In Gustav Mahler’s oeuvre, song and symphony are intimately linked. This connection is especially evident in the period between 1880-1900, known as the ‘Wunderhorn years,’ when Mahler composed not only his first four symphonies but the Lie­der eines fahrenden Gesellen and songs based on texts from the Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘The Boy’s Magic Horn’) anthology. Mahler’s symphonic works from this time are suffused with the same folkloric quality as his songs, either in the form of a distant echo or a direct quote. In a few cases, Mahler transferred his songs in their entirety to a symphony (Urlicht, Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, Es sungen Drei Engel).

Mahler’s selection of texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn also reveals something about his youthful memories. He grew up in what was then the Moravian garrison city of Iglau (now Jihlava). There Mahler became familiar with soldiers playing their music while marching past the barracks. However, the ‘military’ texts found in Des Knaben Wunderhorn are far from triumphant. Revelge (‘Reveille’: ‘Ich muss mar­schieren’) is one poignant example; it deals with a fatally injured drummer boy. In Der Tamboursg’sell (‘The Drummer Boy’) a comrade-in-arms receives a death sentence for desertion. Sometimes, Mahler skilfully unites declarations of love with martial music, as in Wo die schönen Tro­mpeten blasen, but these poems have a decidedly pacifistic tone.

Each of the songs in this cycle has its own orchestra, as it were, in which different instruments come to the fore, lending each song an ever-changing colour palette. Later, Mahler would expand his use of martial rhythms and trumpet calls, and along the way, the Ländler (Rheinlegendchen), a dance of the ‘common folk’, would gradually lose its innocence. Almost everything that makes Mahler a Mahler can already be found here.

Translation: Josh Dillon

Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) wrote more than four hundred poems in his attempt to come to terms with the deaths of his two children. Gustav Mahler chose five of these poems; he wrote the first three of his Kindertotenlieder in the summer of 1901 in Maiernigg. The two remaining songs were composed in 1904, during his summer holiday. In the intervening years, Mahler had married Alma Maria Schindler, and on 30 November 1902, their daughter, Maria, nicknamed Putzi, was born. Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) are often seen as foreshadowing Putzi’s death on 5 July 1907, an idea derived from Alma Mahler’s book, Gustav Mahler, Memories and Letters (1946), in which she blames her husband for tempting fate by choosing these Rückert poems. A more likely scenario, however, is that Mahler simply felt a purely expressive empathy with a man who was coping with the loss of his children. In this, Mahler also drew on his childhood memories, especially those of the death of his brother.

In Nun, die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n, the vocalist (usually a baritone or mezzo-soprano) subtly underlines the father’s crushing sadness. The second song, Nun seh’ ich wohl, is characterized by agitation, doubt and painful delusions. The highly recognizable state of denial is at the heart of the moving Wenn dein Mütterlein, in which the childlike simplicity of the melody recalls a Moravian folk song. In Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen, the father imagines his children have simply gone on an extended hike in the mountains and are reluctant to return home. The closing measures are bathed in an all-encompassing, loving light. In the final song, however, despair and anger gain the upper hand. A devastating thunderstorm symbolizes the inner wrestling of the mourning parent. In the end, a tender lullaby emerges to offer heavenly solace.

Translation: Josh Dillon