The Recital Hall is dedicated to Mahler’s most beautiful songs during the Mahler Festival. Perhaps the most important song accompanist of the moment, pianist Julius Drake, flanks his favourite vocalists. Today, these are Feride Büyükdenktaş and Stuart Jackson. Together they sing the moving Das Lied von der Erde, in Mahler’s own version for two vocalists and piano.

Six narrative movements make up Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. He based the songs on texts about nature, death and life. He used ancient Chinese texts in German translation. A ‘drinking song on the earthly vale of tears’ is the start of a stirring series of reflections on farewell and new beginnings. Das Lied von der Erde was written for two voices. Today you will hear Feride Büyükdenktaş, a Turkish mezzo-soprano who has already shone on the major opera stages of Vienna, Stuttgard and Istanbul. British tenor Stuart Jackson gets jubilant reviews at home, and is now more and more often singing across the globe.