HEYWARD CONDUCTS MAHLER( EARTH | SONGS)
nature— and, indeed, of Vysoká— as fertile, life-giving, abounding joy.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals( pair), and strings.
Grace-Evangeline Mason
Born October 1994, in West Midlands, England Currently resides in the U. K.
AN EVERYWHERE OF SILVER [ 2026 ]
Composer’ s Notes: When composing An Everywhere of Silver for orchestra, I considered the vast, awe-inspiring environments we have here on earth, whether it be stark landscapes of ice or the seemingly unending depths of our oceans. It was the latter I was drawn to when I came across the poem of the same name by the American poet, Emily Dickinson( 1830 – 1886), and was inspired by the imagery in her words:
An everywhere of silver, With ropes of sand To keep it from effacing The track called land.
The poem presents a ceaseless yet fragile landscape, conjuring a sense of isolation and transience; the silvery expanse suggests a limitless surface, while the‘ ropes of sand’ serve as an ephemeral boundary attempting to contain, and protect, the ever-moving sea. The piece begins with large expanses of sound to suggest the vast depths of the dark ocean, which are separated by a fragmented melody presented in horns, followed by lower brass, to reflect the stark, minimalist imagery in the poem. This is contrasted with delicate figures in high woodwinds, celeste, harp, and metallic percussion to reflect the silvery surfaces swirling above. The music travels through a collage of contrasting sections of stillness and motion, with fragments appearing and dissipating throughout the orchestra, reflecting the changing nature of the sea and the shifting relationship between the sea and the sand, nature, and ourselves. There are more playful moments in the music as the sea traces, teases, and dances with the shoreline. The piece ends with an evocation of the waves; large sweeping strings lay the foundation for a strong statement of the melody in unison horns tracing above. An Everywhere of Silver highlights the importance and beauty of the ocean, as well as the cyclical nature of time, which cannot be halted, and the prevailing notion that nature is much bigger than ourselves.
— Grace-Evangeline Mason, 2026
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bassoon, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, bell plate, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel, rain stick, wind chimes, vibraphone, bass drum, ocean drum, tam tam, harp, celeste, and strings.
Gustav Mahler
Born July 7, 1860, in Kaliště, Bohemia Died May 18, 1911, in Vienna, Austria
DAS LIED VON DER ERDE [ 1908 – 09 ]
Gustav Mahler had early come to terms with the spectre of death, born the second eldest in a family of fourteen children, eight of whom died either in infancy or early childhood. In summer 1901, shortly after his own brush with death— an intestinal hemorrhage— Mahler composed the first, third, and fourth of his Kindertotenlieder(“ Songs on the Death of Children”), as well as the first two movements, including the opening funeral march, of his Fifth Symphony, both reflections of his abiding preoccupation with mortality.
Six years later, in the summer of 1907, these works would become tragically prophetic when his own daughter died at age four from scarlet fever and diphtheria. That very summer, Mahler received a troubling diagnosis, too: congenital heart defect. If the tone of his letters from this period is any indicator, he was soberly resigned to his fate, yet determined nonetheless:“ If I am to find the way back to myself again,” he wrote to Bruno Walter, his friend,“ I must surrender to the horrors of loneliness.” These grim circumstances set Mahler in the elegiac mood that would produce what he considered“ the most personal thing I have done so far”— Das Lied von der Erde.
Das Lied von der Erde(“ The Song of the Earth”) was composed between 1908 and 1909 on poetry from Hans Bethge’ s Die chinesische Flöte(“ The Chinese Flute”), adaptations of classical Chinese poetry. Integrating song cycle and symphony, the six movements articulate, to borrow the wisdom of Leonard Bernstein, Mahler’ s“ enormous love of the world, as nature, and the tug of having to leave [ the world ]; the ensuing bitterness of life; and the muddling through, as best one can— in Mahler’ s case, by song.” Das Lied von der Erde grapples with mortality abstracted to a degree previously unexplored in the earlier works.
In the opening movement,“ Drinking Song of the Earth’ s Sorrow,” the tenor extolls the eternal heavens and earth and bemoans humankind’ s fleeting enjoyment of earthly delights— before draining his golden goblet with a final return to the refrain:“ Dark is life, is death.” In the second movement, the alto senses a kinship in the melancholy of autumn’ s withering, desolate landscapes. In the third movement,“ Of Youth,” the tenor remarks on a scene of friends seated in a pavilion, briefly considering a warped perspective through their reflection in the little pool surrounding the scene. The alto sings“ Of Beauty” in the fourth movement, observing nature’ s enhancements to the attractions of young women picking flowers by the water’ s edge and of young men in the flush of youth. Another
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