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Mahler Foundation is the center for education and promotion of the music of Gustav Mahler to everyone around the world.
115 Episodes
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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 ps...
A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n with Lew Smoley.
A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen with Lew Smoley.
A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – Wenn dein Mütterlein with Lew Smoley.
A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen with Lew Smoley.
A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – In diesem Wetter, In diesem Braus 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...
On the day that the minstrel arrives at the castle there is just a party going on for the occasion of the upcoming wedding of the queen and the eldest brother. The murderer is pale and feels guilty about the way he earned his royal engagement.The minstrel plays the flute and the song of the murdered brother, the complaining song, sounds. The eldest brother takes the flute and plays it himself. Again the voice of his brother sounds and accuses him of the murder. The piece ends in chaos: the qu...
A minstrel that runs through the forest finds a bone under a tree, and cuts a flute. When he plays the flute, the voice of the murdered youngest brother, who tells the story of his unfortunate death, sounds. The minstrel feels that he can not leave this story untold and goes on his way to the castle to reveal the true nature of the queen’s fiancée.---A listening guide of Das Klagende Lied – Der Spielmann with Lew Smoley.
A beautiful, but proud queen would like to get married but do not know who. She conceives of a competition: the man who first brings her the very special flower that grows in the forest may marry her.Many men from the kingdom accept the challenge, including two brothers. The eldest brother is brave, mean and reckless, the youngest brother kind, gentle and curious. Soon the youngest brother finds the flower, picks it and places it on his hat. Satisfied he takes a nap against a tree.The eldest ...
Gustav Mahler score Klavierquartett, piano quartet, Movement 1: in A.---A listening guide of Klavierquartett with Lew Smoley.
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, all...
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (‘Songs of a Wayfarer’) is a song cycle by Gustav Mahler on his own texts. The cycle of four Lieder for low voice (often performed by women as well as men) was written around 1884-1885 in the wake of Mahler’s unhappy love for soprano Johanna Richter (1858-1943), whom he met while conductor of the opera house in Kassel, Germany, and orchestrated and revised in the 1890s.---A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Intro with Lew Smoley.
The third movement is a full display of despair. Entitled “Ich hab’ein glühend Messer” (“I Have a Gleaming Knife”), the Wayfarer likens his agony of lost love to having an actual metal blade piercing his heart. He obsesses to the point where everything in the environment reminds him of some aspect of his love, and he wishes he actually had the knife.The music is intense and driving, fitting to the agonized nature of the Wayfarer’s obsession.---A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesel...
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 a...
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.---A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Wenn Mein Schatz Hochzeit Macht with Lew Smoley.
Um Mitternacht moves from the most brilliant day to deepest night, and the change is once more immediately apparent in its coloration. Mahler calls for an orchestra without strings. In addition to pairs of woodwinds (with a single oboe d’amore replacing the usual oboes), three horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a single tuba, and timpani, both harp and piano are prescribed.The length, weight and scale of the song match its theme. Five six-line stanzas (each of which begins and ends with “U...
The poetic theme of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,” one of Mahler’s most beautiful and moving songs, is again unusual. It evokes the peace achieved through the poet’s withdrawal from the everyday turmoil of the world and his absorption in the most meaningful and central aspects of his life: his heaven, his life, and his song. (By implication the last is the product of the preceding two).---A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen with Lew Smoley.
Rückert-Lieder is a song cycle of five Lieder for voice and orchestra or piano by Gustav Mahler, based on poems written by Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866). Lied Ruckert 1: Blicke mir nicht in die LiederLied Ruckert 2: Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!Lied Ruckert 3: Um MitternachtLied Ruckert 4: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommenLied Ruckert 5: Liebst du um Schoenheit---A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Intro with Lew Smoley.
Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft is perhaps unique in musically evoking a fragrance, the delicate fragrance of the lime tree with which the poet associates his love. The color of the setting is still more transparent, and much brighter than “Blicke mir nicht.” The orchestration again consists of single winds, horn and harp, but only violins and violas are called for, and a celesta has been added. The continuing even motion in the strings suggests the quiet wafting of the scent through the air.---...
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