concert 3

»Smooth flatness all around.« Felix Mendelssohn ingeniously translated the »calm sea« from Goethe’s poem of the same name into music – just as he did the rustling wind after the ship »Fortunate Voyage« picks up speed and the waves rise up again. The sky above Gustav Mahler is also blue: the prevailing tone of his Fourth is »the uniform blue of the skies«, which is »more difficult to paint than all changing and contrasting shades«. He put »the cheerfulness of a higher and, for us, unfamiliar world« into music »that holds something eerie and horrifying.« A celestial soprano solo in the final movement proclaims the »heavenly life«: »There is just no music on earth / that can compare to ours.« The exceptional soprano Chen Reiss will perform the balancing act between divine joys and worldly turmoil. She can also be experienced in Mozart’s extraordinary concert aria KV 550, in which Idamante pledges fidelity to his Ilia: »Fear nothing, my beloved«! Mozart composed this masterstroke for an esteemed soprano and himself. As Mozart once did, conductor Lahav Shani will conduct this aria from the piano.