Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (Der Cornet)

Frank Martin Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (Der Cornet)
Gustav Mahler Adagietto from Symphony no.5

Frank Martin’s Der Cornet is a sublime work that evokes the passage of time and the silence left in the wake of destruction. Frank Martin composed it in 1942-1943, based on Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous prose poem Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, which was introduced to him by his wife, Maria. Written in a single night, the text tells the story of Rilke’s distant ancestor, Christoph Rilke, a young nobleman who joined the imperial army in 1663 to fight against the Ottoman Empire, experienced a brief and passionate love affair, and died tragically on the battlefield. The piece is both a desperate cry and a meditation on solitude, suffering, and the acceptance of the inevitable.
Mahler’s Adagietto is equally sublime – transcendent, suspended in time. It unfolds in a series of unresolved harmonies, much like Rilke’s text, which offers neither explanation nor consolation through structure or logical conclusion…
We will have the privilege of hearing a new French translation of Rilke’s text, commissioned by the Odyssée Frank Martin Association and entrusted to Alexandre Pateau. A music-loving translator based in Geneva for the past fifteen years, he is dedicated to bringing German-language poetic and literary works into French, with a particular sensitivity to the interplay between words and music. His translation will be brought to life by the acclaimed actor Gilles Privat.

This concert is part of L’Odyssée Frank Martin.