The series Masters of Classical Music allows the listener to experience and enjoy great music from the Baroque period up to the present day in an entirely new way, offering a combination of documentary material and a complete performance of the featured work. This episode includes a live-recording of Mahler’s Lied von der Erde with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne under the baton of Semyon Bychkov with soloists Waltraud Maier and Torsten Kerl. No composer before Maher had ever devoted himself so exclusively to two genres so apparently incompatible as the intimate lied and the grandiose symphony. Thus it is fascinating in Das Lied von der Erde to see him combining these two seemingly opposed genres. Host Habakuk Traber presents this exceptional work in the accompanying documentary.