Misplaced Pages

Rückert-Lieder

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
#297702

50-429: The Rückert-Lieder (Songs after Rückert) is a collection of five Lieder for voice and orchestra or piano by Gustav Mahler , based on poems written by Friedrich Rückert . Four of the songs ("Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!", "Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft", "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen", and "Um Mitternacht") were written in the summer of 1901 at Maiernigg , with one ("Liebst du um Schönheit") completed in

100-486: A Lieder concert, which was especially interesting given that most of Mahler's Lieder with orchestral accompaniment had not been performed yet. Due to demand, the final rehearsal (on 28 January, the day before the premiere) was open to the public, and the concert itself was completely sold out, with many being turned away at the door. The concert was greeted with a positive reception, with Paul Stefan writing that "Mahler's Lieder touched everyone". Anton Webern , who attended

150-679: A new period in his career as a composer. As for the Vereinigung, the long rehearsals for the concert had been costly, as it was necessary to pay overtime to the Philharmonic musicians, on top of their already considerable fee to perform in the first place. Despite being sold out twice, the small Musikvereinsaal had not enough seats to cover expenses, which forced the Vereinigung to cancel an orchestral concert, and to finally cease activities after two final chamber music concerts on February 20 and April 17. Later in 1905, C. F. Kahnt would publish

200-728: A score consisting of only the five Rückert settings. Mahler subsequently performed two of the Rückert-Lieder , namely 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen', sung by Weidemann, and 'Um Mitternacht', sung by Erik Schmedes, in a concert at the Graz Festival, on June 1, 1905. Mahler again conducted, with the orchestra comprising 23 members of the Konzertverin Orchestra and "professors from the Steiermäkischer Muisverein," as well as members of

250-461: A single narrative or theme, such as Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise , or Robert Schumann 's Frauen-Liebe und Leben and Dichterliebe . Schubert and Schumann are most closely associated with this genre, mainly developed in the Romantic era. Typically, Lieder were for a single singer and piano, with orchestral accompaniment being a later development. The tradition

300-827: A sometimes overtly political nature. Some of the most famous examples of Lieder are Schubert's Erlkönig , Der Tod und das Mädchen ("Death and the Maiden"), Gretchen am Spinnrade , and Der Doppelgänger . The mélodies of Hector Berlioz , Gabriel Fauré , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc are French parallels to the German Lied . Modest Mussorgsky 's and Sergei Rachmaninoff 's Russian songs are also analogous. 20th-century English examples, as represented by Ralph Vaughan Williams , Benjamin Britten , Ivor Gurney , and Gerald Finzi , were often folk-like in idiom. Christian Friedrich Kahnt From Misplaced Pages,

350-474: Is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, lied is often used interchangeably with " art song " to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages as well. The poems that have been made into lieder often center on pastoral themes or themes of romantic love. The earliest Lieder date from

400-576: Is generally considered a minor poet, though Mahler was not troubled by this, holding the view that masterpieces of poetry should not be set to music. The turn to Rückert's poetry has been considered conservative on Mahler's part, given his connections with modernists such as Richard Strauss , the musicians of the Vereinigung, and the artists of the Vienna Secession , as well as the novelty of his own music. However, Mahler himself felt no need to borrow from these early modernist trends of which he

450-527: The Des Knaben Wunderhorn setting ‘Revelge’. Eventually Mahler suffered a near-fatal haemorrhage on the night of February 24, 1901, requiring emergency treatment, an operation, and a seven week long recuperation. From June to August 1901, Mahler spent his vacation at his newly completed lakeside villa near Maiernigg. Its isolation meant the summer was peaceful, and he experienced the most productive summer of his life, completing two movements of

500-451: The 9th Symphony . The instrumentation of the complete collection is as follows: Lied In the Western classical music tradition, Lied ( / l iː d , l iː t / LEED , LEET , German: [liːt] ; pl.   Lieder / ˈ l iː d ər / LEE -dər , German: [ˈliːdɐ] ; lit.   ' song ' )

