| Das klagende Lied | |
|---|---|
| Cantata by Gustav Mahler | |
 The composer in 1893 | |
| English | Song of Lamentation |
| Text | by Mahler |
| Based on | fairy-tale |
| Composed | from 1878 |
| Movements | three |
| Scoring |
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| Premiere | |
| Date | 17 February 1901 |
| Location | Vienna |
| Conductor | Mahler |
Das klagende Lied (Song of Lamentation) is a cantata by Gustav Mahler, composed between 1878 and 1880 and greatly revised over the next two decades. In its original form, Das klagende Lied is the earliest of his works to have survived. [1]
Mahler began to write the text of Das klagende Lied during the early part of his final year in the Vienna Conservatory, where he was a student between 1875 and 1878.[ citation needed ] It is based on "Der singende Knochen" ("The Singing Bone") from the collection by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. [2] The draft text for the work is dated 18 March 1878, and composition of the music began in autumn of 1879.[ citation needed ] It was completed in November 1880. [2]
As originally composed, Das klagende Lied was in three parts:
The first performance did not take place until 1901, by which time Mahler had subjected his original score to several major revisions. [2] The first revision of the work took place in the second half of 1893. This featured a significant reduction and re-arrangement of the orchestral and vocal forces, with the number of harps in the first part being reduced from six to two, and the vocal soloists from eleven to four. The boys’ voices were also removed. The off-stage orchestra, which had played an important role in the original score, was also completely removed from the second and third parts. In spite of having lavished such detailed effort on revising the work's first part, Mahler then decided (Autumn 1893) to omit it completely.
Further revisions to what was now a work in two parts (after the omission of the original first part) were made between September and December 1898. At this point, Mahler's previous decision to remove the off-stage brass was reversed. The 1898 revisions were in fact so extensive that Mahler had to write out an entirely new manuscript score.
The first performance of Das klagende Lied took place on 17 February 1901 in Vienna, with Mahler himself conducting. [3] It was in this two-part version that the work was published and entered the repertoire. [2]
The original manuscript of the full three-part version of the work had been in the possession of Alfred Rosé, the son of Arnold Rosé and Justine Mahler. This manuscript eventually entered the collection of Yale University, from which 'Waldmärchen' became available for public performance after its re-attachment to the then-standard two-movement version of the work. [4] A critical edition of the score of the original three-part version was published in 1999, under the general editorship of Reinhold Kubik. [5]
Martin Zenck has written a philological analysis of the full three-part version of the work, with discussion of the various dramatic and musical links elucidated in the three-part version compared to the two-part version. [8] Sherry Lee has written a detailed meta-analysis of narrative aspects of the work, including temporal shifts in the presentation of the story from past tense to present tense in the text, and discussion of the idea of musical performance itself as an integral aspect of the story. [9]
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Part I: Waldmärchen (Forest Legend)
Part II: Der Spielmann (The Minstrel)
Part III: Hochzeitsstück (Wedding Piece)
Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.
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