Des Knaben Wunderhorn
by Kelly Dean Hansen
Mahler set a total of fourteen large-scale songs with orchestral accompaniment to texts from the folk collection
Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Two of these, Urlicht and Das himmlische Leben, found their final forms as movements of
the Second and Fourth Symphonies, respectively. An additional, fifteenth Wunderhorn setting for solo alto and women's
chorus, Es sungen drei Engel became the fifth movement of the Third Symphony. The remaining twelve songs are
usually grouped together under the banner of Wunderhorn-Lieder, yet they do not form a unified song cycle. They are,
however, highly effective when performed together. In general, the songs can be divided into two types: songs of a
military nature and those of a pastoral, romantic, or quasi-religious nature. Ten of the songs were composed between
1888 and 1893, preceding the first symphonies. The final two settings were written in 1899 and 1901 in close proximity
to the fifth and sixth symphonies and the songs to texts by Rückert. The subject matter of both of these songs involves
a doomed drummer boy. They are more extended than the earlier songs. The Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies
are often called the Wunderhorn symphonies because of their use of some of these songs as movements. There are
also purely orchestral symphonic movements in the Second, Fifth, and even the Tenth Symphonies that are clearly
related to certain Wunderhorn songs. Mahler did not specify in his scores whether the songs were to be sung by a man
or a woman, although the military songs are clearly more effective when sung by a man. Similarly, some of the pastoral
songs are best served by a woman's voice. A few of the songs are in a sort of dialogue form between male and female
speakers. There is no evidence that Mahler ever intended these dialogue songs to be sung as duets, but this practice
has become widespread in recent years. Following strong advice of the two leading Mahler experts, Donald Mitchell
and Henry-Louis de La Grange, however, they are presented here as single-voice songs, as Mahler himself performed
them. Maestro Olson's division of the songs on the two programs between the two singers represents a balance of the
styles. He ends each set with one of the two later and more extended "drummer boy" songs.
Saturday Program
Der Schildwache Nachtlied is a complex military-style song with trumpet calls and drum rolls, but it is also a dialogue
song. The sentinel's defiant rejection of joy and love is three times interrupted by more tender music setting words of
his beloved. He rejects these, becoming more defiant and firm, building to an actual sentinel's call. It is the music of the
rejected home and love that ends the song, however.
Verlorene Müh' is another dialogue song, and it is in the distinctive Swabian dialect. It is a sort of fruitless serenade in a
playful 3/8 rhythm. It is quite similar to the famous song by Brahms called Vergebliches Ständchen, but with a reversal
of gender roles. The foolish girl makes numerous attempts to entice a young lad, but is summarily rejected each time.
As she persists, his rejections become louder and more forceful and he has the last word.
Trost im Unglück describes the feelings of somebody trying to move past a lost or rejected love, comforting himself
with the assurance that he loved her out of foolishness and can live without her. Mahler clearly reads this text ironically
and provides a setting that is similar in style to the military songs, with rushing string figures and rapid snare drum rolls.
Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht? is another pastoral setting and, as Verlorene Müh'; it is in 3/8 meter. It is a typical rustic
scene involving admiration of an innkeeper's daughter living on a hill. The song is reflexive however, and ends by
asking the question of who came up with this little ditty. The outward simplicity of the setting in relation to the other
songs masks the fact that it is extraordinarily difficult to sing. The singer is twice asked to tackle long, rapid, and
intricate melismas (passages of many notes on one vocal syllable) imitating figures played by the strings and winds.
Das irdische Leben is a grim little piece, perhaps providing the negative counterpart to Das himmlische Leben, the song
that became the finale of the Fourth Symphony. The music is of a decidedly eerie nature, employing divided strings in a
quiet perpetual motion. Some of the string parts play pizzicato figures along with woodwind interjections into the
background of the weird perpetual motion. Again, the text is a dialogue, this time between a mother and child. The
hungry child repeatedly asks for food, only to be reassured by the parent that it is coming soon. The repeated pleas of
"give me bread or else I die!" are set with very widely spaced and dissonant intervals. The comforting nature of the
parent's entreaties to wait is belied by the continuing presence of the eerie perpetual motion in the accompaniment. The
child's pleas increase in intensity, and death of course arrives just as the bread has been baked. The figuration of this
song is remarkably similar to that of the Purgatorio movement of the Tenth Symphony and the song is almost certainly
the source for that aptly named piece. Perhaps "earthly life" is indeed seen by Mahler as purgatory.