550-746: The Kindertotenlieder and the Wunderhorn settings which were performed, along with the Rückert-Lieder , in a repeat performance on 3 February 1905. The songs were first published as a collection in their versions for piano accompaniment in 1905, and later re-published, in full score, along with the Der Knaben Wunderhorn settings of "Revelge" and "Der Tamboursg’sell" in Sieben Lieder aus letzter Zeit ( Seven Songs of Latter Days ) in 1910. The Rückert-Lieder , along with

SECTION 10

#1732765177298

600-603: The Kindertotenlieder and the 5th Symphony, are considered to be a turning point in Mahler's oeuvre , and many elements of these songs would anticipate later works such as Das Lied von der Erde . In 1897, Mahler became the director of the Vienna Hofoper . Over the following years his compositional output dwindled due to over-work and ill health; between 1897 and 1900, he only completed the Fourth Symphony and

650-478: The Rückert-Lieder in a small hall with a small orchestra, particularly cutting down the size of the string section. The scoring of the Lieder often focus on small groups of instruments akin to chamber music , with even the voice being treated like an instrument. It is generally considered that Mahler forged a new style with this collection. Not only did he abandon setting the poems from Der Knaben Wunderhorn (with

700-416: The Rückert-Lieder with their piano accompaniment. It would take until 1908 for Kahnt to agree publication the full scores of those songs with orchestral accompaniments, and 1910 for these scores to appear, along with Mahler's settings of 'Revelge' and 'Der Tamboursg’sell' from Der Knaben Wunderhorn in Sieben Lieder aus letzter Zeit ( Seven Songs of Latter Days ) in 1910. Universal Edition later published

750-683: The Wunderhorn settings, on 29 January 1905 in Vienna at the small Musikvereinsaal , now called the Brahmssaal. The singers were the tenor Fritz Schrödter and the baritones Friedrich Weidemann and Anton Moser. These singers were accompanied by members of the Vienna Philharmonic, which were conducted by Mahler himself. Moser sang "Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!" and "Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!", and Weidemann sang "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" and "Um Mitternacht". The songs were in

800-459: The article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article . Search for " Christian Friedrich Kahnt " in existing articles. Look for pages within Misplaced Pages that link to this title . Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try

850-644: The 'absolutely unprecedented [sonority] of his chamber orchestra." These reports paved the way for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik to publish a long article about Mahler's Lieder later in 1905. In 1911, the Grazer Volksblatt , reminiscing on the concert in the wake of Mahler's death, would write that "few eyes remained dry in the concert hall" and that "the audience surrounded [Mahler] with acclamation, ... gratitude, and genuine love." On February 14, 1907, Mahler accompanied Johannes Messchaert at

900-514: The Fifth Symphony and eight Lieder, including four of the Rückert-Lieder . By 10 August, Mahler was playing six of his Rückert settings (including three of the Kindertotenlieder ) plus "Der Tamboursg’sell" to Natalie Bauer-Lechner , and according to her chronicles, each song was composed in one day and orchestrated the next day. Then on 16 August, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" was completed. The serenity of his surroundings, as well as

950-786: The Monk of Salzburg in both number (about 120 lieder) and quality. From the 15th century come three large song collections compiled in Germany: the Lochamer Liederbuch , the Schedelsches Liederbuch , and the Glogauer Liederbuch . The scholar Konrad Celtis (1459–1508), the Arch-Humanist of German Renaissance, taught his students to compose Latin poems using the metric patterns following

1000-412: The Vienna Philharmonic that accompanied Mahler to Graz . The acclaim from the audience was apparently so spontaneous that the fellow composers in the hall, as well as those who regularly criticised Mahler, booed him off in envy. Again critics, even those who were biased against Mahler's work, praised this triumph, with Ernst Decsey saying "Each song was incontestably a 'phenomenon' unto itself, because of

