Mahler Foundation

“I went joyfully through a green wood,” is a beautiful slow melody challenging the tubist to keep a consistent color of sound in the low register of the bass tuba. The first note is the lowest in the entire collection, a low G. Fingered 2-3-4-5 on a German Rotary F tuba, this pitch is a whole step above the fundamental of the instrument and somewhat unresponsive with less secure intonation and tone.

Starting the C major arpeggio on a low G, this opening phrase serves as a wonderful exercise for the tubist as they work on consistency of tone, response, and intonation in this challenging low register.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Ich Ging Mit Lust Durch Einen Grünen Wald with Lew Smoley.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Winterlied with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

The final movement culminates in a resolution. The music, also reused in the First Symphony (in the Scherzo “Funeral March in Callot’s manner”), is subdued and gentle, lyrical and often reminiscent of a chorale in its harmonies. Its title, “Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz” (“The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved”), deals with how the image of those eyes has caused the Wayfarer so much grief that he can no longer stand to be in the environment.

He describes lying down under a linden tree, allowing the flowers to fall on him. He wishes to return to his life before his travels. He asks that the whole affair had never occurred: “Everything: love and grief, and world, and dreams!”  

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A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Die Zwei Blauen Augen with Lew Smoley.

The second movement, “Ging heut Morgen übers Feld” (“I Went This Morning over the Field”), contains the happiest music of the work. Indeed, it is a song of joy and wonder at the beauty of nature in simple actions like birdsong and dew on the grass. “Is it not a lovely world?” is a refrain. However, the Wayfarer is reminded at the end that despite this beauty, his happiness will not blossom anymore now that his love is gone.

This movement is orchestrated delicately, making use of high strings and flutes, as well as a fair amount of triangle. The melody of this movement, as well as much of the orchestration, is developed into the ‘A’ theme of the first movement of the First Symphony.

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A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Ging Heut’ Morgens Über’s Feld with Lew Smoley.

The first movement is entitled “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht” (“When My Sweetheart is Married”), and the text discusses the Wayfarer’s grief at losing his love to another. He remarks on the beauty of the surrounding world, but how that cannot keep him from having sad dreams. The orchestral texture is bittersweet, using double reed instruments, clarinets and strings.

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A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Wenn Mein Schatz Hochzeit Macht with  Lew Smoley.

Das klagende Lied is a work in which Mahler comes closest to the opera. This is because the composition is pervaded by drama and its elaboration in a text that regularly gets the character of a theatrically very effective dialogue.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was fourteen years old when his younger brother Ernst Mahler (1862-1875) died. The loss touched him deeply and gave him a gnawing guilt. A few years later he started Das klagende Lied, his first major work. Mahler himself wrote the text. He relied on a folk tale about two brothers, in which the elder kills the younger. Mahler called the work ‘My worry child’. It was his requiem for his brother Ernst.

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A listening guide of Das Klagende Lied –  Intro with Lew Smoley

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Serenade Aus Don Juan with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Erinnerung with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) is a song cycle for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The words of the songs are poems by Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866).

The original Kindertotenlieder were a group of 428 poems written by Rückert in 1833-1834 in an outpouring of grief following the illness (scarlet fever) and death of two of his children. Karen Painter describes the poems thus: “Rückert’s 428 poems on the death of children became singular, almost manic documents of the psychological endeavor to cope with such loss. In ever new variations Rückert’s poems attempt a poetic resuscitation of the children that is punctuated by anguished outbursts. But above all the poems show a quiet acquiescence to fate and to a peaceful world of solace.” These poems were not intended for publication, and they appeared in print only in 1871, five years after the poet’s death.

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A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – Intro with Lew Smoley.

Misprints are rare, but this song contains one incorrect note in the piano part. In measure 3 of the IMC edition, the first left hand note should be A instead of F. Few instances exist where Mahler uses a hemiola effect in the piano. Measures 10 and 11 are a wonderful example of this effect, where the pianist can bring out the left hand duple feel by playing stronger.

“The changing of the summer guard”. 

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Ablösung Im Sommer with Lew Smoley.