Mahler: The Song of the Earth | Philharmonia Orchestra

Xian Zhang brings her charismatic energy to a programme embracing youth and beauty, old age and farewell, nature and renewal.

Mahler’s The Song of the Earth is a soul-searching journey. In six settings of ancient Chinese poems, he reflects on the transience of human life, the joys of young love, good wine and enduring friendship, and the eternal power of nature. Dame Sarah Connolly, one of the best-loved British voices in the opera world, shares Mahler’s spine-tingling vocal writing with Austrian tenor Andreas Schager.

To open the evening, Alina Ibragimova, renowned for the ‘immediacy and honesty’ of her playing (The Guardian), joins the Philharmonia as soloist. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto gives us the opportunity to enjoy many different facets of her skill – the expressive intensity of the first movement, and the lyrical serenity of the second, give way to boisterous good humour in the exuberant finale.