Antony of Padua sermon on the fish

Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt is a late romantic art song composed for low voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler from his song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn , which was composed in 1893. The text of the song ironically tells of the legendary sermon that St. Anthony of Padua is said to have given to fish after no one came into the church. In addition to the orchestral version, the composer also composed a version for piano and voice. The composition of the fish sermon is also used in an expanded form in the third movement of his 2nd symphony .

background

The text of the song comes from the collection of poetry Des Knaben Wunderhorn , which Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim published between 1805 and 1808. Like most of the poems, this one is about an outsider. Anthony of Padua was a contemporary of Francis of Assisi , who, according to legend, preached to the birds. But like humans, the fish do not change their usual sinful behavior through Antony's pious words. Therefore, the composer's wish that the song should be performed in a humorous way is double-edged: On the one hand there is the irony that although no people, but at least the inhabitants of the waters, listen to the later saint, the key chosen by Gustav Mahler c- Minor , which has had fateful and tragic connotations in Romantic music since Ludwig van Beethoven , prevents superficial amusement.

As in most of the poems in the collection, the fish sermon is about the unruly people , as described by Friedrich Nietzsche and who inspired Gustav Mahler to write his composition. The sermon is understood as a metaphor for a work of art that has an instructive claim. But the living beings of nature are not susceptible to this, nature is chaotic and always in motion. Behind the song stands the basic problem of human knowledge and the conviction to know the truth. Nature, on the other hand, is indifferent to such moral proclamations. The last verses of the song are therefore to be understood as a criticism of any ideology .

Gustav Mahler first wrote a version for piano and “low” voice. His manuscript bears the information " Steinbach , July 8, 1893". Mahler was on vacation in Steinbach and had a so-called composing house there . The orchestral version was completed on August 1st. The orchestral premiere took place together with other songs in the cycle on January 29, 1905 in Vienna. The Kuk Court Opera Orchestra played under the direction of the composer. The vocal part was played by the baritone Anton Moser.

In the third movement of his second symphony (performance titles: “In quiet flowing movement” and “Very leisurely not hurrying”) Mahler uses the composition from the already completed fish sermon . There it is, however, considerably expanded in terms of composition. In this symphony, the second movement ("Andante moderato. Very leisurely. Never hurry") and the fish sermon as the third of five movements are intended as a kind of interlude and reminder of the conductor Hans von Bülow , who died in 1894, as intermediate stations to a redemption or Resurrection should lead to the finals. The instrumentally played stanzas of the song run undeterred and seemingly unstoppable at first, but this process or the world course is ultimately so disturbed by violent, loud signal-like brass motifs that the idyllic-romantic character of the movement is destroyed. According to Adorno , this is one of the "serious cases" in Mahler's music, an outcry of desperation, in which the deep layers of his compositions come to light and make everything appear in a different light. The fish sermon as a symphony movement has thus disintegrated and in its fragments only looks like “forgotten props on an abandoned stage”. Gustav Mahler writes in a letter about the fish sermon in the 2nd symphony of the "horror of a ceaselessly moving, never resting, never understandable gears of life, a wave of dancing figures in a brightly lit ballroom, in which you can look into it from a dark night, from so far away that you can no longer hear the music in it! "

Text in Gustav Mahler's song

Antony of Padua sermon on the fish

Antonius for the sermon
The church finds it single!
He goes to the rivers
and preaches to the fish!
They hit their tails!
Shine in the sunshine!
In the sunshine, sunshine shine,
they shine, they shine, shine!

The carp with roe
have all moved here,
have opened their mouths,
eager to listen!
No sermon never
pleases the fish so much!

Spitzgoschete pikes,
which are always fencing,
have come hurrying
to hear the pious!

Even those dreamers who
fast all the time:
the Stockfisch, I mean, come
to the sermon.
No sermon, never like
the stockfish.

Good Aale and Hausen ,
those who feast on elegant feasts,
who make themselves comfortable, listen to
the sermon!

Crabs, turtles,
usually slow messengers
,
too , rise quickly from the bottom to hear this mouth!
No sermon never
pleases the crabs!

Fish big, fish small,
noble and mean,
raise their heads
like understandable creatures! Listen to the sermon
at God's request
!

The sermon ended,
everyone turned.
The pike remain thieves who
love eels a lot;
the sermon was successful.
they stay like everyone else!