1050-559: The best songs that Mahler had composed". Paul Bekker in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung again repeated the criticism that the songs were occasionally "sentimental." Otto Klemperer later recalled that the concert was "wonderfully compelling" and "quite unbelievable." Messchaert and Mahler would later perform two of the Rückert-Lieder at a concert in Cologne on July 1, again to acclaim. The Rückert-Lieder consist of

SECTION 20

#1732765177298

1100-486: The collection and contain subtle references to the Rückert-Lieder . The Rückert-Lieder (without "Liebst du um Schönheit") were premiered, alongside the Kindertotenlieder and several Wunderhorn settings, in Vienna on 29 January 1905 by Mahler and members of the Vienna Philharmonic , sung by Anton Moser and Friedrich Weidemann . The songs met with a positive reception, though they were overshadowed by

1150-409: The concert, Mahler had dinner with the musicians of the Vereinigung, which deepened the bond between the two. Webern later recalled that Mahler had said that "After Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could only compose more Rückert – which is lyricism at first hand, all the rest is lyricism at second hand." More importantly for Mahler, these two triumphant performances had made him become aware that he had entered

1200-424: The dance and march rhythms and the quasi-folk style of the Wunderhorn songs. Gone too are those songs' satirical excursions, with their accompanying instrumental pungencies and sarcasms. Instead, the collection, with its "brevity and intimate character ... represent[s] a short interlude of pure lyricism in [Mahler's] work," characterised by linear counterpoint and heterophony . This focus on melody, as well as

1250-564: The earliest German secular polyphony collections such as Johann Ott's Mehrstimmiges Deutsches Liederbuch (1534) and Georg Forster's Frische teutsche Liedlein (about 1540 onwards). According to Chester Lee Alwes, Heinrich Isaac 's popular song Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen "became the gold standard of the Lied genre". German-speaking composers Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven wrote Lieder for voice and keyboard. The great age of German song came in

1300-503: The early fifteenth century, largely displacing the earlier word gesang . The poet and composer Oswald von Wolkenstein is sometimes claimed to be the creator of the lied because of his innovations in combining words and music. The late-fourteenth-century composer known as the Monk of Salzburg wrote six two-part lieder which are older still, but Oswald's songs (about half of which actually borrow their music from other composers) far surpass

1350-438: The emotional aftereffects of the near-death experienced he had suffered earlier in 1901 (seen most in "Um Mitternacht") exerted a considerable influence on the Rückert-Lieder , and they contributed to Mahler creating a new musical style which has been said to “[reveal] an artist who is already exploring another world”. The next year, after his courtship and marriage to Alma Schindler , Mahler composed another Rückert setting that

1400-417: The exceptions of "Revelge" and "Der Tamboursg’sell"), but he also started writing exclusively instrumental symphonies, without explicit references to his songs. Instead of the "ironic, critical stance" assumed in the Wunderhorn settings, Mahler instead adopts a "first-person perspective that ... is intimately introspective." Donald Mitchell writes of the songs: Gone are the fanfares , the military signals,

1450-583: The following order: The concerts were part of a series of concerts organised by the Vereinigung schaffender Tonkünstler in Wien , founded on 23 April 1904 by Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky (among others). Mahler had accepted the honorary presidency of the Vereinigung , and he helped to organise and perform in several of these concerts, of which this Lieder concert was one. Mahler had already promised Schoenberg and Zemlinsky when he accepted

1500-400: The following songs: The Rückert-Lieder are all settings of poems by the early 19th-century poet Friedrich Rückert. Rückert's poems are heavily influenced by his activity as a scholar of Oriental languages , and his poems were widely read in his lifetime, being set by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert . Between 1895 and 1900 his poetry revived in popularity, but today he

