Can't wait for 9! The Abbado Lucerne live recording on UA-cam is pretty great. Spoiler alert, in that concert he held the audience in silence for 8 minutes.
well you should definitly listen to the whole Das Lied von der Erde, this is just the last movement.. (really REALLY recommend Klemperer recording). One of my most cherished works..and needs really great singing from both tenor and alto/mezzo...thats why I recommend Klemperer's recording ( with the amazing Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich (!) ....to me they blow EVERYTHING out of the radar..) but you do NEED to experience the WHOLE, it's magnificent
Agreed, that's the best one, but this one by Solti is also very good. Talking about tragic deaths, Fritz Wunderlich died by tripping over a threshold and breaking his neck.
He already reacted to the 2nd Symphony. ;) And this is in a way exactly what most of us Mahlerites tried to avoid for him. Instead of jumping head on into parts of his late work, it would make much more sense to listen to his stuff chronologically. I mean "Das Lied von der Erde" is a Symphony, and now he only listened to the finale instead of the whole thing. This kind of excerpt listening is to be avoided if one wants to appreciate and understand the whole conception of the ideas of a composer. It's the mistake so many people make with classical music. Pretending to be listening to the "Moonlight Sonata" and then only listening to the opening movement. That is not the Sonata. As "Der Abschied" is not the symphony.
@@Quotenwagnerianer Yes, completely agreed. I was also listening to his works chronologically. Largely because of this, I think, I cried at the "Farewell" and the finale of the 9th symphony. Without fully listening to his stuff before, it would for sure not have had this effect on me
@LeftRight Oh, I won't deny that good music in itself is enough to entice many people to seek out more, if they listen to parts. In the case of Mahler I do think you gain a whole different level of appreciation if you not just listen to his music but also contextualise where he was in his own life when he wrote something. I can't think of another composer whose music is so closely tied to his life. It's like a musical autobiography based on conveying feelings. And you get this the best way by listening to it step by step with a general idea of what was going on. This way for example the sudden shift in style in his final three works "Das Lied" and the Symphonies 9 and 10 makes sense, because these were all composed after his life had taken a tragic turn. One of his daughter's had died, he was diagnosed with a heart infection that would eventually lead to his premature death, an anti-semitic smear campaign had forced him to resign his job in Vienna, his wife was having an affair. His life was in ruins and he was struggling to make sense of it all. After the 8th Symphony where he was trying to embrace the entire world, because he was at the height of his powers and his life was perfect, he fell. And the music reflects this. How are you supposed to notice that if you jump right into the final chapter of his life?
@LeftRight While it would be interesting from my perspective to see someone hear each Mahler symphony for the first time strictly in order, I agree that mixing them up a bit probably isn't harmful to them. For listers in Mahler's day, digesting the earlier symphonies may have been strictly necessary in order to be able to appreciate the later ones, but Mahler's influence pervades so much of the music that has been written since then that the idea of a modern-day person listening to a late Mahler piece out of context and being able to appreciate it, if not perhaps on the deepest level, but enough to enjoy it and want to explore it further, is not far fetched. I do think it's a shame to listen to *individual movements of a piece* out of order the first time, though. Like knowing in advance how a movie ends, doing this robs you of the experience of not knowing where the piece is going the first time you hear it in order.
listening to this piece the first time through hit me so deep. but it wasnt until I read the poems along with the piece that it fucking broke me by the end. its just so devastating, knowing the context in which this piece was written, and what mahlers life was like by this point
16:58 In a given register, there is an approximate limit on how close together in pitch two simultaneously-sounded tones can be, below which the resulting harmony will sound "muddy"; the lower the register, the larger the limit. This is the double bass section, divided over two pitches that are closer together than that limit for the low register in which they're playing. They are playing the pitches as tremolos (rapidly reiterating the pitch by rapidly switching the direction of the bowing back and forth) which adds some scraping noise that makes the result muddier still. The attack is reinforced by a tam-tam (an unpitched gong) and the cellos playing the same two pitches pizzicato. 33:13 You have the right idea. This piece is a hybrid between a song cycle and a symphony, and was composed immediately following the 8th symphony. Most of Mahler's music grapples with the idea of mortality in some way or another, but this piece, together with the 9th and unfinished 10th symphonies, are considered his farewell to life. I agree with people recommending the Klemperer/Ludwig/Wunderlich recording. There are probably a lot of recordings where movements two through six are good, but the first movement is not, because that movement is exceptionally difficult for the singer to pull off. The singer in the Klemperer recording nails it.
