A stellar cast from the past

“No composer before or since has ever expressed himself more movingly in what Freud calls ‘the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instincts of life and the instincts of destruction,’ as it works itself out in the human species.” ⁽¹⁾

This 1952 recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde combines the Vienna Philharmonic led by his friend Bruno Walter with the tenor Julius Patzak and the legendary Kathleen Ferrier.

Kathleen Mary Ferrier CBE (22 April 1912 – 8 October 1953) was an English contralto, born in Higher Walton, Lancashire. She later moved with her family to Blackburn, Lancashire.

Offstage, she had a vivacious personality, and gave herself the nickname “Klever Kaff”.

Shortly before starting this composition in the summer of 1907 Mahler went through several personal and professional crises. His own inflexibility and anti-semitic attacks in the press led to his resignation from the Vienna Opera, his oldest daughter died at age four, and he was diagnosed with a serious heart condition.

Das Lied von der Erde, a symphonic song cycle, combines six poems from Hans Bethge’s The Chinese Flute, a collection of German translations and adaptations of eight century poetry from the Tang Dynasty, and reflects Mahler’s state of mind.

Four of the poems, including the three for tenor, are by Li-Tai-Po. These poems deal with wine, friendship, and beauty. The underlying tone is one of darkness, withdrawal, and resignation.

Li Bai or Li Po(701-762) was a Chinese poet. He was part of the group of Chinese scholars called the “Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup” in a poem by fellow poet Du Fu. Li Bai is often regarded, along with Du Fu, as one of the two greatest poets in China’s literary history. Approximately 1,100 of his poems remain today. The first translations in a Western language were published in 1862 by Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys in his Poésies de l’Époque des Thang. The English-speaking world was introduced to Li Bai’s works by a Herbert Allen Giles publication History of Chinese Literature (1901) and through the liberal, but poetically influential, translations of Japanese versions of his poems made by Ezra Pound.

Li Bai is best known for the extravagant imagination and striking Taoist imagery in his poetry, as well as for his great love for liquor. Like Du Fu, he spent much of his life travelling, although in his case it was because his wealth allowed him to, rather than because his poverty forced him. He is said to have drowned in the Yangtze River, having fallen from his boat while drunkenly trying to embrace the reflection of the moon.

Kathleen Ferrier’s contralto voice is haunting from her entrance in Autumn Loneliness, the second song, (”The autumn mists drift blue over the lake…”) through the final 28′20 long Der Abschied (Farewell). Farewell is a combination of two poems with added text by Mahler himself. The last words (”Ewig..ewig (for ever and ever…)”) die away in utter quiet. Life passes, “…earth blossoms forth in spring and grows green anew.”

Mahler would die in 1911.

Ms. Ferrier would die in 1953 from breast cancer.

Source:mldd.blogspot.com

⁽¹⁾ The Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal, North Point Press