A Singer’s Guide to the Great Composers: Mahler Pt2
My suggestion at the end of Part 1 was to listen to a performance or recording of Mahler’s great second symphony.
Just as I was finishing that last article, I received the terrible news that one of my best friends, only two months older than myself, had died suddenly. Accordingly, I followed my own advice and watched and listened to my DVD of the fantastic performance of the second symphony, recorded in Ely Cathedral in 1973 (the year I first met my friend), with Leonard Bernstein conducting the LSO and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, with soloists Sheila Armstrong and Janet Baker. I am pleased to say that this had the desired effect, as that wonderful life-affirming overwhelming concert brought enormous succour and fortitude to my grieving soul. Even in normal circumstances, this performance reduces me to floods of emotional tears, which proved true again, yet also was cathartic, in helping me come to terms with our loss. The profound feelings of joy and release provoked by this towering masterpiece, are emotions that only music can reveal, and for me Mahler had the perfect key to unlock those pent up emotions.
In 1897, Mahler became Director of the Viennese Court Opera, his dream position, a post he held for 10 stormy years, racked with political and personal turmoil. In 1902, he married the extraordinary Alma Schindler, a composer and socialite, who had already had a relationship with the composer Zemlinsky, and who at 23 was the talk of the town. Shortly after the wedding Maria was born, and two years later Anna. There is no doubt that Mahler was infatuated by Alma, but he was a difficult man to live with, a mixture of passion, bravado and ambition, with a totally controlling personality, and he was 19 years older than his wife! When Maria died in 1907, the couple were even more traumatised, and when Alma began a relationship with Walter Gropius, the future leader of the Bauhaus movement (a mixture of arts, craft and design), Mahler sought advice from Sigmund Freud, perhaps not a wise choice! After Mahler’s death in 1911 Alma married Gropius, after a tumultuous affair with the artist Kokoshka, and later married Franz Werfel, an Austrian novelist, and moved to the United States, where she died in 1964. It seems to me unbelievable that I was 9 when Alma died! Lover of Klimt, Zemlinsky, Mahler, Gropius, Kokoshka and Werfel, amongst others, she lived the most amazing life imaginable.
From 1901 to 1904, Mahler composed the songs for which he is most famous. He had moved his summer residence to Maiernigg on the Wőrthersee and he set to work on a group of songs to words by the German poet, Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866), who himself was a fascinating character, Professor of Oriental Languages and master of 30 languages! The poet had written over 400 poems after the death of two of his children in the 1830s, trying to come to terms (in a not too healthy way) with his grief. These were not intended for publication, but appeared five years after his death, in 1871. Mahler had lost several siblings, especially his younger brother, Ernst, and decided to set five of these poems, scored for medium voice and chamber-sized orchestra under the title Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the death of children). The awful irony is that four years after the composition of the songs, Mahler’s own daughter, Maria, died at the age of four.
I have a confession to make here: I have never heard or listened to these songs. I have only one direct experience of the death of children (not my own), but I am afraid that single event was bad enough to prevent me from going near these songs. Apparently, they are wonderful and end in a mood of transcendence, with love triumphing over death, but you are going to have to find them yourselves.
However, I know and love the other Rückert Lieder that Mahler wrote in that extraordinary creative period at the beginning of the last century, and I am discovering them afresh in the run up to singing four of them myself in August this year in Edinburgh. My first experience of these songs, which are not a cycle in the Schubertian sense, and can be sung in any order or number, was the exquisite recording made by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in 1963, which I still find, to this day, one of the most beautiful and profound pieces of singing in any medium, ever! Now this is quite a statement, and is entirely subjective, but if one is to write a Singer’s Guide, opinions can be freely expressed in context, and people are free to disagree. I have since loved the versions by Kathleen Ferrier (the more poignant as they were recorded very close to her death, and totally exhausted her), Janet Baker and Christa Ludwig. Other readers will have their own favourites, but DFD does it for me. If I am needing comfort or a calm space, I go either to this recording or Alan Stivell’s timeless classic from 1971, ‘Renaissance of the Celtic Harp.’
Mahler’s life in the first years of last century were perhaps his most satisfying, even for this super neurotic! Recently married, a father, director of the Vienna Court Opera, at the height of his conducting and composing fame, unaware as yet of impending heart disease, he was able to set these extremely expressive poems to music of unfathomable beauty and depth.
