Pristine Classical Recorded Music

Das Lied von der Erde

biographical notes from Wikipedia

 

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")), published in the autumn of 1907. Mahler's copious use of 'Chinese' characteristics in the music marks the work as unique in his output. Composed in the years 1908–1909, it followed the Eighth Symphony. Mahler did not number it as a symphony, however, perhaps because of his superstitious fear of the supposedly "mortal significance" of a "ninth symphony", but more likely because of how much closer it seemed to him to be a song cycle. The work takes approximately sixty-five minutes in performance.

 

Origins

Mahler conceived the work in 1908. The preceding summer is likened to the three hammer blows of the Sixth Symphony (written in 1903-1904). First, Mahler was pressured into resigning from his post as Director of the Vienna Court Opera due to political intrigues within the administration, partly involving anti-semitism; next, his oldest daughter Maria died from scarlet fever and diphtheria; finally, Mahler himself was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. "With one stroke," Mahler wrote to his friend Bruno Walter, "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".

In his heightened awareness of his own mortality and otherness or rootlessness as a Jew, Mahler became interested in a volume of ancient Chinese poetry translated into German by Hans Bethge, entitled, Die Chinesische Flöte ("The Chinese Flute"). The 'translation' was in fact a loose imitation of translations in Hans Heilman's book Chinesische Lyrik, which in turn drew upon two French translations from the Chinese. 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.

Completed in 1908, Das Lied von der Erde is the first work of its kind, the first complete integration of song cycle and symphony, a form later imitated by other composers (notably Dmitri Shostakovich and Alexander von Zemlinsky). The result was what some have termed a "song-symphony", a hybrid of the two forms that had occupied most of his creative life. Eric Blom put it thus: 'It is as though here, in this work written less than three years before his death, he had found the medium of expression that ideally suited him: a work built on a large scale and necessitating the huge orchestra he exploited with the born conductor's gusto and skill, yet a work more in the nature of song than of classical symphony.'

Having already finished his 8th Symphony, Mahler worried along at the "Curse of the Ninth". Convinced that a ninth symphony would kill him, Mahler proceeded to compose Das Lied von der Erde, which he subtitled "A Symphony for Tenor, Contralto and Large Orchestra" and left unnumbered. Thus he hoped to skirt around the curse, since his Ninth Symphony would actually be his tenth. Ultimately, however, Mahler did succumb to the "Curse": his next, instrumental symphony, which he numbered his Ninth, was the last work Mahler completed in full (only the first movement of the Tenth was orchestrated at his death).

It is also regarded as one of Mahler's most personal works, a view expressed by the composer himself in a letter.

The debut public performance was given on 20 November 1911 in the Tonhalle in Munich, with Bruno Walter conducting. One of the earliest in London (possibly the first?) was in January 1913 at the Queen's Hall, under Henry Wood, where it was sung by Gervase Elwes and Doris Woodall: Wood thought it 'excessively modern but very beautiful'.

 

Instrumentation

Das Lied von der Erde is scored for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo, three flutes (the third doubling on second piccolo), three oboes, English horn, four clarinets (the third doubling E-flat clarinet), bass clarinet, three bassoons (the third doubling on contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, percussion (timpani, bass drum, side drum,cymbals, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam, glockenspiel), celesta, two harps, mandolin, and strings. Mahler deploys these resources with great restraint: only in the first, fourth and sixth songs does the entire orchestra play at once, and in some places the texture almost resembles chamber music, with only a few instruments playing.

Mahler's habit was to subject the orchestration of every new orchestral work to detailed revision over several years: though the musical material itself was hardly ever changed, the complex instrumental 'clothing' would be altered and refined in the light of experience gained in performance. In the case of Das Lied von der Erde, however, this process did not occur: the work's publication and first performance occurred posthumously.

The scoring also calls for tenor and alto soloists. However, Mahler also includes the note that "if necessary, the alto part may be sung by a baritone". For the first few decades after the work's premiere, this option was little-used. However, following the pioneering recordings of the work by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau under conductors Paul Kletzki and Leonard Bernstein, the use of baritones in this work has become increasingly common.

Arnold Schoenberg began to arrange Das Lied von der Erde for chamber orchestra, reducing the orchestral forces to string and wind quintets, and calling for piano, celesta and harmonium to supplement the harmonic texture. Three percussionists are also employed. Schoenberg apparently never finished this in his lifetime, and the arrangement was completed by Rainer Riehn in 1980.

