The third performance of Concerto Budapest's Mahler-Schubert series explores the themes of mortality and departure from this life through works by two composers. The work popularly known as Death and the Maiden, originally written for string quartet, was created when the ailing Schubert had already come to accept death, and his thoughts and feelings find expression in the piece accordingly. This evening features the version for string orchestra later arranged by Mahler. The latter's six-movement work The Song of the Earth is a musical setting of six poems from Hans Bethge's The Chinese Flute, a collection of ancient Chinese poetry rendered into German. In a work intended as a symphony, the then seriously ill composer bids farewell to life and the things he loved within it - thus preparing himself for his own passing.