Happily enough, weeds are growing slowly or even have ceased growth. Not much work pulling them. Flowers are also beginning withering for now. The roadside trees and azaleas at the entrance have turned colorful. Mariegolds are leaning on the ground. Some of the flowers have changed to seeds, which I started collenting for the next season.
I often listen to "Das Lied von der Erde" by Mahler recently. For him as a composer but also a human being, it was the culmination of seeking the solution for death throughout his life. In the end of Der Abschied, after singing drinking alcohol, enjoying youth or pursuing beauty turned out meaningless before the issue of death, he asks his friend, an alter ego of himself, dying soon, where he would go. That alter ego answers he would go into mountains and wander around there. Flowers will bloom again and nature will remain eternal. The music ends with a piece of words "Ewig" repeated and faded out in diminuendo. This last piece, the longest movement in this music, must be Mahler's real intention since the poem was written by himself while the former 5 movements have poems quoted from another poet who translated a Chinese poem into German for that. As Bernstein explains on this work in a video clip, it is composed on pentatonic typical for the Oriental music. Mahler might try to express himself through the orientalism. Was the conclusion a sense of impermanence in Bhuddism? I could hear the same idea in his 9th symphony. Its 4th movement ends with a simple motif GEDE, which is of course modified with transposition. It was fading away in the same way of Ewig in Der Abschied. Has he reconciled with the vulgar power of death with this idea?
I am glad to be able to spend time listening to such a music. Feeling getting older day by day with loss of capabilities or with pain and aches in the body, I won't resist to get older. It is destined. Accepting it as it is should be all I should be.
Das Lied has always been favourite of mine. I think I first bought an LP of it in 1969, Janet Baker and Bernard Haitink with the Concertgebouw. I was a young man then and was drawn to Orientalism as many in the West were. The meaning was vague at that time. In recent years the sentiments became more apparent. Maybe Mahler felt like the eternal wanderer, seeking enlightenment and a release from his tragedies in life, his children passing away so young and so forth. It's a profoundly moving piece, like the adagio of the 10th or the final movement of the 9th, all written within a few years of each other.
ReplyDeleteThe four last songs by Strauss have a similar autumnal aura, a kind of valediction.
Other composers were attracted to the myths and symbolism of Asia. Ravel and Rimsky-Korsakov spring to mind, but they seemed more fascinated with the sound-world than in the philosophy.
These days I listen to Mahler quite rarely and prefer the life-affirming works of Bach, Schutz and Monteverdi. But a return to Mahler is inevitable. Thanks for posting this Shin.
You were precocious to listen to Mahler in your such young days, even if his works were vague and not easily understadable to you. I was never trying to spend time with his works in my school days. I still remember the room mate at the dorm used to tell me Mahler's works often show worldly minded marches all of sudden. The renowned conductor, Karajan used to tell, when he was asked why he won't make performance of Mahler's symphonies, Mahler has too close relationship between sacred and vulgar and, in his pallete, he had not enough colors to express them. I have not know such a thing in the youth. Decades later, when I played Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen in an orchestra, it moved me a lot and I was interested in him. Only recently, I am aware of his consciousness on the destination to die in his most works. You let me know of the Yiddish melody in the 4th movement of his 9th. What an impressive melody! I still often listen to it before going to sleep. Sure it makes my mind calmed down. In the biography of Mahler by Bruno Walter, after mentioning that he tried to avoid the ominous fate of "the 9th" and composed this das Lied von der Erde in stead of his 9th, Mahler asked Walter if the audience would make away with themselves after listening it. I don't know if he was kidding or serious. Seemingly, die Abschied was thought to be taken too pessimistic by them. At my present age, I finally could do with this piece. Wondering what he has thought at composing it, I would be absorbed in it for a while, being careful not to be intoxicated! Thanks for your impressive comment. Let me know what Baroque musics you are listening to, either. I am glad you have enjoyed that Strauss as well.
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