17 October 2019
Over 200 musicians and singers for NZSO’s massive Mahler concerts
One of music’s most ambitious and grandest symphonies will be performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with two internationally acclaimed soloists and choirs in Wellington and Auckland next month.
Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is one of the Austrian composer’s finest works and one of his largest, requiring
more than 100 musicians, a soprano and mezzo-soprano, and a choir of more than 120 singers.
The two performances will be the NZSO debut of Swedish mezzo-soprano Anna Larsson, renowned for her interpretations of Mahler, and lauded American soprano Lauren Snouffer. To meet the colossal scale of Symphony No. 2 Resurrection, the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir will join with the Orpheus Choir for the Wellington concert, and Auckland Choral
for the Auckland concert.
The performances will also be a milestone for conductor Edo de Waart. The Resurrection programme, part of Maestro de Waart’s Masterworks series, marks his last concerts after four years as NZSO Music
Director before commencing as NZSO Conductor Laureate in 2020.
Maestro de Waart says the Resurrection Symphony made Mahler famous and revealed the composer’s genius. “The result is a
100 per cent masterpiece,” says Maestro de Waart. “It will be a wonderful ending for my years as Music Director.”
Larsson, who has worked with the Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, New York
Philharmonic and other leading orchestras, made her international debut in 1997 performing the Resurrection Symphony
with the Berlin Philharmonic. She is now considered a leading performer of Mahler’s works.
Her engagements this year included an acclaimed performance of the Resurrection Symphony with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic at the Edinburgh International Festival. Critics praised Larsson for bringing “gravitas and a deep sense of
humanity” to the work.
Over the past decade Snouffer has been hailed as one of the most versatile and respected young sopranos on the
international stage. Her many engagements over the next 12 months include performances with leading orchestras and opera
houses.
Next year she makes her Opernhaus Zürich debut as the lead in the world premiere of Swiss composer Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Mahler once said to Finnish composer Sibelius that “a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” The
Resurrection Symphony, which premiered in 1895, over five movements wrestles with the big themes of life and death.
Mahler’s conducting notes for his score emphasise the symphony’s scale and complexity, including the instructions “with
maximum power”, “always massive, mighty, powerful” and “heartfelt and intimate”.
The original score for the Resurrection Symphony broke auction records for a music manuscript three years ago when it
sold at Sotheby’s for £4.5 million (NZ$9.1m).
Resurrection
MAHLER Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Resurrection
EDO DE WAART Conductor
LAUREN SNOUFFER Soprano
ANNA LARSSON Mezzo-soprano
VOICES NEW ZEALAND CHAMBER CHOIR
ORPHEUS CHOIR OF WELLINGTON (Wellington only)
AUCKLAND CHORAL (Auckland only)
WELLINGTON | Michael Fowler Centre|Friday 22 November| 6.30pm
AUCKLAND | Town Hall| Saturday 23 November| 7.30pm
ends