“Um Mitternacht” (At Midnight) reveals the torment of the poet in coming to terms with darkness, both real and metaphorical, and Mahler takes us through a winding path of emotional responses, using a steady pulse within bars of different length. It is quite difficult to trust yourself to this pulse, as it can go from two beats in a bar to as many as six, and often five. You absolutely have to know how many of these beats are in each bar and commit to that. Once you have accomplished that, you may then start to be expressive, and gosh, there is a lot to find. The text wanders through its mysterious path, until, finally, the poet renounces his own power and puts himself in the hands of God, the lord of Life and Death, to find his goal. “You! You are standing on guard. At Midnight”, the singer exclaims at the end, in triumphant ecstasy, as the music resolves in a final “church” cadence. Yet, this is not so much a religious ecstasy, as an existential one, similar to the triumph of Mahler’s Second Symphony, and it takes all the singer’s power of put it over. You can hear it in Kathleen Ferrier’s performance in the recording she made, not long before she died, as she summons one last great emotional outburst from her damaged body.
It is almost impossible to believe how Mahler could write, at about the same time as “Um Mitternacht”, the beautiful “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft” (I breathed in the fragrance of the lime tree). This song is unique in music as it somehow conjures up the fragrance of a sprig of lime, leaving both singer and audience with a lingering perfume, where none really exists. The poet uses the idea of the fragrant twig to recapture the memory of his love, and Mahler weaves circles of greenery round both the vocal part and the accompaniment, especially in the original orchestral version, where the oboe solo seems to make time stand still. The delicacy of the vocal line is in stark contrast to the dramatic excitement of “Um Mitternacht”, as the composer reminds the singer to sing throughout in pianissimo, with only a tiny crescendo in the final phrase. He writes at the beginning; “with much tenderness and fervour”, and that is what is needed in the singing – no over-emotion and no bravura.
The last of the Rückert Lieder I want to look at in detail, “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (I am lost to the world), is perhaps, for me, the best and most loved of all songs. It reveals the essential character of Mahler in all its diversity and complexity, and combines sadness, warmth, resolution and transcendent love within a melody of exquisite beauty, and an accompaniment for which the word “haunting” was invented.
Since I will be singing these songs with piano accompaniment, I have been looking at them from that angle, but I should mention that they were written with orchestration, and that setting is the one which we normally hear. Mahler excelled himself in the orchestration of “Ich bin der Welt”, as it takes us to a plane similar to that outlined by the poet. It is a place far removed from worldly things, from the noise and bustle of life, where the poet is forgotten and could be dead for all the world knows. It must have appealed to Mahler, as it describes, in many ways, his summer composing retreats in the Austrian lakes, away from the crazy world of the busy conductor. “I have died to the world, and rest in a silent domain. I live alone in my heaven, in my love, in my song.” It is a comforting thought in many ways and establishes beyond doubt that this is a comforting song and not a depressing one. “Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel, und ruh’ in einem stillen Gebiet” - starting with a low note, rising slowly to the turmoil of the world, and resting over a gentle harmonic clash on the word Ruh. That simple word with its long u sound is one of the German language’s great gifts to music. Wagner uses it to heart-breaking effect in “Gőtterdämmerung”, when Brünnhilde sings “Ruhe, Ruhe, du Gott” towards the end of her Immolation scene. Similarly, here, the longing inherent in the word, sung with minimal vibrato, conjures up depths of solitude and silence, unavailable to other languages. Whenever someone complains to me about the guttural ugliness of German, I simply point to this little word.
There are several wonderful recordings of this song, as mentioned above, and it is really entirely subjective. I would not be content with only one or two, and consequently possess at least 6 different versions. The greater the singer, the greater the song, but, for me, the version with Fischer-Dieskau, conducted by the great Karl Bőhm, tops the lot.
This article about Gustav Mahler from the singer’s angle would not be complete without a glance at the two great works which he wrote towards the end of his life, the Eighth Symphony and A Symphony for Tenor, Alto (or baritone) Voice and Orchestra, “Das Lied von der Erde” (The Song of the Earth). The Eighth, “The Symphony of a Thousand” was premiered in Munich in September 1910 and was the last premiere of his lifetime. The Song of the Earth was only performed for the first time six months after Mahler’s death in 1911, also in Munich.