I’m not sure I got what you were saying about muddies etc coz I don’t know the terminology, but I’m intrigued and will reread a bit till I get it. I like ‘nerdy’ (technically informed) commentary
@@susanbryant6516 Muddy isn't a technical term here. Another way to say it is that it's difficult for the ear to resolve what the pitches are. For what it's worth, saying that pitches being too close together is what causes this effect is a bit of a simplification. It's more accurate to say that it happens when the denominator of the ratio between the two frequencies is too large. In general, the smaller the denominator of a ratio between two frequencies, the easier it is for the ear to understand the ratio. The reason the "muddy" effect exists is that most sounds that have a recognizable pitch also have a series of what are called harmonics, which are higher pitches whose frequencies are whole-number multiples of the one you recognize. That lowest pitch is called the fundamental, and the harmonics, collectively, are called the harmonic series of that fundamental. The larger the denominator of a ratio between two fundamentals, the fewer frequencies the harmonic series of those fundamentals have in common, so that ratios with larger denominators entail denser clusters of harmonics. These dense clusters are what come across as "muddy." The reason the effect is specific to low pitches is that the lower the fundamental, the more of its harmonics are low enough to be within the range of human hearing.
Think about this. Mahler composed Das Lied von der Erde and his 9th Symphony and didn't have a chance to revised either piece, nor even rehearse them once. He never heard them being played.
Great piece, definitely. The story is that in the classical world, there’s a superstition that no composer can write more than 9 symphonies without dying. So Mahler wrote this (there’s 5 other mvnts before this, too) and called it Das Lied Von Der Erde instead of Symphony no 9 Then he wrote his actual Symphony no 9, but technically that’s his 10th symphony if you count this piece as 9. And then he died before completing his actual 10th (11th if you count this as 9). It was completed later by Deryck Cooke. I really hope you do a Mahler run soon…he’s def one of the greats
Probably Gustav Mahler's defining piece, if one had to reduce his work to this. The mood changes, from despair to loneliness, from melancholia to being at peace with oneself and the world, it's all there. The listener has to simply allow these feelings to enter. At 28:35 the music becomes transcendent, preparing for the final departure, the ascent to heaven.
Mahler later wrote his 9th symphony but avoided calling "Das Lied von der Erde" his 9th symphony since many great composer before him, beginning with Beethoven who gave the symphony its modern, distinct character, died while or after writing their 9th symphonies. Mahler himself died while working on his 10th symphony.
Going on a Mahler Symphony run soon 😌
You should react to no 3
I can't wait!
Can't wait for 9! The Abbado Lucerne live recording on UA-cam is pretty great. Spoiler alert, in that concert he held the audience in silence for 8 minutes.
Mahler Symphony the best Saga ever made
If you want some dopamine, go for the 8th
well you should definitly listen to the whole Das Lied von der Erde, this is just the last movement.. (really REALLY recommend Klemperer recording). One of my most cherished works..and needs really great singing from both tenor and alto/mezzo...thats why I recommend Klemperer's recording ( with the amazing Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich (!) ....to me they blow EVERYTHING out of the radar..) but you do NEED to experience the WHOLE, it's magnificent
Yes that was my experience as well
Agreed, that's the best one, but this one by Solti is also very good. Talking about tragic deaths, Fritz Wunderlich died by tripping over a threshold and breaking his neck.
Benjamin Britten said that the final chord of Das Lied von der Erde was "imprinted on the atmosphere".
Mahler. The greatest of them all.
YES!!!! MAHLER!!! FINALLY!
He already reacted to the 2nd Symphony. ;)
And this is in a way exactly what most of us Mahlerites tried to avoid for him. Instead of jumping head on into parts of his late work, it would make much more sense to listen to his stuff chronologically.
