Das Lied von der Erde (The song of the Earth) is an orchestral work for two voices and orchestra written by Gustav Mahler between 1908 and 1909. Described as a symphony when published, it comprises six movements for a large orchestra and two singers as the soloist alternating in the 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.Das Lied von der Erde – Eine Symphonie für eine Tenor- und eine Alt- (oder Bariton-) Stimme und Orchester (nach Hans Bethges Die chinesische Flöte) von Gustav Mahler, Partitur, [The Song of the Earth. A Symphony for tenor and alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra (after Hans Bethge's The Chinese Flute). By Gustav Mahler. Score. Published by Universal Edition 1912.
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".New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts. Original broadcast 7 February 1960, "Who is Gustav Mahler?" As with his later Symphony No. 9, Mahler did not live to hear Das Lied von der Erde performed.
History Composition 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."Richard Freed, programme note
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 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", 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. 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.
Reception The 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. 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".H. J. Wood, My Life of Music (Gollancz, London 1946 ed.), 287.
Instrumentation 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", 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:
Woodwinds piccolo 3 flutes
4 clarinets (3 B, E and bass clarinet)
Brass 4 horns 3 trumpets 3 trombones
Percussion
bass drum cymbals triangle
glockenspiel
Keyboards
Voices alto solo tenor solo
Strings mandolin 2 harps
1st violins 2nd violins violas cellos
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, one playing in the third and fifth, and none playing in the second and sixth. In many places the texture resembles chamber music, with only a few instruments being used at one time. The score calls for tenor and alto soloists. However, at the alto's entry in the second movement, Mahler includes the note that "if necessary, the alto part may be sung by a baritone".Audiophile Audition It remains doubtful whether Mahler's comment regarding the second movement can be applied without hesitation to the fourth and sixth movements.Christian Wildhagen, "The 'greatest' and the 'most personal': the Eighth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde." The Cambridge Companion to Mahler, edited by Jeremy Barham, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp.128-142. Mahler also arranged the work for piano accompaniment. Another uncertainty concerns the third Lied; in the short score and the piano version Mahler considered an alternative setting with soprano instead of tenor.
Movements
1. "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde" 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" (The Song of Sorrow) () 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".
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, 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 version 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. The original text used in this movement derives from another poem by the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai, known as the "Lotus-collecting Song" (Chinese: 采蓮曲)
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, in C minor ending in 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. 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.Letter to Henry Boys, 29 June 1937, quoted in Mitchell and Philip Reed (eds.) (1991) Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten 1913–1976, London: Faber, p. 493
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". 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.Das Lied von der Erde: A Personal Introduction (1972); documentary by Humphrey Burton starring Leonard Bernstein, René Kollo, Christa Ludwig, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
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."De La Grange, Henry-Louis, Gustav Mahler, Volume IV: A New Life Cut Short. Oxford University Press (), p. 510 (2008). 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.SCO Programme Notewww.sco.org.uk
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