A German Soprano Finds Freedom In Singing Mahler In America

On this Sunday’s Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcast, Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts works by Britten and Strauss, along with Mahler's Symphony No. 4. As WRTI’s Jim Cotter reports, the German soprano in the Mahler work is singing a piece that is revered in her homeland.

http://youtu.be/Pbk1geolj78

The soloist in Mahler's 4th shows up in the last movement to sing "Das himmlische Leben," (The lovely paradise), which describes a child's vision of heaven. But soprano Christiane Karg says that in the context of this symphony, the song’s naïve simplicity is tinged with more than a touch of cynicism.