Rückert songs
The Rückert-Lieder are five songs for voice and piano or orchestra by Gustav Mahler based on texts by Friedrich Rückert . In contrast to the Kindertotenlieder based on texts by the same author, this is not a song cycle , but rather independent individual works.
The collection includes:
- Don't look at the songs! (June 14, 1901)
- I breathe a soft scent (July 1901)
- The World Lost Me (August 16, 1901)
- At midnight (summer 1901)
- Do you love for beauty (August 1902)
Together with the songs Revelge and Der Tamboursg'sell (based on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn ), which were later included in Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection , they were first published in 1905 under the title Seven Songs from Lately .
The first performance of the four songs composed in 1901 in the orchestral version took place on January 29, 1905 in Vienna under the direction of the composer. In the same concert, the Kindertotenlieder and six songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn were premiered. The fifth song, Do you love for beauty , was not orchestrated by Mahler himself, but by Max Puttmann, an employee of the publishing house.
Instrumentation
The size and composition of the orchestra will vary from song to song but the performance of the entire cycle of songs in any case requires the following instruments: 2 flutes , 2 oboe (a and oboe d'amore ), English horn , 2 clarinets (in B and A), 2 Fagotte , Contrabassoon , 4 horns , 2 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba , timpani , celesta , harp , piano and strings .
The Austrian composer and conductor Gerhard Present has written two arrangements for chamber ensemble:
- Three Rückert-Lieder for high voice, violin, viola and piano op.36b (Do you love beauty, don't look at me ..., I am the world ...) (1998), and
- Five Rückert-Lieder for medium voice, violin, viola, cello and piano op. 44 (2002-03), the latter version recorded in 2005 by the ALEA Ensemble with the baritone Alexander Puhrer .
literature
- Ingo Müller: Poetry and music in the field of tension between mediation and immediacy. Gustav Mahler's “Five songs based on texts by Friedrich Rückert” . In: Gustav Mahler: Lieder (= Music Concepts New Series, edited by Ulrich Tadday , H. 136), Munich 2007, pp. 51–76.
- Reinhard Gerlach : stanzas of life, dream and death. An essay on Rückert songs by Gustav Mahler. Paperback books on musicology, Vol. 83, Wilhelmshaven 1982.
Radio feature
- “The world has lost me.” About the disappearance, sudden reappearance and renewed loss of a song by Gustav Mahler. Radio feature , Germany, Austria, 2006, 53:50 min., Script and direction: Michael Lissek and Elisabeth Stratka, production: Österreichischer Rundfunk ( ORF ), Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg ( rbb ), first broadcast: December 26, 2006 on Ö1 , Audio excerpt (MP3; 9.3 MB), 7:44 min., Summary by Michael Lissek
Web links
- Rückert-Lieder : sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Texts
- Discography
- Five Rückert songs as MIDI files
- “Got lost. On the Disappearance of a Mahler Song ” , Ö1 , July 3, 2010