The Eighth Symphony was written incredibly fast at Mahler’s retreat at Maiernigg in the summer of 1906, although his conducting commitments, especially in New York, in 1908/9, and the huge forces needed for its performance, necessitated a delay. Eventually, a venue and an impresario were found, and the first performance, also the last conducted by Mahler, took place in the vast Neue Musik-Festhallle in Munich, with a capacity of 3,200. It proved to be a great success, with famous attendees including Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saëns and Anton Webern, as well as Thomas Mann, Max Reinhardt and Arthur Schnitzler. It is conceived in two parts, both of which involve chorus and soloists: the first part is a setting of the 9th century Latin hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, and the second, a cantata using the closing parts of Goethe’s ‘Faust’. These apparently disparate elements were united by the theme of redemption through love and combine to create one of the most thrilling symphonies of all time.
I didn’t hear it live for decades, but grew up listening to the outstanding recording made with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1971, with particularly wonderful singing by Lucia Popp (the top Cs at the end of the first movement are among the most thrilling sounds you will ever hear) and Rene Kollo, who sings the tenor part with grace and fervour, and brilliant top notes! He was one of the finest tenors of his day – I heard him singing Lohengrin at Covent Garden in the late 70s, which remains in my memory all these years later - who had one characteristic and annoying flaw in his technique, that meant he aspirated every vowel sound. This intrusive ‘h’, which Schwarzkopf had screamed about in her masterclasses, correctly, becomes terribly irritating, but that apart, he sings with such romantic ardour, that one can forgive him anything. The one weird casting choice on this recording was to have John Shirley-Quirk (surely one of the most amusing names of all fine singers, only challenged by my friend, Rogers Covey-Crump!) singing the baritone part. He was an excellent singer, but severely overparted in this recording. The bass was Martii Talvela, a huge Finnish singer who made up in decibels what he lacked in beauty of voice.
It was listening to Talvela that persuaded me not to look at the part myself, and actually, once I had heard the symphony live in the Usher Hall conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles, I remained of that opinion. I have since learned the part and was offered it once, but, on reflection, I was right to avoid it. The orchestration is dense and incredibly loud, and frankly, you wouldn’t hear me!
The same problem relates to the other great vocal symphonic work of Mahler’s late years, ‘Das Lied von der Erde’. Here the orchestration, particularly for the tenor, is overwhelming.
He completed the composition in 1909, after two awful years before, when he was sacked from the Vienna Court Opera, lost his daughter to scarlet fever and was himself diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. Mortality hung heavily over him, and he was gripped by a terrible pessimism. In 1907, Hans Bethge’s collection of German translations of Chinese poetry, “The Chinese Flute”, was published, and Mahler was captivated by these visions of earthly beauty and the transience of life. He decided to set seven of these poems to music in a symphonic work for alto and tenor (he allowed a baritone if an alto was unavailable, but the version I have heard, even with the divine Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, doesn’t work for me), but refused to call it a symphony because he was haunted by the history of composers who wrote nine symphonies and died. The irony, of course, was that after writing his ninth symphony, Mahler did die!
He never got to hear ‘Das Lied von der Erde’, but it is one of his most moving works, especially the great last song, for alto, “Der Abschied” (The Farewell). Some of the greatest singers of the 20th and 21st centuries have recorded this. My own favourites are Janet Baker and Christa Ludwig, but readers must make their own choices. I was privileged to hear, in the Royal Festival Hall, two of the finest singers, Jessye Norman and Jon Vickers, conducted by Colin Davis, in a never to be forgotten concert, although, as I mentioned earlier, even Vickers, with his enormous voice, was drowned out by the orchestra. I think, if Mahler had lived to hear his composition, he would have re-scored some of the piece, particularly the fabulous first song, “The Drinking Song of Earth’s Misery”.
There is a wonderful recording, made over a couple of years in the early 60s, with Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich (just before he died), conducted by Otto Klemperer, who had assisted Mahler in his final years. Wunderlich sings the tenor songs better than anyone, but this was the result of brilliant microphone work by Walter Legge and his colleagues at EMI. In the concert hall, you would have heard hardly a note of Wunderlich’s performance. Perhaps Mahler was twiddling the knobs from a celestial studio!
I am thrilled to be performing four of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder in St Michael’s Church in Edinburgh on August 22. I hope some of our readers can come along, and wallow in the magnificent music written by this amazing composer.