1550-927: The 💕 Look for Christian Friedrich Kahnt on one of Misplaced Pages's sister projects : [REDACTED] Wiktionary (dictionary) [REDACTED] Wikibooks (textbooks) [REDACTED] Wikiquote (quotations) [REDACTED] Wikisource (library) [REDACTED] Wikiversity (learning resources) [REDACTED] Commons (media) [REDACTED] Wikivoyage (travel guide) [REDACTED] Wikinews (news source) [REDACTED] Wikidata (linked database) [REDACTED] Wikispecies (species directory) Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Christian Friedrich Kahnt in Misplaced Pages to check for alternative titles or spellings. You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use

Rückert-Lieder - Misplaced Pages Continue

1600-469: The honorary presidency that he would premiere one of his own works for the Vereinigung . Mahler could not premiere the 5th Symphony, as it would be too costly to perform, and in any case had already been promised to Fritz Steinbach 's Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne. Instead, Mahler opted to complete the Kindertotenlieder in the summer of 1904, and premiere that song cycle and the Rückert-Lieder in

1650-519: The late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, and can even refer to Minnesang from as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. It later came especially to refer to settings of Romantic poetry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century. Examples include settings by Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven , Franz Schubert , Robert Schumann , Johannes Brahms , Hugo Wolf , Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss . For German speakers,

1700-477: The listeners whether the melodies are suffused with juicy banalities or borrowed from Bruckner's Romantic [Symphony] ... He makes the accompaniment progress in the time-honoured manner, stepwise with the voice, but casts over the whole a glittering orchestral web, full of clever ideas and piquant effects. The programme was repeated in another sold-out concert on February 3, this time with Marie Gutheil-Schoder singing three additional Wunderhorn settings. Following

1750-520: The model of the Horatian odes. These poems were subsequently "set to simple, four-part music, incorporate the shifting accenmal patterns of the French vers mesurée ". The composers of this style included Heinrich Finck , Paul Hofhaimer , and Ludwig Senfl . The style also became imbued into the new German humanist dramas, thus contributing to the development of Protestant hymnody. The style is present in

1800-492: The nineteenth century. With the flowering of German literature , German-speaking composers found more inspiration in poetry. Schubert found a new balance between words and music, a new expression of the sense of the words in and through the music. He wrote over 600 songs, some of them in sequences or song cycles that convey a journey of the soul, not the body. Song cycles (German: Liederzyklus or Liederkreis ) are series of Lieder (generally three or more) tied by

1850-704: The piano in a recital at the Bösendorfer Saal in Berlin, consisting of five early Wunderhorn settings, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen , the Kindertotenlieder , and the same four Rückert-Lieder as at the collection's premiere. An unsigned article in the Vossiche Zeitung wrote that there had been a "sizeable audience", alluded to the Graz concert, and said the Rückert-Lieder were "certainly among

1900-425: The piano version is regarded to be as authoritative as the orchestral version. The Rückert-Lieder were never intended to be a cohesive song-cycle. The piano score and the orchestral score differ in their ordering of the songs, and when conducting the songs, Mahler frequently changed the order of the songs according to the circumstances of each performance. For example, at the premiere performance on January 29, 1905,

1950-411: The premiere, was more cool, writing in his diary that the Rückert-Lieder were "less satisfactory" and even "sentimental", but still containing a "beauty of vocal expression, which is sometimes of overwhelming inwardness", singling out "Ich atmet einen linden Duft" for praise. David Josef Bach noted that "With [Mahler], words do not create the atmosphere. It is more as if, in order to create it, he needs

2000-417: The song, and it was not performed in public in Mahler's lifetime. Instead, when the full collection was published, it was orchestrated by Max Pullman, an editor at the publishing company C. F. Kahnt  [ de ] , who first published these Lieder. Four of the Rückert-Lieder ("Liebst du um Schonheit" was not included in the programme) were premiered, alongside the five Kindertotenlieder , and six of

