Songs of a Wayfarer

Continuing the Austro-German traditions of Schubert and Schumann, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) might have given birth to richly psychological art songs based on texts by fin-de-siècle writers (as did Hugo Wolf, for instance). But Mahler was also a consummate composer for orchestra and embraced the best of Wagner’s craft, making opera a plausible outlet for his creativity. He achieved first fame as a conductor of opera in Vienna. In the end, he gives us a bit of both worlds.
Mahler’s uncanny magic with the briefest and simplest of musical motives can be truly captivating. Consider the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), for which Mahler composed both music and texts in 1885 in the wake of a failed love affair. In the first song, “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht,” the text vacillates between wallowing in wretchedness and the ecstasy of Nature’s beauty. Mahler transforms a catchy dance-like theme into a psychological trigger point. The theme hints at the wedding dance that our hero would so dearly like to forget: his beloved, of course, is marrying someone else. The instrumental theme provides rhythmic interest for the entire song (compared to the lugubrious vocal line) and recurs obsessively to close nearly all phrases. A brief respite comes in the brighter central section of the poem. In the very structure of this song, Mahler’s show his preference for light-dark oppositions, framing the middle section as a moment of fragile peace.
The primary melody of the second song, “Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld,” is one of the composer’s finest. He recycled it as the main theme of his First Symphony. In stark contrast to the opening song, sunnier feelings predominate as the text celebrates Nature’s wonders. (Perhaps only Nature never broke Mahler’s heart.) These moments reveal Mahler’s gift for capturing a pure, heartfelt and childlike awe in Nature. Not unexpectedly, a contrasting emotion gradually emerges before the end. The first shadows fall upon “Nun fängt auch mein Glück wohl an?!” (Now will my happiness also begin?), which the voice sings in slow rhythm against a plodding dissonance. As the hero hesitates, Mahler repeats the theme in a new key, hoping for a better answer to the question. Sparse texture and chromatics draw attention to every detail, laying bare the protagonist’s emotional saturation. But Mahler reserves the finest touch for the end. Leaping up to the highest pitch in the entire song at “nimmer” (“never”), Mahler slowly lets the line fall stepwise to conclusion. But the ending is poignantly inconclusive. Mahler stops the voice on dominant harmony, never reaching the sought-after tonic (F-sharp). Resolution comes only via the instrumental postlude.
The dramatic arch of the third song, “Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer,” again suggests to the composer an appropriate musical treatment, dominated on the surface by the refrain “o weh!” (alas!) which is nearly always vocalized with a falling half-step interval. These half steps continue even in the middle section, a dream-state where the young lover sees the beloved’s tantalizing hair and eyes. As he awakes, the opening agitated motive reappears, and the musical setting of her ringing laughter betrays just how painfully the protagonist (read Mahler himself) felt rejection. The closing material slides gradually and chromatically downward toward the grave from which a last recurrence of the opening material—now played very slowly—cannot resurrect a brighter outcome.
The same haunting blue eyes are back again in the final song of the set. Mahler elects to depict the “blauen Augen” with a brooding, almost funereal march in E minor—another passage reused for the First Symphony. The middle “journeying” section shows hallmarks of Mahler’s brilliant lyricism. Yet the rapid shifts between major and minor mode leave a slightly unsettled feeling. The later melody, full and expansive at the mention of the linden tree, poignantly masks the double meaning of “rest” and “Alles wieder gut!” (all was well again!). Anyone interested in the German Romantic symbolism of the linden tree should consult Schubert’s “Der Lindenbaum” from Winterreise. In both works, a linden tree connotes the peace of death, the only place where the tormented soul of unrequited love can find solace, where endless dreams ensure a happy outcome to all romantic efforts.

(c) Jason Stell