Mahler, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a friend who dismissed Gustav Mahler’s music as too emotional. Or perhaps he said it was too personal. It is both highly emotional and intensely personal, although I think he is mistaken to dismiss it on those grounds. Those qualities have a lot to do with why people are drawn to Mahler.
Mahler’s music has a very distinctive sound that owes much to its emotional intensity. But it comes more from his orchestrations, his focus on Lieder (songs) in his symphonies, his lyricism and harmonic vocabulary, and the way he juxtaposes contrasting elements—all factors that evidence musical skill rather than raw emotion.
Because of his duties as conductor of the Vienna Opera, Mahler had little time to compose except in summer months when he would retreat to the Austrian Alps. He obtained a small villa near Maiernegg (on Wörthersee) in 1901 and had a “composing hut” built a short walk away. In this small one-room structure he could work without distraction. Some see a clear connection between his need for solitude, and his introspective nature, his intensely personal music, but I try to focus on music rather than psychology.
1901 also marks a shift in Mahler’s focus from songs based on Des Knaben Wunderhorn to texts by the German Romantic poet Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866). Mahler would composed 10 songs on Rückert texts: the five that comprise Kindertotenlieder and five loosely designated as the “Rückert songs.” These were composed in 1901-1902 along with his Symphony No. 5.
He wrote to Anton Webern in 1905: “After Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could not compose anything but Rückert — this is lyric poetry from the source, all else is lyric poetry of a derivative sort.”
Mahler wrote both a piano and orchestral accompaniment. Four of the Rückert songs were premiered in 1905 with a chamber orchestra and published that same year with piano accompaniment. A fifth song, Liebst du um Schönheit, was written a year later after his marriage in 1901 to Alma Schindler. It was intended as a private gift to her, so it was not publicly performed at the premier or orchestrated. The orchestration for that song was done after Mahler’s death by Max Puttmann.
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen is perhaps the most introspective of the five songs. It is surely one of Mahler’s most intensely personal works. Its sparse accompaniment is more easily realized with winds and strings that can sustain notes, but this pianist handles it masterfully. You might want to compare the piano and orchestral version.
