Rückert-Lieder

In 1897, Mahler became the director of the Vienna Hofoper. Over the following years his compositional output dwindled due to over-work and ill health; between 1897 and 1900, he only completed the Fourth Symphony and the Der Knaben Wunderhorn setting ‘Revelge’.[1] Eventually Mahler suffered a near-fatal haemorrhage on the night of February 24, 1901, requiring emergency treatment, an operation, and a seven week long recuperation.[2]

From June to August 1901, Mahler spent his vacation at his newly completed lakeside villa near Maiernigg. Its isolation meant the summer was peaceful,[3] and he experienced the most productive summer of his life,[4] completing two movements of the Fifth Symphony and eight Lieder, including four of the Rückert-Lieder.[1] By 10 August, Mahler was playing six of his Rückert settings (including three of the Kindertotenlieder) plus "Der Tamboursg’sell" to Natalie Bauer-Lechner, and according to her chronicles, each song was composed in one day and orchestrated the next day.[5] Then on 16 August, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" was completed.[4][6] The serenity of his surroundings, as well as the emotional aftereffects of the near-death experienced he had suffered earlier in 1901 (seen most in "Um Mitternacht")[7] exerted a considerable influence on the Rückert-Lieder, and they contributed to Mahler creating a new musical style which has been said to “[reveal] an artist who is already exploring another world”.[1][8]

The next year, after his courtship and marriage to Alma Schindler, Mahler composed another Rückert setting that was eventually added to the collection: "Liebst du um Schönheit". Unlike the other four, this was solely intended as a private gift to Alma as a proof of his love for her, due to simmering tensions between her and Mahler at the time. On 10 August, Mahler presented the song to Alma, who was deeply moved by the setting of the last line: Liebe mich immer, dich lieb' ich immer, immerdar.[9] Due to its intimate nature, Mahler never orchestrated the song,[10] and it was not performed in public in Mahler's lifetime.[11] Instead, when the full collection was published, it was orchestrated by Max Pullman, an editor at the publishing company C. F. Kahnt, who first published these Lieder.[12][11]

Four of the Rückert-Lieder ("Liebst du um Schonheit" was not included in the programme) were premiered, alongside the five Kindertotenlieder, and six of the Wunderhorn settings, on 29 January 1905 in Vienna at the small Musikvereinsaal, now called the Brahmssaal.[13] The singers were the tenor Fritz Schrödter and the baritones Friedrich Weidemann and Anton Moser. These singers were accompanied by members of the Vienna Philharmonic, which were conducted by Mahler himself.[13] Moser sang "Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!" and "Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!", and Weidemann sang "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" and "Um Mitternacht".[13] The songs were in the following order:

1. Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!
2. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!
3. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen'
4. Um Mitternacht[14]

The concerts were part of a series of concerts organised by the Vereinigung schaffender Tonkünstler in Wien, founded on 23 April 1904 by Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky (among others).[15] Mahler had accepted the honorary presidency of the Vereinigung,[16] and he helped to organise and perform in several of these concerts,[17] of which this Lieder concert was one. Mahler had already promised Schoenberg and Zemlinsky when he accepted the honorary presidency that he would premiere one of his own works for the Vereinigung.[18] Mahler could not premiere the 5th Symphony, as it would be too costly to perform, and in any case had already been promised to Fritz Steinbach's Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne.[18] Instead, Mahler opted to complete the Kindertotenlieder in the summer of 1904, and premiere that song cycle and the Rückert-Lieder in a Lieder concert, which was especially interesting given that most of Mahler's Lieder with orchestral accompaniment had not been performed yet.[18]

Due to demand, the final rehearsal (on 28 January, the day before the premiere) was open to the public, and the concert itself was completely sold out, with many being turned away at the door.[13] The concert was greeted with a positive reception, with Paul Stefan writing that "Mahler's Lieder touched everyone".[19] Anton Webern, who attended the premiere, was more cool, writing in his diary that the Rückert-Lieder were "less satisfactory" and even "sentimental", but still containing a "beauty of vocal expression, which is sometimes of overwhelming inwardness", singling out "Ich atmet einen linden Duft" for praise.[20] David Josef Bach noted that "With [Mahler], words do not create the atmosphere. It is more as if, in order to create it, he needs the text as much as the music".[21] Julius Korngold thought that Mahler's setting of Rückert's poetry was "noble, sensitive and poetic", though he felt that the intimacy of Rückert's poetry was not well suited to orchestral accompaniment.[21] Finally, an anonymous critic wrote:

