Where the Shining Trumpets Blow: Payare Leads Bruckner No. 4

Rafael Payare, conductor
Matthias Goerne, baritone
San Diego Symphony Orchestra

MAHLER: Selections from The Boy's Magical Horn (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, WAB 104, “Romantic”

Few literary works had as significant an influence throughout the 19th century as The Boy's Magical Horn (Des Knaben Wunderhorn); its mix of everyday experience and the supernatural and bizarre were a perfect match for the Romantic movement. Mahler, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, used these texts as the basis for his own creation, evoking the lives and feelings of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

(Of the dozen or so songs that Mahler orchestrated in this collection, six of them will be heard on this concert: "Rheinlegendchen," "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen," "Das irdische Leben," "Urlicht," "Revelge" and "Der Tambourg’sell".)  

Bruckner’s spacious symphonies are filled with images of the countryside and high mountains of his native Austria; his Symphony No. 4, “Romantic” is especially loved for its magnificent writing for the horns, using these instruments to suggest wild huntsmen riding across a landscape.

Gustav Mahler's beautiful melodies evoke the lives and feelings of ordinary people in extraordinary times. Mahler’s much-loved teacher was Anton Bruckner, whose gloriously spacious symphonies are filled with images of the green countryside and high mountains of his native Austria.