This weekend (Friday 9 and Saturday 10 at 7 pm), two of today’s most acclaimed and captivating singers, baritone Ian Bostridge and soprano Dorothea Röschmann, will be joining the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra to perform one of the major works by Gustav Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn). The concert will be conducted by Marta Gardolińska on her OBC debut.

Featuring one of the greatest scores by Gustav Mahler, and of the entire Lieder repertoire, performed by two of the most outstanding singers of the genre, the concert can be followed live on L’Auditori Digital.

Mahler based the cycle on a collection of German folk poems and songs, Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder (The Boy’s Magic Horn: old German songs), compiled in 1805. The composer arranged a total of twelve pieces between 1892 and 1898, which went on to be an endless source of inspiration for his symphonies.

The programme is completed by Witold Lutosławski’s Little Suite, a youthful, lively work replete with references to Polish folklore. It was composed shortly after the first performance of his First symphony. The avant-garde language of this work was highly controversial, while the communist authorities deplored it for its perceived formalism. In Little Suite, the composer showed how free expression is possible by playing with the limits imposed by those in power.