30.10.2025

DAVID STEFFENS | Mahler's 8th Symphony with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra

‘Imagine if the entire universe burst into song! [...] This is the greatest thing I have ever created!’ said Gustav Mahler about his grand Symphony No. 8, which premiered in Munich in 1910 under his baton. The Pentecost hymn ‘Veni, creator spiritus’ and the conclusion of Goethe's ‘Faust II’, written a thousand years later, are united by musically underpinned references to form an overwhelming celebration of creativity itself. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, under the baton of its principal conductor Fabio Luisi, together with the DR Concert Choir, the BBC Singers and the Copenhagen Boys' Choir, is performing this work, which is one of the most monumental in classical music history in both tonal and conceptual terms.

David Steffens has now established himself internationally as the soloist for the bass and Pater Profundus parts, performing in recent years with orchestras ranging from the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi and the Czech Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Kent Nagano, or the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España under David Afkham, to the NDR Radiophilharmonie under Ingo Metzmacher and the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria under Yutaka Sado.

Steffens has enjoyed a long-standing artistic collaboration with Fabio Luisi, which most recently brought him to the Vienna Konzerthaus as the ‘Voice of the Lord’ in Franz Schmidt's oratorio ‘Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln’ (The Book with Seven Seals) with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. David Steffens is well known to the Danish National Orchestra, not least for his performance in Schönberg's Gurrelieder in 2022.
 

Cast

Jacquelyn Wagner, soprano
Valentina Farcas, soprano
Liv Redpath, soprano
Wiebke Lehmkuhl, mezzo-soprano
Jasmin Jorias, mezzo-soprano
David Butt Philip, tenor
Christoph Pohl, baritone
David Steffens, bass

Fabio Luisi, conductor
Danish National Symphony Orchestra
DR KoncertKoret
BBC Singers