John Williams makes references to poetry in his Horn Concerto, while Gustav Mahler set the texts of old Chinese poems directly to music in Das Lied von der Erde. This is ideal company for the singer Fleur Barron, a graduate of comparative literature studies who sees the propagation of diverse cultural influences and the merging of traditions as a long-term goal.
“When I’ve tried to analyse my lifelong love of the French horn, I’ve had to conclude that it’s mainly because of the horn’s capacity to stir memories of antiquity. The very sound of the French horn conjures images stored in the collective psyche”, says John Williams, explaining his love for the French horn. While writing the concerto, he was also at work on music for the third film in the Harry Potter series. The second movement also brings fantasy to mind; its title is based on a 14th-century Celtic poem: The Battle of the Trees.
Literature also played a part in the birth of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The composer had come into possession of the poetry collection Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute), translated into German by the poet Hans Bethge. Mahler began setting selected poems from the collection in 1907, during a difficult period when he was dealing with three blows of fate that came in quick succession. Under increasing pressure because of antisemitic attitudes, he resigned from his position as conductor of the Vienna Court Opera, his four-year-old daughter died, and he suffered a collapse, after which doctors diagnosed his defective heart valve.
“At one stroke I have lost all the clarity and reassurance that I ever achieved, and now at the end of life I must learn to stand and walk again as a beginner”, he wrote in a letter to his friend Bruno Walter about his feelings of loss and finitude, which are also present in his six-movement song cycle.
Joining tenor Andrew Staples for the performance is mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, who returns to the Rudolfinum after having sung Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder in February 2026.
