Gustav Mahler, 1860-1911. Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). Completed 1884 (piano version) and 1896 (orchestral version), first performance 1896, in Berlin. Scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling English Horn), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, harp, tympani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, and strings.
In 1883, a singer named Johanna Richter made a guest appearance in the court theater at Cassel, Germany, where Gustav Mahler was the conductor. As a result of this engagement she entered into a regular contract at the theater, and Mahler soon fell deeply in love with her. The affair was not successful, though, and by the end of the year it was all over.
The young musician eased his disappointment by composing a cycle of four songs on unrequited love. In a letter written shortly after their completion, he tells his friend Friedrich Löhr, ``... the paltry words cannot even convey a small part of [my love]. The songs are planned as a whole in such a way that it is if a fated traveling journeyman now sets out into the world and wanders solitary.''
Having eased his heart by writing poetry and music, Mahler waited over a decade before arranging a performance. In the interim, however, he did not forget the songs that had cost him so much pain, for material from each appears in his early symphonies. In particular, Symphony No. 1 (performed in these concerts last spring) used melodies and orchestrations taken almost directly from the last two movements of the cycle, while the Second and Fourth Symphonies show more subtle influences from the opening two.
The songs are uniformly dark in tone, reflecting Mahler's own rejected and depressed mood. Only the second song has a slightly positive tone, and even it ends with a lament for a happiness that ``can never bloom again.'' Yet like most rejected young lovers, Mahler eventually recovered from his depression, leaving only his music as a testament to how painful it must have been to have been jilted on Christmas Day.
© 1999, Geoff Kuenning
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