2023 Concert Season

Mahler 4

Sunday 2 April, 5.00pm
Due Drop Events Centre
Tickets through Evenfinda – Find Tickets Here

MOZART    IL SERAGLIO OVERTURE 🎧
STRAUSS    ORCHESTRAL SONGS (Zueignung, An die Nacht, Morgen!) 🎧
MAHLER    SYMPHONY NO.4 🎧

UWE GRODD Conductor
ANNA LEESE Soprano

A Mahler symphony is for any orchestra a symbol of maturity. His Fourth Symphony in G major, completed in 1900, is built around a single song – ‘Das himmlische Leben’ (The Heavenly Life) – which describes, with naivety, all the pleasures awaiting us in heaven. The song is prefigured in various ways in the first three movements and sung by a solo soprano in the final movement. MSO welcomes lyric soprano, Anna Leese, now based in Dunedin, to sing Mahler’s fervent and happy message.

Anna will also charm us with six of Richard Strauss’ exquisite and emotional orchestral songs. Delighting us with her richly coloured tone and ‘diamond-clear’ voice, Anna will take us through the human journey of love, longing, celebration and gratitude. Tonight features some of Richard Strauss’ most loved songs, including Morgen! (Tomorrow) – written as a wedding gift to his wife, one of his most well known and frequently recorded songs.

Mozart’s curtain raiser Overture to his opera Il Seraglio is characterised by the use of instruments – unusual for its time – such as cymbals, big (Turkish) drums, piccolo and triangles. With The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart created an orchestral ‘orientalist’ view into the life of a Turkish harem. It premiered on July 16, 1782, in Vienna and was a tremendous success.

Anna Leese
Soprano
Uwe Grodd
Conductor