Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") is an orchestral song cycle for two voices and orchestra written by Gustav Mahler between 1908 and 1909. Described as a symphony when published, it comprises six songs for two singers who alternate movements. Mahler specified that the two singers should be a tenor and an alto, or else a tenor and a baritone if an alto is not available.[1] Mahler composed this work following the most painful period in his life, and the songs address themes such as those of living, parting and salvation. On the centenary of Mahler's birth, the composer and prominent Mahler conductor Leonard Bernstein described Das Lied von der Erde as Mahler's "greatest symphony".[2] As with his later Symphony No. 9, Mahler did not live to hear Das Lied von der Erde performed.
Three disasters befell Mahler during the summer of 1907. Political maneuvering and antisemitism forced him to resign as Director of the Vienna Court Opera, his eldest daughter Maria died from scarlet fever and diphtheria, and Mahler himself was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. "With one stroke", he 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."[3] The same year saw the publication of Hans Bethge's Die chinesische Flöte, a free rewriting of others' translations of classical Chinese poems. Mahler was captivated by the vision of earthly beauty and transience expressed in these verses[4] and chose seven of the poems to set to music as Das Lied von der Erde. Mahler completed the work in 1909. Mahler was aware of the so-called "curse of the ninth",[5] a superstition arising from the fact that no major composer since Beethoven had successfully completed more than nine symphonies: he had already written eight symphonies before composing Das Lied von der Erde. Fearing his subsequent demise, he decided to subtitle the work A Symphony for Tenor, Alto (or Baritone) Voice and Orchestra, rather than numbering it as a symphony.[6] His next symphony, written for purely instrumental forces, was numbered his Ninth. That was indeed the last symphony he fully completed, because only portions of the Tenth had been fully orchestrated at the time of his death. ReceptionThe first public performance was given on 20 November 1911 in the Tonhalle in Munich, sung by Sara Cahier and William Miller (both Americans) with Bruno Walter conducting. Mahler had died six months earlier, on 18 May.[7] One of the earliest performances in London (possibly the first) occurred in January 1913 at the Queen's Hall under conductor Henry Wood, where it was sung by Gervase Elwes and Doris Woodall. Wood reportedly thought that the work was "excessively modern but very beautiful".[8] Mahler had already included movements for voice and orchestra in his Second, Third, Fourth and Eighth Symphonies. However, Das Lied von der Erde is the first complete integration of song cycle form with that of the symphony. The form was afterwards imitated by other composers, notably by Shostakovich and Zemlinsky. This new form has been termed a "song-symphony",[9] a hybrid of the two forms that had occupied most of Mahler's creative life. Das Lied von der Erde is scored for a large orchestra, consisting of the following:
Only in the first, fourth and sixth songs does the full orchestra play together. The celesta is only heard at the end of the finale, and only the first movement requires all three trumpets, with two playing in the fourth movement and none playing in the sixth. In many places the texture resembles chamber music, with only a few instruments being used at one time.[citation needed] The score calls for tenor and alto soloists.[1] However, Mahler includes the note that "if necessary, the alto part may be sung by a baritone".[10] Mahler also arranged the work for piano accompaniment.[11] The first movement, "The Drinking Song of Earth's Misery" (in A minor), 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 Bai, the original poem "Bei Ge Xing" (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 musicologist Theodor W. Adorno, the tenor should here create the impression of a "denatured voice in the Chinese (falsetto) style".[12][13]
The movement begins with a three-note horn call which recurs throughout the song, most notably at the climax in which the singer describes an ape calling "into the sweet fragrance of life." The climax also marks the first of the three whole-tone passages that occur in the symphony. 2. "Der Einsame im Herbst"
"The lonely one in Autumn" (for alto, in D minor) is a much softer, less turbulent movement. Marked "somewhat dragging and exhausted", it begins with a repetitive shuffling in the strings, followed by solo wind instruments. The lyrics, which are based on the first part of a Tang Dynasty era poem by Qian Qi,[14] lament the dying of flowers and the passing of beauty, as well as expressing an exhausted longing for sleep. The orchestration in this movement is sparse and chamber music-like, with long and independent contrapuntal lines. 3. "Von der Jugend"
The third movement, "Of Youth" (for tenor, in B♭ major), is the most obviously pentatonic and faux-Asian. The form is ternary, the third part being a greatly abbreviated revision of the first. It is also the shortest of the six movements, and can be considered a first scherzo. 4. "Von der Schönheit"
The music of this movement, "Of Beauty" (for alto, in G major), is mostly soft and legato, meditating on the image of some "young girls picking lotus flowers at the riverbank." Later in the movement there is a louder, more articulated section in the brass as the young men ride by on their horses. There is a long orchestral postlude to the sung passage, as the most beautiful of the young maidens looks longingly after the most handsome of the young men. 5. "Der Trunkene im Frühling"
The second scherzo of the work is provided by the fifth movement, "The drunken man in Spring" (for tenor, in A major). Like the first, it opens with a horn theme. In this movement Mahler uses an extensive variety of key signatures, which can change as often as every few measures. The middle section features a solo violin and solo flute, which represent the bird the singer describes. 6. "Der Abschied"The final movement, "The Farewell" (for alto, from C minor to C major), 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. Mahler himself added the last lines. This final song is also notable for its text-painting, using a mandolin to represent the singer's lute, imitating bird calls with woodwinds, and repeatedly switching between the major and minor modes to articulate sharp contrasts in the text. The movement is divided into three major sections. In the first, the singer describes the nature around her as night falls. In the second, she is waiting for her friend to say a final farewell. A long orchestral interlude precedes the third section, which depicts the exchange between the two friends and fades off into silence.