Revelge is the most intense and manic of the Wunderhorn settings, and also by far the most extended. It is a persistent
march of a magnitude matching the great march movements of the symphonies. The speaker is a fallen drummer boy
whose comrades pass him by on the march and leave him for dead. For most of the song, a persistent military rhythm
in the trumpets is omnipresent, becoming obsessive in its insistence. Only when the drummer is pleading with his
brothers not to pass him by does it occasionally let up. The ironic cries of "Tra-la-li, Tra-la-ley, Tra-la-lera" add to the
unrelenting nature of the song. Woodwind trills and figures are as persistent as the trumpet tattoos. As the music
reaches its climax, the string figures and drum rolls become more violent, and at the end, the frightening nature of the
song is taken even further with the use of col legno string playing.
Sunday Program
Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, in 3/8 time, is best known as the source for the music of the scherzo of the
Second Symphony. Its music employs strings and winds in perpetual motion as well as interjecting woodwind figures.
The ironic text describes a saint who, on finding an empty church, goes to the water and preaches to the fishes. The
fishes listen in rapt enjoyment, but after the sermon they, like humans, remain the sinners they once were. Perhaps this
was the message Mahler was trying to assign to mortal existence when he used it in his symphony.
Rheinlegendchen is perhaps the most tender of the settings and, as many others of a pastoral nature, employs a 3/8
meter. It is quite lightly scored and very leisurely in pace. It describes the story of a girl who throws her ring into the sea
hoping that her true love will find it. The ring is swallowed by a fish, which ends up on the King's table. Upon opening
the fish, the ring is discovered and claimed by the girl's lover. All of this is of course a dream of the girl, who is thinking
of ways to keep her sweetheart by her side.
Lied des Verfolgten im Turm is very similar to Der Schildwache Nachtlied, but now the protagonist is a prisoner.
Again, the style is military. The burden of the song is the refrain that thoughts are free, despite the fact that he himself is
not. Again, this is a dialogue song. The prisoner's sweetheart speaks to him in contrasting music through the prison
walls of the open world and the wish that they were together, all of which he rejects with the words that his thoughts are
free. In trying to stoically accept his fate, he rejects his sweetheart, who cannot cope, as he sees it. In fact, he shows
that his thoughts are just as fettered as he is, as he has actually given up hope with his "free thoughts" and turned his
beloved away.
Wo die schönen Trompetten blasen is another rather sad, but achingly beautiful song. This song combines elements
of the military and the pastoral. The trumpet and horn calls are soft, however, and we are dealing with a meeting of two
lovers before the man goes off to war. The horn call music contrasts with the warm dialogue of the lovers in triple time.
There is a sort of musical catharsis as the young man describes his house where the bright trumpets play, but this is
immediately dispelled by the mention of the green grass, implying that his future home is the grave.
Lob des hohen Verstandes is, like the Fischpredigt, a satirical song. It is of a jolly nature, describing a singing contest
between the cuckoo and the nightingale. The judge of the contest is an ass. The ass of course declares the cuckoo the
winner. The musical painting of the cuckoo's call and the ass's bray is wonderful. They are combined in the last line, the
cuckoo's being immediately followed by the final "I-yah." Is this Mahler's retort to the many critics of his music? The
opening woodwind figures of this song were the source for some of the motives of the joyful finale of the Fifth
Symphony.
Tambourgesell is the last composed of Mahler's Wunderhorn settings. Like Revelge, it is sung by a doomed drummer.
Rather than lying in the field, however, this drummer lies in prison. Where Revelge was manic, this song is more heavy
and mournful. The drum rolls here are slower and more deliberate, and are balanced by lamenting woodwind trills. The
song itself is most effective at a slow tempo. It is in the character of a slow funeral march, and like Revelge, it is very
long. The final invocations of Gute Nacht! rival the final moments of the Sixth Symphony as the most shattering music
Mahler ever wrote. As he had done in Revelge, he employs col legno at the end to intensify the tragic effect.
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