Description
We have selected a few military songs like ‘Revelge’, the soldiers’ morning wake-up call, the woeful ‘Zu Strassbourg auf der Schanz’, the excited marching tune ‘Aus! Aus!’, the enigmatic ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’ and ‘Schildwache Nachtlied’, in which during his watch, a sentinel seems to have a vision of a girl waiting for him and wanting to console him with her soft words.
Seemingly an odd choice is ‘Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht’, well known as the first song of the earlier song cycle ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’. This poem however is also mainly from ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’, with a few additions by Mahler himself.
Two more songs in which love is marred by parting are‘Scheiden und meiden’ and ‘Nicht wiedersehen’.
In ‘Urlicht’ one hears the human struggle with mortal existence and the longing for liberation.
Flanked by tongue-in-cheek songs as ‘Des Antonius van Padua Fischpredigt’, in which church-goers pretending to be pious are satirized, and the jesting song ‘Lob des Hohen Verstandes’, in which Mahler gives his critics a piece of his mind, this music creates a world in itself in which both listeners and musicians are able to recognize themselves.
Esther Kuiper, mezzo-soprano
Sven Weyens, bas-baritone
Maurice Lammerts van Bueren, piano
