Mahler Is banquet

A Feast for Eyes and Ears involves a cultural dialogue transcending time and space, between Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) poet Li Bai, late-Romantic Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), contemporary Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang, and Chinese theater director Li Liuyi. Playing on Sunday at the Poly Theater, it is a project of the 14th Beijing Music Festival, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of Mahler. Conducted by Yang Yang, China Philharmonic Orchestra will perform Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) and Ye's work of the same title. At the same time, under the direction of Li, a group of dancers and actors will perform against the backdrop of a video interacting with the performance.

"The performance will try to visualize the abstract images from the musical works, in the hope that we may 'see' music," says Li, who is best known for his collaborations with composer Guo Wenjing on innovative Peking Operas and a ballet adaptation of The Peony Pavilion with the National Ballet of China.

Nine performers, including ballet, contemporary and traditional Chinese dancers, as well as Peking Opera actors, will take the stage of The Song of the Earth, alongside vocalists Yuan Chenye, Xu Xiaoying, Warren Mok and Liao Changyong.

An actor, at times an alienated outsider and then a more involved character in the performance, will recite Tang Dynasty poems in both Chinese and English.

It was in 1908 that Mahler conceived The Song of the Earth, after being inspired by a compilation of translated Tang Dynasty poetry by German poet Hans Bethge.

At the time, Mahler had just resigned the artistic directorship of the Vienna Court Opera, and was suffering from his eldest daughter's death and his own congenital heart defect.

The collection of Chinese poems, depicting various stages in life, resonated with Mahler's increasing awareness of mortality, and he chose seven of them to be lyrics for The Song of the Earth, which he termed "a symphony for tenor and alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra".

Mahler's use of pentatonic scales in the third movement Of Youth (Von der Jugend) is an example of musical "Chinoiserie" - a recurring theme in European artistic styles that reflect Chinese artistic influences.