The songs, their sequence, and their performance offered the highest state of polished refinement ... It does not matter to [Mahler] or to the listeners whether the melodies are suffused with juicy banalities or borrowed from Bruckner's Romantic [Symphony] ... He makes the accompaniment progress in the time-honoured manner, stepwise with the voice, but casts over the whole a glittering orchestral web, full of clever ideas and piquant effects.[22]

The programme was repeated in another sold-out concert[23] on February 3rd, this time with Marie Gutheil-Schoder singing three additional Wunderhorn settings.[24] Following the concert, Mahler had dinner with the musicians of the Vereinigung, which deepened the bond between the two.[24] Webern later recalled that Mahler had said that "After Des Knaben Wunderhorn I could only compose more Rückert – which is lyricism at first hand, all the rest is lyricism at second hand."[24] More importantly for Mahler, these two triumphant performances had made him become aware that he had entered a new period in his career as a composer.[25] As for the Vereinigung, the long rehearsals for the concert had been costly, as it was necessary to pay overtime to the Philharmonic musicians,[23] on top of their already considerable fee to perform in the first place.[26] Despite being sold out twice, the small Musikvereinsaal had not enough seats to cover expenses,[23] which forced the Vereinigung to cancel an orchestral concert, and to finally cease activities after two final chamber music concerts on February 20th and April 17th.[25]

Later in 1905, C. F. Kahnt would publish the Rückert-Lieder with their piano accompaniment.[27] It would take until 1908 for Kahnt to agree publication the full scores of those songs with orchestral accompaniments,[28] and 1910 for these scores to appear, along with Mahler's settings of 'Revelge' and 'Der Tamboursg’sell' from Der Knaben Wunderhorn in Sieben Lieder aus letzter Zeit (Seven Songs of Latter Days) in 1910. Universal Edition later published a score consisting of only the five Rückert settings.

Mahler subsequently performed two of the Rückert-Lieder, namely 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen', sung by Weidemann,[29] and 'Um Mitternacht', sung by Erik Schmedes,[14][29] in a concert at the Graz Festival, on June 1st, 1905.[14][30] Mahler again conducted, with the orchestra comprising 23 members of the Konzertverin Orchestra and "professors from the Steiermäkischer Muisverein,"[30] as well as members of the Vienna Philharmonic that accompanied Mahler to Graz.[31] The acclaim from the audience was apparently so spontaneous that the fellow composers in the hall, as well as those who regularly criticised Mahler, booed him off in envy.[32] Again critics, even those who were biased against Mahler's work, praised this triumph,[33] with Ernst Decsey saying "Each song was incontestably a 'phenomenon' unto itself, because of the 'absolutely unprecedented [sonority] of his chamber orchestra."[34] These reports paved the way for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik to publish a long article about Mahler's Lieder later in 1905.[35] In 1911, the Grazer Volksblatt, reminiscing on the concert in the wake of Mahler's death, would write that "few eyes remained dry in the concert hall" and that "the audience surrounded [Mahler] with acclamation, ... gratitude, and genuine love."[32]

On February 14, 1907, Mahler accompanied Johannes Messchaert at the piano[36] in a recital at the Bösendorfer Saal in Berlin,[37] consisting of five early Wunderhorn settings, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, the Kindertotenlieder, and the same four Rückert-Lieder as at the collection's premiere.[37] An unsigned article in the Vossiche Zeitung wrote that there had been a "sizeable audience", alluded to the Graz concert, and said the Rückert-Lieder were "certainly among the best songs that Mahler had composed".[38] Paul Bekker in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung again repeated the criticism that the songs were occasionally "sentimental."[39] Otto Klemperer later recalled that the concert was "wonderfully compelling" and "quite unbelievable."[37] Messchaert and Mahler would later perform two of the Rückert-Lieder at a concert in Cologne on July 1st, again to acclaim.[40]