I mean "Das Lied von der Erde" is a Symphony, and now he only listened to the finale instead of the whole thing. This kind of excerpt listening is to be avoided if one wants to appreciate and understand the whole conception of the ideas of a composer.
It's the mistake so many people make with classical music. Pretending to be listening to the "Moonlight Sonata" and then only listening to the opening movement. That is not the Sonata. As "Der Abschied" is not the symphony.
@@Quotenwagnerianer Yes, completely agreed. I was also listening to his works chronologically. Largely because of this, I think, I cried at the "Farewell" and the finale of the 9th symphony. Without fully listening to his stuff before, it would for sure not have had this effect on me
@LeftRight Oh, I won't deny that good music in itself is enough to entice many people to seek out more, if they listen to parts.
In the case of Mahler I do think you gain a whole different level of appreciation if you not just listen to his music but also contextualise where he was in his own life when he wrote something.
I can't think of another composer whose music is so closely tied to his life.
It's like a musical autobiography based on conveying feelings.
And you get this the best way by listening to it step by step with a general idea of what was going on. This way for example the sudden shift in style in his final three works "Das Lied" and the Symphonies 9 and 10 makes sense, because these were all composed after his life had taken a tragic turn. One of his daughter's had died, he was diagnosed with a heart infection that would eventually lead to his premature death, an anti-semitic smear campaign had forced him to resign his job in Vienna, his wife was having an affair.
His life was in ruins and he was struggling to make sense of it all.
After the 8th Symphony where he was trying to embrace the entire world, because he was at the height of his powers and his life was perfect, he fell. And the music reflects this.
How are you supposed to notice that if you jump right into the final chapter of his life?
@LeftRight While it would be interesting from my perspective to see someone hear each Mahler symphony for the first time strictly in order, I agree that mixing them up a bit probably isn't harmful to them. For listers in Mahler's day, digesting the earlier symphonies may have been strictly necessary in order to be able to appreciate the later ones, but Mahler's influence pervades so much of the music that has been written since then that the idea of a modern-day person listening to a late Mahler piece out of context and being able to appreciate it, if not perhaps on the deepest level, but enough to enjoy it and want to explore it further, is not far fetched.
I do think it's a shame to listen to *individual movements of a piece* out of order the first time, though. Like knowing in advance how a movie ends, doing this robs you of the experience of not knowing where the piece is going the first time you hear it in order.
Kudos to you, I see very few young people delving into this music and that is such a shame.
This is mvt.6 btw. There's a whole extra 30 minutes before this
listening to this piece the first time through hit me so deep.
but it wasnt until I read the poems along with the piece that it fucking broke me by the end. its just so devastating, knowing the context in which this piece was written, and what mahlers life was like by this point
One of my favorite movements of all time.
16:58 In a given register, there is an approximate limit on how close together in pitch two simultaneously-sounded tones can be, below which the resulting harmony will sound "muddy"; the lower the register, the larger the limit. This is the double bass section, divided over two pitches that are closer together than that limit for the low register in which they're playing. They are playing the pitches as tremolos (rapidly reiterating the pitch by rapidly switching the direction of the bowing back and forth) which adds some scraping noise that makes the result muddier still. The attack is reinforced by a tam-tam (an unpitched gong) and the cellos playing the same two pitches pizzicato.
33:13 You have the right idea. This piece is a hybrid between a song cycle and a symphony, and was composed immediately following the 8th symphony. Most of Mahler's music grapples with the idea of mortality in some way or another, but this piece, together with the 9th and unfinished 10th symphonies, are considered his farewell to life.
I agree with people recommending the Klemperer/Ludwig/Wunderlich recording. There are probably a lot of recordings where movements two through six are good, but the first movement is not, because that movement is exceptionally difficult for the singer to pull off. The singer in the Klemperer recording nails it.
I’m not sure I got what you were saying about muddies etc coz I don’t know the terminology, but I’m intrigued and will reread a bit till I get it. I like ‘nerdy’ (technically informed) commentary
@@susanbryant6516 Muddy isn't a technical term here. Another way to say it is that it's difficult for the ear to resolve what the pitches are.
