NZSO Titan

Thomas Adès The Origin Of The Harp (NZ Premiere)
Korngold Violin Concerto
Mahler Symphony No. 1, Titan

We begin in a mythical world, where a sea nymph is transformed in Thomas Adès’ haunting and atmospheric The Origin of the Harp.

From such exquisitely misty transfiguration, we emerge into the dazzling, technicolour brilliance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto. Performed by James Ehnes, Gramophone’s 2021 Artist of the Year, his extraordinary spectrum of colour and articulation finds its perfect match in this beautiful neo-Romantic score.

At the time of writing his first symphony, Mahler was best known as a conductor. Titan emphatically announced his arrival as a composer of extraordinary talent, bursting, sun-like, above the horizon. From primordial strings, to clarinet cuckoo calls heralding a sumptuous dawn, to the work’s mercurial moods of joy, gloom, hell and heaven, this magnificent symphony is the sound of the boundless universe itself being born.