This is heaven, not in glory and grandeur, but through the eyes of a child.
The heavenly life – Das himmlische Leben , is a song Mahler wrote eight years before he finished his Symphony No.4. By incorporating it into the symphony, Mahler created a finale that was unlike anything in the existing repertoire, a movement for solo soprano and orchestra.
It was also unlike any of Mahler’s previous symphonies; “all humour, naïve”, as the composer wrote in a letter to his wife, Alma. Where Mahler’s first three symphonies are works of enormity, in both scale and emotional depth, the fourth favours delicate shades and textures over power and sheer volume. It’s a symphony that leaves a listener with a feeling of ethereal tranquillity.
Opening with Wagner’s Tannhaüser Overture, which is at once solemn, tender and transcendent, Jaime also leads the orchestra in an Australian premiere of an MSO co-commission.
Australian composer Brett Dean is one of the most respected composers in contemporary classical music. The Brisbane-born, Berlin Philharmonic Composer-in-Residence sets English poet Carol Ann Duffy’s words to music in The World’s Wife , reimagining the famous stories of men through a feminine perspective. Some of the figures include Mrs Darwin, Frau Freud, Queen Herod and Anne Hathaway.
The piece premiered at the 2026 BBC Proms with Claire Booth as soloist, who joins us in Melbourne for both the Australian premiere of Dean's work and Mahler's Fourth Symphony.