For what it's worth, saying that pitches being too close together is what causes this effect is a bit of a simplification. It's more accurate to say that it happens when the denominator of the ratio between the two frequencies is too large. In general, the smaller the denominator of a ratio between two frequencies, the easier it is for the ear to understand the ratio.
The reason the "muddy" effect exists is that most sounds that have a recognizable pitch also have a series of what are called harmonics, which are higher pitches whose frequencies are whole-number multiples of the one you recognize. That lowest pitch is called the fundamental, and the harmonics, collectively, are called the harmonic series of that fundamental. The larger the denominator of a ratio between two fundamentals, the fewer frequencies the harmonic series of those fundamentals have in common, so that ratios with larger denominators entail denser clusters of harmonics. These dense clusters are what come across as "muddy." The reason the effect is specific to low pitches is that the lower the fundamental, the more of its harmonics are low enough to be within the range of human hearing.
It's a little upsetting that someone suggested only the last movement, you should seriously listen to the whole thing
Now you MUST listen to “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”
MUST
But only in the 50's Fischer-Dieskau recording
Think about this. Mahler composed Das Lied von der Erde and his 9th Symphony and didn't have a chance to revised either piece, nor even rehearse them once. He never heard them being played.
As the others have expressed, you really should listen to the whole piece. It's really great!
You said you hope it's not too emotional, but that is what you are going to get with Mahler, plenty of emotion!
Expecting Mahler not to affect your emotional pit of the stomach is like walking in the rain without an umbrella and expecting not to get drenched.
And on Mahler's (arguably) most emotional piece of all too-
Great piece, definitely.
The story is that in the classical world, there’s a superstition that no composer can write more than 9 symphonies without dying. So Mahler wrote this (there’s 5 other mvnts before this, too) and called it Das Lied Von Der Erde instead of Symphony no 9
Then he wrote his actual Symphony no 9, but technically that’s his 10th symphony if you count this piece as 9.
And then he died before completing his actual 10th (11th if you count this as 9). It was completed later by Deryck Cooke.
I really hope you do a Mahler run soon…he’s def one of the greats
Haydn wrote 107 sinfonies, 98 post mortem. War 'ne Heidenarbeit!
@@rosshart9514 Haydn wrote the same symphony 108 times
@@macmadnes5262 That is grossly unfair ;-)
Probably Gustav Mahler's defining piece, if one had to reduce his work to this. The mood changes, from despair to loneliness, from melancholia to being at peace with oneself and the world, it's all there. The listener has to simply allow these feelings to enter. At 28:35 the music becomes transcendent, preparing for the final departure, the ascent to heaven.
If you listen to Mahler, you can see where a lot of the great movie soundtrack composers got their ideas from.
I can really recommend listening to the whole piece, especially the recording by Leonard Bernstein with Fischer-Dieskau singing the middle voice part.
この曲の6楽章はマーラーの死生感を表していると思う。1~5楽章はそこに至る通過域で前奏の部分である。花開くのは6楽章からで、ここで人生の意味が語られる。この楽章が曲の半分を占めているのはその為である。彼は李白の詩にキリスト教と違う死生感を見いだし、音楽で表わそうとした。キリスト教の死の意味は神の決定であり人間の帰結です。非キリスト教的なアジアでは自然への同化で意味の消失です。 この大地の謳という作品は交響曲と言うよりオーケストラと独唱による歌曲集という方が合ってます。幾つかのモティーフは形を変え何回も現れあたらしいメロディーも次々登場して山あり谷アリで次第に音量が小さくなりやがて消えるように終わり ます。それが死に対するこの曲のメタファーです。
Mahler later wrote his 9th symphony but avoided calling "Das Lied von der Erde" his 9th symphony since many great composer before him, beginning with Beethoven who gave the symphony its modern, distinct character, died while or after writing their 9th symphonies. Mahler himself died while working on his 10th symphony.
Also read the libretto please. Its a huge part of the piece