One of the most beautiful song cycles, brought to life by Joyce DiDonato’s voice, and Mahler’s most Mozartian symphony crown the radiant program by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Dating from 2009, Lumière et Pesanteur is an arrangement—written as an offering to conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen—of the eighth station from the oratorio La Passion de Simone, inspired by the life and work of philosopher Simone Weil. Following this shimmering, bell-like piece by the great Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder (1901–02), based on poems by Friedrich Rückert, usher in a new kind of lyricism. His Symphony No. 4, written two years earlier, crowns the program. The most bucolic and transparent of all the Austrian composer’s symphonies ends with a vision of paradise, glorified by a voice of angelic tenderness. Performers Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano
Source: paris.fr — photo: Yannick Nezet Seguin © Evan Zimmerman