The Song of the Earth

A spatial performance based on Das Lied von der Erde by Gustav Mahler 

A freestyle artistic venture about the existential connection between humans and nature. A healing promenade, almost like an afternoon walk. An almost primeval, inner, psychotherapeutic conflict that makes peace with the determinism of co-existence.

In the spatial performance The Song of the Earth, the ensemble musicians are positioned at key locations along the main walking path on the island of Agios Achilleios in Small Prespa Lake,  performing solo pieces by Billone, Xenakis, Murail, Saariaho, Yun, Hosokawa and other composers. The walk will end at the location of the reconciliation ritual, the partially demolished niche of the Agios Achilleios basilica, with the performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde [The Song of the Earth], in Schoenberg’s arrangement. 

The audience’s unconfined wandering across the natural landscape and their almost random encounters with solo musical snippets from modern music of the past few decades, places them in the spotlight, almost at the centre of a contrast. The more, however, they move forward, the more they realize that all that is made with empathy and respect can co-exist in harmony. The conflict is increasingly weakening. At the end of the path, as the sun sets and Mahler’s music echoes in the 10th-century basilica, the audience not only loves each other, but also themselves.