Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde

rocky says: Lord knows we are classy here in the Forest, yet Curry worries maybe not classical enough. So we'd like to share this dark gem that's a favorite over here in the Baywatch Nest (eM says, "this music is so gorgeous, don't even get me started." Then she gets started anyway, going on and on about how Mahler was a genius arranger, they way he used certain instruments for certain solos, to achieve maximal expressive effect).

At One's End. Where do you start? Jewish. Bohemian. Viennese. Modern. Cursed. Mahler started writing this in 1908, when he was having a really bad year. He had just lost his job. He was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. His wife was fucking around (he got counseling from Freud). And his four-year old daughter had just died of of diphtheria.

No. Such. Luck. This woulda coulda shoulda been his Ninth Symphony. But instead he titled this symphonic work "The Song of The Earth: A Symphony for Tenor and Alto (or Baritone) Voice and Orchestra (after Hans Bethge's "The Chinese Flute")," so as to avoid that darned The Curse of The Ninth. Whatever. By 1911 he was dead and in the ground.

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Wikipedia says: Mahler's own music aroused considerable opposition from music critics, who tended to hear his symphonies as 'potpourris' in which themes from "disparate" periods and traditions were indiscriminately mingled. Mahler's juxtaposition of material from both "high" and "low" cultures, as well as his mixing of different ethnic traditions, often outraged conservative critics at a time when workers' mass organizations were growing rapidly, and clashes between Germans, Czechs, Hungarians and Jews in Austro-Hungary were creating anxiety and instability.

Keenly aware of the colourations of the orchestra, the composer filled his symphonies with flowing melodies and expressive harmonies, achieving bright tonal qualities using the clarity of his melodic lines. Among his other innovations are expressive use of combinations of instruments in both large and small scale, increased use of percussion, as well as combining voice and chorus to symphony form, and extreme voice leading in his counterpoint. His orchestral style was based on counterpoint; two melodies would each start off the other seemingly simultaneously, choosing clarity over a mass of sound.

Mahler was deeply spiritual and often described his music in terms of nature. In addition to restlessly searching for ways of extending symphonic expression, he was also an ardent craftsman, which shows both in his meticulous working methods and careful planning, and in his studies of previous composers.

Mahler's good friend Bruno Walter describes the funeral: "On 18 May 1911, he died. Next evening we laid the coffin in the cemetery at Grinzing, a storm broke and such torrents of rain fell that it was almost impossible to proceed. An immense crowd, dead silent, followed the hearse. At the moment when the coffin was lowered, the sun broke through the clouds"

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"Das Lied von der Erde": "The Song of the Earth" is a large-scale work for two vocal soloists and orchestra by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Laid out in six separate movements, each of them an independent song, the work is described on the title-page as Eine Symphonie für eine Tenor- und eine Alt- (oder Bariton-) Stimme und Orchester (nach Hans Bethges "Die chinesische Flöte") - (A Symphony for Tenor and Alto (or Baritone) Voice and Orchestra (after Hans Bethge's "The Chinese Flute").

Bethge's text was published in the autumn of 1907. Mahler's use of 'Chinese' motifs in the music is unique in his output. Composed in the years 1908–1909, it followed the Eighth Symphony, but is not numbered as the Ninth, which is a different work. It lasts approximately 65 minutes in performance.

Mahler conceived the work in 1908. This followed closely on the publication of Hans Bethge's volume of ancient Chinese poetry rendered into German, Die Chinesische Flöte ("The Chinese Flute"), based on several intermediate works. Mahler was very taken by the vision of earthly beauty and transience expressed in these verses and chose seven (two of them used in the finale) to set to music.

Mahler himself wrote: "I think it is probably the most personal composition I have created thus far." Bruno Walter called it "the most personal utterance among Mahler's creations, and perhaps in all music."

According to the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, in Chinese poetry Mahler found what he had formerly sought in the genre of German folk song: a mask or costume for the sense of rootlessness or "otherness" attending his identity as a Jew. It is also claimed that Mahler found in these poems an echo of his own increasing awareness of mortality.

"With one stroke," wrote Mahler, "I have lost everything I have gained in terms of who I thought I was, and have to learn my first steps again like a newborn."


allmusic: Das Lied is an integrated symphonic whole, as the six songs are organized into four parts analogous to symphonic movements. Mahler's harmonic and expressive language is so powerful that he was able to create a progressive effect that unite these songs into a single semantic and artistic entity.

"Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde" (The Drinking Song of Earth's Sorrow). The first song is a hybrid of strophic song and sonata form. It stands by itself, not only formally, but in its black, uncompromising defiance of grief in the face of mortality. The powerfully sweeping opening is contrasted with an ethereal central section, but eventually culminates in a weird and shrieking evocation of Man's fate.

"Der Einsame im Herbst" (The Lonely One in Autumn). This resigned song evokes the mists of Fall as the poet grieves over the loss of summer and life. The thin textures and wandering lines perfectly capture bitter loneliness.

"Von der Jugend" (Of Youth). This and the next two songs comprise the "scherzo" of the symphonic structure. They are all shorter, lighter in tone, and nostalgic in mood. Here, memories of young people drinking tea is captured with light and airy pentatonic lines, invoking the innocence and carefree attitude of youth.

"Von der Schönheit" (Of Beauty). A romantic scene. The gentle innocence of the girls is depicted with a delicately moving Andante. At the appearance of the horsemen there is a sudden military outburst in the orchestra, while the voice accelerates into a breathless melody, effectively portraying the maidens' fluttering hearts.

"Der Trunkene im Frühling" (The Drunk in Spring). In spite of a longing central passage, this song is mostly comic in its evocations of nature and a young man's drunken reeling. Mahler here uses an astonishing variety of harmonic and orchestral effects.

"Der Abschied" (The Farewell). There are two separate poems here. The first depicts a solitary figure waiting for a friend to come for a last farewell, the second is the farewell itself. By far the longest movement of the work, Mahler precedes each poem with a lengthy orchestral section, also making this the most instrumentally oriented movement. The first is longing and plaintive, repeated in part after the voice finally enters. The second is a long and moving funeral march, culminating in a huge and tragic climax. In the final stanza, as the poet looks back at life, Mahler composed a resigned and expansive coda.

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bay says: eM owns about half a dozen recordings of this work, but this one, recorded over the course of two years (1964-1966) in London, is her hands-down favorite. Conductor Otto Klemperer had performed as a young student under Mahler in Prague in 1908. Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich bring their A-game to the table to round out the all-star cast.

Hear