State Orchestra Darmstadt under Daniel Cohen with Fazil Say

AWhen distance rules and contact restrictions only allowed small casts two years ago, the Darmstadt State Orchestra and its General Music Director Daniel Cohen reacted creatively. All of Gustav Mahler’s orchestral songs were heard in chamber versions in autumn 2020, including the “Lied von der Erde” with its six symphonic movements. Even then, the alto Lena Sutor-Wernich and the tenor Peter Sonn, both members of the Darmstadt ensemble, took over the vocal parts that Mahler had composed for Hans Bethge’s adaptations of Chinese poems. Both soloists were now also involved when Cohen subsequently submitted the original version of the work, completed in 1909, in the Great House of the Staatstheater.

Sonn, who was last seen as Lohengrin in Darmstadt, even added a heldentenoral nuance in the “Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde”, asserted himself against the lush instrumentation with a bright, metallic presence and astonishingly understandable text, sang the third movement, ” From youth”, but also with a lot of flexibility in the ornamental. Sutor-Wernich was convincing with its profound depth and sweeping vocal lines, especially in the extended last movement, “The Farewell”, in which Cohen brought the unusual color values ​​of the instrumentation to good effect and the orchestra maintained a transparency that even contained the nuances of harp and bass notes mandolin chirping.

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