On Songs of a Wayfarer introduces us to a 24-year-old opera conductor about to make his mark as a great composer. Art mirrors life as Gustav Mahler's turbulent love affair with an opera singer leads to his first masterpiece: a cycle of songs about the aftermath of a failed relationship. They leave us questioning the meaning of love, death and the healing power of nature. With dramatizations, expert commentary and a performance by master Mahler interpreter Thomas Hampson, On Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, explores not only a world famous masterpiece, but the origins of an early 20th-century giant.