Saariaho
Lumière et pesanteur (first performance at the Proms)
Mahler
Rückert-Lieder
Symphony No 4 in G major
Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano
The Met Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Reviewed by: Nick Breckenfield
Reviewed: 27 August, 2026
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London
You might think that a virtually all-Mahler concert would demand larger-than-life orchestral forces, but the Met Orchestra, for its second concert in its debut appearances at the Proms, was somewhat slimmed down from the orgiastic forces required for Richard Strauss the previous night. With some principal players changed also (though not the concert-master, Benjamin Bowman), the other notable change was Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s jacket – here with a harlequin pattern (though all in black) as opposed to the sparkly number for Strauss. Tonight the sparkles were sported by Joyce DiDonato, with a large colourful flower embossed on her black dress.
The opener paid tribute to Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. It’s now over three years since her untimely death, and the orchestra who collaborated with Saariaho most recently on Innocence her last opera, wanted to bring a tribute in recognition of the work they do with contemporary composers. Lumière et pesanteur (‘Light and Gravity’) is an offcut from her La Passion di Simone (2006), specifically from the eight section. Light was epitomised by chiming percussion led by vibraphone, a glistening introduction to a short solo trumpet melody before an amorphous body of shifting chords took over, as if Holst’s Saturn had been diffused through a prism. Never rising above a whisper and beautifully controlled by conductor and players alike, this nebulous musical structure, notwithstanding lines crystal clear instrumental lines, didn’t outstay its welcome.
The rest of the evening was given over to Mahler, first his five Rückert-Lieder, not really conceived as a cycle, but effectively delivered as such tonight with DiDonato’s exemplary diction and exquisite accompaniment by Mahler’s modest orchestral requirements, particularly cor anglais player Pedro R. Diaz, who duly got his solo call at the end. Mahler’s songs traverse light to dark – the opening Blicke mir nicht die Lieder, playfully describing his own working methods of not wanting anyone to see his music until it was complete, with the gentle fragrance of Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft and the four grades of love elucidated in Liebst du um Schönheit, turning darker with the final two songs, Um Mitternacht and – particularly, a premonition of Der Abschied in Das Lied von der Erde – Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen, Mahler’s orchestration as spare as anything in his works. DiDonato was attuned to every nuance of Mahler’s settings and her reception was thunderous.
Of course, the most diminutive of Mahler’s symphonic utterances – the Fourth Symphony – also ends in heaven, as had Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. Before that the playing had been exceptional too. From where I was sitting, the orchestral balance was nigh-on perfect, between the various climaxes, including the first movement passage that presages the triplet trumpet motif that opens the Fifth Symphony, and much softer interplay. Concert-master Bowman was master of two violins in the second movement, the second tuned differently to give a rustic folk feel, and the sonorous, slow third movement grew into the sequence of climaxes organically. And so, finally, to the child’s view of heaven, as voiced by DiDonato, though this time from aside the harp above the double basses on Nézet-Seguin’s left, from where she sat through the whole performance. Somewhat brighter than the song cycle’s final setting, it left the audience in a palpable ecstasy.
Once again, Nézet-Séguin – after generous orchestral call outs (not forgetting the horns, as he had done the previous night) – offered a sung encore. What could be more appropriate than Urlicht – in the original Des Knaben Wunderhorn setting with no trombones, given they hadn’t been on stage for the Symphony (they do play a bar in the guise of the fourth movement of his Second Symphony)? Who needed a late-night Prom devoted to Ultimate Calm? DiDonato, Nézet-Séguin and his Met Orchestra had provided the most luscious of orchestral highways to radiance and rapt contemplation.
Read Rob Pennock’s review here: https://www.classicalsource.com/prom/bbc-proms-2026-the-met-orchestra-plays-mahler-with-yannick-nezet-seguin-another-view/