Mahler composed this song cycle in the summer of 1908. Originally subtitled a Symphony in Songs, it was to have been his Ninth Symphony. But the composer, already very ill (he was to die less than three years later) and possibly remembering that his predecessors Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had said their farewells to the world with a Ninth, transferred that fatal number to his next (and last fully completed) work, a purely instrumental one. Das Lied von der Erde was first performed after the composer's death by his friend and protege Bruno Walter in Munich on November 10, 1911. The work is an intensely personal farewell to life by a doomed man. "Earth is about to vanish from his sight," writes Walter in his biography of his mentor,Read more "another air is wafted in, another light shines overhead, and thus it turns out to be an entirely new work of Mahler's: it has a new style of composition, a new kind of invention, of instrumentation and of movement technique." The last movement, a nearly half-hour-long elegy, concludes with an unresolved chord accompanying the words "Ewig, Ewig" (forever and ever) which, in the words of another eminent conductor-author, Erich Leinsdorf expresses a most desperate longing to come to terms with eternity. To end a work without a resolution, leaving everything to unending time, was an original invention.î Walter left us three "official" recordings of this work: two with the Vienna Philharmonic (1936 and 1952) and one with the New York Philharmonic (1960). In addition, Andante and Tahra have also issued 1952 recordings with the VPO and the same singers as on the official Decca recording, said to have come from public performances given around the same time of the Decca studio recording. What justifies the release of the present disc is that it preserves, in the best possible sound, Walter's very last concert performance of this masterpiece, with soloists chosen by him for his farewell rendition of one of the hallmarks of his long and distinguished conducting career. Read less
Works on This Recording
Das Lied von der Erdeby Gustav Mahler Performer:
Maureen Forrester (Alto),
Richard Lewis (Tenor)
Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
Period: Romantic Written: 1908-1909; Vienna, Austria Date of Recording: 04/16/1960 Venue: Live Carnegie Hall, New York City Length: 64 Minutes 40 Secs. Language: German
Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth): I. Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde (The Drinking Song of Earth's Misery)
Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth): II. Der Einsame im Herbst (The Lonely One in Autumn)
Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth): III. Von der Jugend (Of Youth)
Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth): IV. Von der Schonheit (Of Beauty)
Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth): V. Der Trunkene im Fruhling (The Drunkard in Spring)
Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth): VI. Der Abschied (The Farewell)
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