Join us on Sunday, April 13 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you works by Gustav Mahler and Jake Heggie. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Mahler’s last completed symphony, the Ninth in D major. The program opens with Songs for Murdered Sisters by one of today’s most celebrated composers of vocal music, Jake Heggie.
Heggie’s work features Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins, who commissioned this searing song cycle as a memorial tribute to his sister, Nathalie. She was one of three women killed in a single morning in 2015 by a former domestic partner. Though the subject matter of the cycle is heartbreaking, its music and words are achingly beautiful.
Hopkins and Heggie approached Margaret Atwood, one of the most eloquent writers of our time, for a libretto. She, too, had known women who met a fate similar to Nathalie’s, and responded with deeply personal poetry evoking a kaleidoscope of emotions and memories that accompany the sudden and violent loss of someone dear. Atwood’s libretto inspired exquisite music from Heggie, and Hopkins has performed the resulting song cycle to great acclaim. Yannick says that Hopkins has sung the cycle “as a way of paying tribute, but also raising awareness of the violence against women. This is such a touching story that yet again, proves that the music we do is something that really has to do with realities of now.”
Yannick adds that he paired the Heggie and Mahler works on this program specifically to focus on the personal expression of farewell. Gustav Mahler composed his final completed symphony at a time when he was haunted by loss. One of Mahler’s beloved young daughters had died, and his marriage was suffering. He had left his prestigious but contentious position as head of the Vienna Court Opera. And as if all this were not enough, he was staring down his own demise, as he had just been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition. Mahler was superstitious about ninth symphonies: He was well aware that for Beethoven, Schubert, and Bruckner before him, their ninth symphonies had been their last. So perhaps it’s understandable that a sense of impending death pervades much of this work. The first and final movements are slow, long, poignant, and moving, filled with nostalgia and that feeling of farewell. They frame two fast central movements with a dance-like and ironic character.
After finishing this deeply nostalgic symphony, and despite the warnings of his doctors about his heart condition, Mahler plunged into a busy period of conducting in New York City, with new positions at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. He made it midway through his second season in America before his weak heart forced his retirement. Within a few short months he died, at age 50. He never rehearsed or performed his Ninth Symphony.
PROGRAM:
Heggie: Songs of Murdered Sisters
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D Major
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Joshua Hopkins, baritone
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer
Tyler McClure: Broadcast Engineer
Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts every Sunday at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, streaming at WRTI.org, on the WRTI mobile app, and on your smart speaker. Listen again on Mondays at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2. Listen for up to two weeks after broadcast on WRTI Replay.