 

Text

Four of the Chinese poems used by Mahler (Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde, Von der Jugend, Von der Schönheit and Der Trunkene im Frühling) are by Li Tai-Po, the famous Tang dynasty wandering poet; the actual German text derived from Hans Bethge's translations in his book Die chinesische Flöte. Der Einsame im Herbst is by Chang Tsi and Der Abschied combines poems by Mong Kao-Yen and Wang Wei, plus several additional lines by Mahler himself.

 

Structure

1. Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde
2. Der Einsame im Herbst
3. Von der Jugend
4. Von der Schönheit
5. Der Trunkene im Frühling
6. Der Abschied

 

1. Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde

The first movement, entitled "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde" ("The Drinking Song of Earth's Misery") continually returns to the refrain, Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod (literally, "Dark is life, is death"), which is pitched a semitone higher on each successive appearance. Like many drinking poems by Li Po, the original poem "Bei Ge Xing" (walk with a pathetic song) (Chinese:悲歌行) mixes drunken exaltation with a deep sadness. The singer's part is notoriously demanding, since the tenor has to struggle at the top of his range against the power of the full orchestra. This gives the voice its shrill, piercing quality, and is consistent with Mahler's practice of pushing instruments, including vocal cords, to their limits. According to philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, the tenor should here create the impression of a "denatured voice in the Chinese (falsetto) style", perhaps in the style of Peking opera.

 

2. Der Einsame im Herbst

This is followed by "Der Einsame im Herbst" ("The Lonely Soul in Autumn"), a much softer, less turbulent movement. It begins with a repetitive shuffling in the strings, followed by solo wind instruments. The lyrics, which are based on a Tang Dynasty era poem by Chang Tsi, lament the dying of flowers and the passing of beauty. Contrary to the stereotypical image of Mahler's music, the orchestration in this movement is sparse and chamber music-like, with long and independent contrapuntal lines.

 

3. Von der Jugend

The third movement, "Von der Jugend" ("Of Youth"), for tenor, is the most obviously pentatonic and faux-Asian. The form is ternary, with the third part being a greatly abbreviated and recomposed version of the first.

 

4. Von der Schönheit

Following this is "Von der Schönheit" ("Of Beauty"). Young girls are picking flowers on the riverbank; young boys ride by on their horses. The music of this movement is mostly soft and legato, with a loud articulated section in the brass as the young men ride by. According to Theodor W. Adorno, Chinese poetry became for the late Mahler what German folk songs had been for him earlier: a disguise for his sense of Jewish "otherness". The movement ends with a long orchestral postlude.

 

5. Der Trunkene im Frühling

The true scherzo of the work is the fifth movement, entitled "Der Trunkene im Frühling" ("The Drunkard in Spring"). Like the opening movement, it opens using a horn theme. Mahler's uses extensive tempo changes in this movement: the actual tempo changes every few measures. The middle section features a solo violin and solo flute.

 

6. Der Abschied

The final movement, "Der Abschied" (The Farewell), is nearly as long as the previous five movements combined. Its text is drawn from two different poems, both involving the theme of leave-taking.

The last movement is very difficult to conduct because of its cadenza writing for voice and solo instruments, which often flows over the barlines, "Ohne Rücksicht auf das Tempo" (Without regard for the tempo) according to Mahler's own direction. Bruno Walter related that Mahler showed him the score of this movement and asked, "Do you know how to conduct this? Because I certainly don't." Mahler also hesitated to put the piece before the public because of its relentless negativity, unusual even for him. "Won't people go home and shoot themselves?" he asked.The movement ends with a few lines added by Mahler himself to the original poems:

The dear earth everywhere

Blossoms in spring, and grows green anew.

Everywhere and forever, forever

Blue lights the horizon.

Forever... forever...

The singer intones the last line over and over like a mantra, accompanied by a sparse mix of strings, mandolin, tam-tam, and celesta, until the music fades into silence, "etched on the air", as Benjamin Britten put it.

 

Analysis

Of Das Lied von der Erde Mahler himself wrote that "I think it is probably the most personal composition I have created thus far." "Walt Whitman said it:,'No really great song can ever attain full purport till long after the death of its singer - till it has accrued & incorporated the many passions, many joys & sorrows, it has itself aroused'. And so it was with Das Lied von der Erde, that soaring symphonic song of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) which none less than Bruno Walter called 'the most personal utterance among Mahler's creations, & perhaps in all music'."