2050-470: The songs were in the following order: But at the repeat performance on 3 February, the songs were in the following order: In addition, each of the songs requires a specific ensemble of instruments, different from one song to the next, though the instrumentation of all five combined is equivalent to a standard-sized orchestra. Though it has become standard to perform them in large halls with full-size orchestras, Mahler himself premiered and preferred to perform

Rückert-Lieder - Misplaced Pages Continue

2100-580: The summer of 1902, also in Maiernigg. Both smaller in orchestration and briefer than Mahler's previous Des Knaben Wunderhorn settings, the collection marked a change of style from the childlike, often satirical Wunderhorn settings, to a more lyrical, contrapuntal style. The collection is often linked with the Kindertotenlieder , Mahler's other settings of Rückert's poetry, and with the 5th Symphony , and both were composed concurrently with

2150-532: The term "Lied" has a long history ranging from twelfth-century troubadour songs ( Minnesang ) via folk songs ( Volkslieder ) and church hymns ( Kirchenlieder ) to twentieth-century workers' songs ( Arbeiterlieder ) or protest songs ( Kabarettlieder, Protestlieder ). The German word Lied for "song" (cognate with the English dialectal leed ) first came into general use in German during

2200-413: The text as much as the music". Julius Korngold thought that Mahler's setting of Rückert's poetry was "noble, sensitive and poetic", though he felt that the intimacy of Rückert's poetry was not well suited to orchestral accompaniment. Finally, an anonymous critic wrote: The songs, their sequence, and their performance offered the highest state of polished refinement ... It does not matter to [Mahler] or to

2250-418: The transparent, chamber-like orchestration and briefness of the songs, contribute to their lyrical nature. Despite this lyricism, and the serene circumstances that Mahler experienced when he composed these songs, the songs sometimes take on darker tones. For example, 'Um Mitternacht' deals with metaphysical questions that preoccupied Mahler, and both that song and 'Ich bin der Welt' deal with man's loneliness in

2300-414: The two. Stephen E. Hefling has also suggested that Mahler, disappointed by the lack of popularity of his Wunderhorn settings, was drawn to setting more popular poetry in order to appeal to a wider audience, provided it met his artistic purposes. The songs exist in versions for piano and orchestral accompaniment; Mahler composed both versions simultaneously and performed the Lieder in both versions. Thus,

2350-523: The world. The latter song in its spiritual withdrawal from the world has been said to be influenced by Buddhist thought and the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer , who Mahler was heavily influenced by. The collection has been viewed as representing the "supreme consummation and perfection of the Mahler Lied," and as anticipating the style, not only of his 5th, 6th , and 7th symphonies, but also of his late works, such as Das Lied von der Erde and

2400-426: Was aware. Furthermore, Henry Louis de la Grange posits that Mahler was attracted to the lyricism of Rückert's poetry, and points out both of them "admired folk-art" and considered it the "living source of all poetry". In addition, Rückert has also been considered a "close spiritual relative" to Gustav Fechner , an Orientalist and psychophysicist who was greatly admired by Mahler. Mahler himself drew comparisons between

2450-505: Was continued by Robert Schumann , Johannes Brahms , and Hugo Wolf in the latter half of the 19th century. Gustav Mahler , Hans Pfitzner , Max Reger , Richard Strauss , Alexander Zemlinsky carried the tradition of the Lied into the 20th century. Arnold Schoenberg , Alban Berg , Anton Webern , and Ernst Krenek wrote tonal, atonal , and twelve-tone Lieder . Somewhat later, Paul Dessau and Hanns Eisler wrote Lieder of

2500-445: Was eventually added to the collection: "Liebst du um Schönheit". Unlike the other four, this was solely intended as a private gift to Alma as a proof of his love for her, due to simmering tensions between her and Mahler at the time. On 10 August, Mahler presented the song to Alma, who was deeply moved by the setting of the last line: Liebe mich immer, dich lieb' ich immer, immerdar. Due to its intimate nature, Mahler never orchestrated

#297702