Lines 1–3, 17–19, and 26–28 are all sung to the same music, with a pedal point in the low strings and soft strokes of the tam-tam; in the first two of these sections, a countermelody in the flute imitates the song of a bird, but the third of these sections is just the bare pedal point and tam-tam.[1] The singer repeats the final word of the song, ewig ("forever"), like a mantra, accompanied by sustained chords in the orchestra, which features mandolin, harps, and celesta. Ewig is repeated as the music fades into silence, the final sixth chord "printed on the atmosphere" as Benjamin Britten asserted.[15] It is also worth noting that throughout Das Lied von der Erde there is a persistent message that "The earth will stay beautiful forever, but man cannot live for even a hundred years." At the end of "Der Abschied," however, Mahler adds three original lines which repeat this, but purposefully omit the part saying that "man must die".[1] Conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein asserts that this ties in with the Eastern idea of Nirvana, in that the "soul" of the singer, as she or he dies, becomes one with the everlasting earth.[16]
The last movement is very difficult to conduct because of its cadenza-like writing for voice and solo instruments, which often flows over the barlines. Mahler specifically instructed the movement to be played Ohne Rücksicht auf das Tempo (Without regard for the tempo). Bruno Walter related that Mahler showed him the score of this movement and asked about one passage, "Can you think of a way of conducting that? Because I can't."[17] 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.[18]
Mahler's source for the text was Hans Bethge's Die chinesische Flöte (1907). Bethge's poems were free adaptations ("Nachdichtungen") of classical Chinese poetry based on prior prose translations into German (Hans Heilmann's Chinesische Lyrik, 1905[19][20]) and French (Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys' Poésies de l'époque des Thang, 1862[21] and Judith Gautier's Livre de Jade, 1867/1902[22][23]).[24][25]Four of the songs—"Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde", "Von der Jugend", "Von der Schönheit" and "Der Trunkene im Frühling"—were derived from poems written by Li Bai, the wandering poet of the Tang dynasty. "Der Einsame im Herbst" is based on a poem "After Long Autumn Night" by Qian Qi, another poet of the Tang Dynasty.[14] "Der Abschied" combines poems by Tang Dynasty poets Meng Haoran and Wang Wei, with several additional lines by Mahler himself. These attributions have been a matter of some uncertainty, and around the turn of the 21st century, Chinese scholars extensively debated the sources of the songs following a performance of the work in China in 1998.[26] According to the musicologist Theodor W. Adorno, Mahler found in Chinese poetry what he had formerly sought after in the genre of German folk song: a mask or costume for the sense of rootlessness or "otherness" attending his identity as a Jew.[12][13] This theme, and its influence upon Mahler's tonality, has been further explored by John Sheinbaum.[27] It has also been asserted that Mahler found in these poems an echo of his own increasing awareness of mortality.[28][29] The Universal Edition score of 1912 for Das Lied von der Erde shows Mahler's adapted text as follows. 1. "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde" ("The Drinking Song of Earth's Sorrow")
Schon winkt der Wein im gold'nen Pokale,
The wine beckons in golden goblets (Chinese original version of this poem: 悲歌行 .2. "Der Einsame im Herbst" ("The Solitary One in Autumn")
Herbstnebel wallen bläulich überm See;
Autumn fog creeps bluishly over the lake. 3. "Von der Jugend" ("Of Youth")
Mitten in dem kleinen Teiche
In the middle of the little pond 4. "Von der Schönheit" ("Of Beauty")
Junge Mädchen pflücken Blumen,
Young girls picking flowers, 若耶溪旁采莲女,
风飘香袂空中举。 岸上谁家游冶郎,
紫骝嘶入落花去, 见此踟蹰空断肠。 (Chinese original version of this poem: 采莲曲 (李白) ( Wikisource). 5. "Der Trunkene im Frühling" ("The Drunkard in Spring")
Wenn nur ein Traum das Leben ist,
If life is but a dream, (Chinese original version of this poem: 春日醉起言志 ( Wikisource). 6. "Der Abschied" ("The Farewell")
Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge.
The sun departs behind the mountains.
For the first few decades after the work's premiere, the option to perform it with two male soloists was little used. On one occasion Bruno Walter tried it out and engaged Friedrich Weidemann, the baritone who had premiered Kindertotenlieder under Mahler's own baton in 1905. However, Walter felt that tenor and baritone did not work as well as tenor and alto, and he never repeated the experiment.[10] 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 increased.[citation needed]
One male soloist
Piano accompaniment
Other versionsSchoenberg and Riehn arrangementArnold 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 never finished this project, but the arrangement was completed by Rainer Riehn in 1980. Recordings of this arrangement:
21st-century versions
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