The crabs are going back,
the stockfish are still big,
the carp eat a lot,
the sermon is forgotten, forgotten!
The sermon fell,
they remain like everyone else, the sermon fell, fell!

Instrumentation and musical structure

The instrumentation of the song consists of:

• first and second flute part
• first and second oboe
• first and second clarinet in Bb (the A clarinet sounding a third lower can also be used as the third part, if available)
• first, second and third bassoon
• first, second, third and fourth horn in F
• Timpani
• two to three percussionists with bass drum , triangle , tam-tam , tied rods (which are rhythmically struck on the frame of the bass drum), as well as two cymbals

The string section consists of

• first and second violin
• viola
• Violoncello and
• double bass

The Fish Sermon is written in the main key of C minor . The composer sets the musical tempo with the stipulations “Sedate. With humor. In the beginning = 138 “, the eighth note should therefore be struck 138 times ( metronome value ) per minute. The 196 cycles are continuous in dance, scherzohaften ³ / ₈ written stuffs. The pitch of the piece moves between pianissimo piano ( ) and fortissimo forte ( ) in some accents . Gustav Mahler assigns the woodwinds in this piece a special melody-bearing and timbre- shaping meaning. According to his instructions, they should be played "with parody" at certain points, for example after the words No sermon have never been so appealing to the stockfish .

Depending on the interpretation, the song takes about four minutes. There are numerous recordings of the “Wunderhornlieder” that well-known singers have released, mostly with a low timbre of their voice. Examples from the past are Christa Ludwig , Janet Baker , as well as Hermann Prey and Walter Berry . Younger generation singers like Ian Bostridge and Deniz Uzun also have the piece in their repertoire .

literature

• Antony of Padua sermon on the fish. In: Fifteen songs, humoresques and ballads from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. For voice and piano, 8 (= Gustav Mahler. Complete Works. Critical Complete Edition. 8: 2b). OCLC 949798872 (score).
• Theodor W. Adorno : Mahler. A musical physiognomy (= library Suhrkamp. Volume 61). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1992, ISBN 3-518-01061-1 , (first edition 1960).
• Donald Mitchell: Gustav Mahler. The Wunderhorn Years. Faber & Faber, London 1975, reprint with additions and corrections 2005, ISBN 1-84383-003-5 .
• Carl Niekerk: Reading Mahler. German Culture and Jewish Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Camden House, New York 2010, ISBN 978-1-57113-467-7 .

Web links

• Audio sample with Janet Baker and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wyn Morris in a 1966 recording
• Audio sample of the third movement of Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta

References and comments

1. ^ Carl Niekerk: Reading Mahler. German Culture and Jewish Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Camden House, New York 2010, ISBN 978-1-57113-467-7 , JSTOR 10.7722 / j.ctt14brtf3 , p. 56 ff. P. 66 ff. P. 72 f. ( books.google.de view in the excerpt).
2. ^ Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht : The music of Gustav Mahler. 2nd edition (= Piper series. Volume 637). Piper Verlag, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-10637-4 , p. 222 f.
3. ↑ Donald Mitchell: Gustav Mahler. The Wunderhorn Years. Faber & Faber, London 1975, reprint with additions and corrections 2005, ISBN 1-84383-003-5 , p. 128 ff. ( Books.google.de )
4. ^ Gustav Mahler - Des Antonius von Padua fish sermon. Information about the work in the music publisher Universal-Edition.
5. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Mahler. A musical physiognomics Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1971, p. 15 f.
6. ^ Mathias Hansen: Reclam's music guide. Gustav Mahler. Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-15-010425-4 , pp. 73 ff.
7. ↑ Herta Blaukopf (Ed.): Gustav Mahler. Letters. Zsolnay, Vienna Hamburg 1982, p. 150.
8. ↑ Antonius zu Predig / Des Antonius von Padua fish sermon. In: musicanet.org. Retrieved April 24, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - Song 6: Des Antonius von Padua fish sermon. gustav-mahler.eu, accessed April 24, 2017 (British English). 
10. ↑ spitzgoschet means "sharp-mouthed" according to Grimm.
11. ^ Gustav Mahler: Des Antonius von Padua fish sermon. Score Universal Edition, Vienna 1905, p. 100 ff.
12. ↑ Version for piano and voice