BBC SSO at Edinburgh International Festival 2026 EIF: Runnicles conducts Mahler’s Das klagende Lied

Seize a rare chance to hear Gustav Mahler’s epic cantata Das klagende Lied (The Song of Lamentation).

The Edinburgh Festival Chorus performs with a team of first-rate soloists and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of their former Chief Conductor Donald Runnicles, who is credited as making the orchestra sound ‘explosively alert’ (The Scotsman).

Mahler's Das klagende Lied is inspired by two chilling German fairytales and explores themes of fratricide and ghostly revenge. A jealous man murders his younger brother. When a wandering minstrel makes one of the victim’s bones into a flute, it sings the tale of the crime – with cataclysmic consequences.

Mahler’s score anticipates his later great symphonies in its colourful orchestration and melodic beauty. Highlights include vivid depictions of idyllic woodland and a lively wedding feast, plangent lyrical solos and choral writing full of drama.

Sung in German with English surtitles.