Das Lied von der Erde
There are more recordings (at least 15) of Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in my CD collection than of any other single work (even his Second Symphony !). I've often asked myself why that is. I'm going to try to figure it out now. The first recording of it that I heard was an LP with Richard Lewis and Maureen Forrester . I remember not understanding the liner notes: How did Mahler take a German translation of Chinese poems and then change them to fit his purposes? Why did he do that? The pieces don't have much in the way of Chinese tonalities, and the texts fit into the dark Romantic German landscape as well as Caspar David Friedrich's paintings . The lines that stuck with me after the first few hearings were "Dunkel ist das Leben, dunkel ist der Tod" and "...ein Aff' ist's" and, of course, the final "...ewig, ewig...". I was into Nietzsche and Hesse at that point in my life - as is the wont of many 20 year-olds - a...