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Born: 1860, Kalisté, Bohemia
Died: 1911, Vienna, Austria
“Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.”
Read his composer profile.
Re: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)
• Mahler took solace from the vagaries of human existence in the beauties of nature, as reflected in Songs of a Wayfarer, a cycle of four songs from his early 20s for which he also wrote the folk-style texts.
• Foreshadowing structures in his later music, this cycle expresses a single narrative idea that unfolds through one song to the next, reinforced by carefully planned musical devices, i.e., “progressive tonality” (beginning in one key but ending in another).
• The opening lines juxtapose the joy of the beloved’s wedding with the sadness that this provokes in the spurned lover. Mahler captures this conflict musically by setting upbeat, festive sounds in winds and percussion against a slow, pensive vocal melody.
• In the second song, the Hero strolls in a country meadow, cheerfully acknowledging a merry finch. By song’s end, he recognizes that, however beautiful, the world will never blossom for him. His lusty spirit disintegrates.
• The Hero’s pent-up bitterness explodes in the third song. To express the emotional crises, Mahler avoids the repetitive form used in the first two songs. He turns to faster tempos, relentless rhythms, and harmonic dissonances, unleashing the full force of the orchestra.
• In the final song, a funeral march signals the Hero’s demise (or, at least, the demise of his love affair). At the very end, the Hero finds comfort in nature, reaching a place of quiet resignation.
• Read the complete program note.
• LISTEN to excerpts.
Re: Symphony No. 4
• Mahler’s whimsical Fourth Symphony (his shortest) is “about” childhood, having been inspired by a collection of German folk poems called Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn).
• The opening is unforgettably punctuated by the timbre of sleigh bells, creating a stately bounce that gives way to the second-movement scherzo, featuring a solo for scordatura violin that suggests an eerie totentanz (“dance of death”).
• After the third movement – a solemn set of theme and variations – comes the fourth movement’s song, “Das himmlische Leben” (Life in Heaven). The soprano presents a child’s naïve vision of Heaven, including laughter, eating and dancing. The final words are tenderly rounded off by quiet low harp notes.
• Read the complete program note.
• LISTEN to excerpts.
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