Das Lied von der Erde

I've decided to reboot my blog, and have also decided that I really should make up a schedule for updates, lest I let this blog lapse again. So, new update schedule: every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I think that should prove satisfactory and it will avoid my biggest work days.

In my continuing musical education I decided to listen to Mahler's penultimate symphony, Das Lied von der Erde. (When I say listen, I mean I listen to it with a score in front of me.) It's not a standard symphony, since each movement is really a song. All the songs are poems by ancient Chinese poets that were translated into French and then German and I understand the translations aren't great (partly because of Mandarin Chinese's austerity and economy) but Mahler certainly seemed to like the poems. So do I. And the music works. There are six movements, the first five being roughly equal in duration to the last.

I call the symphony penultimate because on principle I've decided to exclude Mahler's 10th, which was incomplete at his death. This symphony doesn't have a number because Mahler noted that Beethoven and Bruckner had written 9 symphonies and then died.

Anyway, it's a pretty strange symphony. Mahler's known for his excess, but this symphony is pretty austere. I feel like I don't understand it at all, and that perhaps I simply don't have the right temperament to understand it. The music has a lot of big empty spaces on the score, which is something more characteristic of Shostakovich, say. (By that I mean there are usually only a few instruments playing at a time and almost never the entire orchestra.) The bassoon part is not so good, but the oboe part is. I definitely don't understand how the songs' melodies interact with the orchestra. I liked the third and sixth movements the best.

The third movement is Von der Jugend (Of Youth) and is only 3 minutes, which probably qualifies it as the shortest of Mahler's symphonic movements. It has a pretty fast tempo and is the only one which uses the pentatonic scale quite obviously. (Old Chinese music uses the pentatonic scale.) The last movement is Der Abschied (The Farewell) which foreshadows some of the key motives of the 9th symphony - the turn, the falling second, 3-2. It's 27 or so minutes long, which is pretty expansive even for Mahler. The tamtam is used to chilling effect, and the music is quite empty, vast and desolate at some points. The singing borders on recitative. The movement is in C minor, but the end is in C major (+A) and seems to represent the finding of inner peace - the acceptance of things as they are. Or not - you can interpret it however you want.

Speaking of inner peace, I myself am doing something uncharacteristic - reading about religion. Specifically, Unitarian Universalism. Now, we all remember Senator Church, but let us not forget his son Forrest Church, a Unitarian minister. He co-wrote a book called A Chosen Faith, An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism. So that's my current reading. I'm only 40 pages or so in, but I'll report back once I finish the entire book.

And a postscript: Remember Barack the Magic Negro? Ugh - the Republicans have picked a new chairman, Michael Steele. He's the former LG of Maryland, a failed Senate candidate in 2006, and HE'S BLACK. But he was probably the best choice of chairman for the Republicans, at least from their viewpoint. I can see him trying to broaden the party. I would have preferred Katon Dawson, who entered politics because he was pissed at the enforced desegregation of his high school. He also was a member of an all white country club until last year. (Actually, I think he might still be a member.)

Time to work on math, I think! Bai!