Gustav Mahler's Lied von der Erde puzzles many people. Is it a symphony, a song cycle, an experiment? For me, the six orchestral songs are, above all, a deeply moving piece of music, a fantastic experience that deals with life and death, with the afterlife and spirituality. The music is at times melancholically floating, at others exuberant and voluptuous. In terms of substance, we are in the Far East. Mahler used texts by Hans Bethge, who adapted Chinese poems from a French translation and elevated the more than thousand-year-old nature poetry to an existential, philosophical level.

I first played Das Lied von der Erde 30 years ago. I was in my mid-20s and still part of the orchestra as concertmaster. It was a turning point in my life and shaped my understanding of orchestral music. Since becoming a conductor, I've played Das Lied von der Erde again and again. The music is profound and moving, extremely sad and gripping at the same time. I've never managed to conduct Das Lied von der Erde without standing in front of the orchestra in tears at the end.

Gustav Mahler wrote the song cycle in 1908 and described it as "the most personal thing" he had created up to that point. He did not live to see the premiere in 1911. Even working on it came at a difficult time: The previous year, one of his daughters died at the age of four. He had been forced to resign from his position as director of the Vienna Court Opera following an anti-Jewish smear campaign, and his wife Alma sought solace in affairs, which Mahler, of course, was aware of. At the end of that year, he was diagnosed with heart disease, a condition from which he would die three years later. Mahler had retreated to Toblach in South Tyrol to write, to a hut on the edge of the forest. I visited the house. You look down into the valley, at the mighty mountains above, but there is nothing more. It is a lonely place where beauty and sadness mingle. Thus, Mahler's music, too, is a search for meaning and the truths of human existence—and because there is no solace, it is all the more truthful.

We begin the concert evening with Blossoming by Toshio Hosokawa. The piece has a smaller ensemble, the music is more transfiguring and positive, and it leads perfectly into the weighty Mahler, like an overture. Hosokawa is a contemporary Japanese composer, and his sound describes a similar romanticism of nature. "Like a petal opening," it says in the score, referring to the lotus blossom, which is also a connection to Das Lied von der Erde, in which the lotus plays a role.

People who hear Gustav Mahler for the first time often think of film music, of E.T., Star Wars and John Williams. This is because Erich Wolfgang Korngold, influenced by Mahler, emigrated to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he created the typical film music style. Accordingly, one can conduct Mahler opulently while avoiding kitsch.

I'm really looking forward to the magnificent orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. And to the voices of Okka von der Damerau and David Butt Philip. In Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler wove the singing voices into the symphony like instruments: Soprano, alto, flute, and oboe speak to one another as equal voices. Mahler's music was created on the threshold between Impressionism and Expressionism. Like the artists of his era—Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Schiele, and Trakl—he turned his gaze inward, peering into the human soul. We, too, go inward at this concert—into the greatest joy, but also into the most intense suffering.

Transcript: Thomas Lindemann