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Cast
Diana Damrau — Soprano
Petra Lang — Contralto
Pierre Boulez — Conductor
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Program notes
In Berlin, Pierre Boulez conducts Symphony No. 2 by Mahler: a lesson.
It's a story about conductors. It was while attending the funeral of the famous orchestra conductor Hans von Bülow and hearing the choir sing "Resuscitate" that Gustav Mahler got the idea for the end of his second symphony, the composition of which had proved particularly long and difficult.
It is this work that the famous conductor Pierre Boulez chose to direct in March 2005 to celebrate his eightieth birthday at the initiative of Daniel Barenboim, the musical director of the Staatskapelle in Berlin.
At that date, the French conductor had already worked on Mahler for several years, since in 1996 he recorded all of the symphonies over a period of ten years (for Deutsche Grammophon). On March 26, 2005, in the concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, with the soprano Diana Damrau, the mezzo Petra Lang and the Staatskapelle of Berlin performed a memorable version of Symphony No. 2.
