Gustav Mahler
“Das Lied von der Erde”

For the eminent Mahler conductor and confidant Bruno Walter, there was no doubt: with Das Lied von der Erde, the composer had not only created the “most Mahlerian” of his works, but had also ventured into new territory in the face of transience: “The earth is fading away, a different air blows in, a different light shines above it ….” Just six months after the premature death of his mentor, Bruno Walter conducted the world premiere of Das Lied von der Erde on 20 November 1911 in Munich – an eagerly awaited and highly emotional event for many of Mahler’s admirers. “Unfathomably beautiful,” reported Anton Webern, who had travelled from Berlin, in a letter to a friend: “Quite unbelievable.” And in the Wiener Freie Presse, the music critic and first Mahler biographer Richard Specht wrote of the weighty final movement of this unusual work: “I know only very few pieces in music that speak such a profoundly moving language ….”

Within Mahler’s oeuvre, Das Lied von der Erde marks the beginning of his late period. It was written during a time of existential upheaval and profound personal change. In 1907, Mahler lost his daughter Maria Anna and was himself diagnosed with a serious heart valve condition. Fuelled by an anti-Semitic press campaign, he also resigned his post as Director of the Court Opera and shifted the focus of his conducting career from Vienna to New York. After a successful first season there, Mahler returned to Europe with his family in May 1908. When he took up residence a few weeks later in a new summer retreat near Toblach, the previous year’s events were still acutely present. “In one stroke, I have lost all the clarity and composure I ever achieved,” Mahler confided to Bruno Walter in a letter. He now had to learn “at the end of a life, to walk and stand again as a beginner.” That Mahler managed to overcome his paralysis – at least creatively – more quickly than expected is evident from a letter he wrote to the same recipient two months later, in which he reported on the composition of a new work: “A beautiful time was granted to me, and I believe that this may be the most personal thing I have written so far.” As for what the “whole thing should be called,” he admitted, “I really don’t know myself.”

Mahler’s hesitation in choosing a title reflects the hybrid nature of Das Lied von der Erde. The close interweaving of symphonic and lyrical elements that characterises his entire output appears here in a particularly intensified form. The six movements are based on German adaptations of ancient Chinese poetry, which the composer took from Hans Bethge’s 1907 anthology Die chinesische Flöte and further adapted himself. They are performed alternately by a tenor and an alto voice. What might initially seem like a cycle of orchestral songs gradually reveals itself as a kind of symphony in songs. Its culmination is the final movement, Der Abschied (The Farewell). This movement builds on what has come before, reinforcing the symphonic ambition through its structure and expressive range, and at nearly 30 minutes in duration, it is almost as long as the preceding five movements combined. Here, too, the thematic threads of the work are drawn together: a melancholy view of the world, a nostalgic evocation of life in the face of mortality, and an intimate confrontation with imminent death. The final verses, ending with the word “ewig” (“forever”) – sung nine times – were written by Mahler himself. This extraordinary ending, noted Benjamin Britten in admiration, “has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom”: “I cannot understand it – it passes over me like a tidal wave.”