Not that it takes much, but I'm in an "Urlicht" frame of mind -- and we're going to have some other Mahler Wunderhorn songs too

AND DO WE HAVE A KNOCKOUT "URLICHT" COMING UP!

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TODAY WE HAVE MUSIC!!!  (It's just not in our usual form)

Internet Archive, where SC's music is lodged, has been dealing with major cyber-attacks (see below). While it's back online (hooray!), it's still in "read-only" form, so I still had to find another way to "re-musicalize" an SC post.

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zart  adj  sensitive, delicate, tender
[from Mahler's directive to the singer of "Urlicht":
"durchaus zart" -- "throughout zart"]

MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 in C-sharp minor (Resurrection):
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light"): Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Choralmässig) (Very solemn, but simple/plain/truthful) (Chorale-like)
Then at bar 3: "Nicht schleppen" ("Don't drag")


Per the 2015 YT posting: "the first known footage of Glenn Gould conducting"

O little red rose,
Man lies in greatest need,
Man lies in greatest pain,
I would rather be in heaven.
Then I came upon a broad path,
then came a little angel and wanted to turn me away.
Ah no, I didn't let myself be turned away:
I am from God and want to return to God,
the dear God will give me a little light,
will light the way for me to eternal blissful life.

-- original German text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Maureen Forrester, contralto; orchestra, Glenn Gould, cond. Live performance filmed in Loew's Uptown Theatre, Toronto, for the CBC's 1956-57 Chrysler Festival series, aired Feb. 20, 1957

by Ken

To quote myself from the Oct. 2 Sunday Classics post:

Mahler had access to sheer beauty in a way that only Schubert could rival (think of "Urlicht," the radiant alto setting drawn from Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano's three-volume German folk-poetry anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which sets the stage for the monumental finale of the Resurrection Symphony). In addition, for all Mahler's command of musical tragedy, he was the genuinely wittiest composer the classical world has produced (think of "Father Anthony's Fish Sermon," a very different Wunderhorn settting).

Now, the above text chunk contains a basic breach of Sunday Classics protocol -- did you spot it? It's the, er, inspiration for the form this blogpost has finally taken: to rectify that error, which we'll talk about -- after:

(1) We deal with the Internet Archive disaster;
and (2) we hear more Mahler songs based on Des Knaben Wunderhorn.


(1) NOW, ABOUT INTERNET ARCHIVE: FINGERS CROSSED
FOR A RETURN TO NORMAL (BUT MORE SECURE) SERVICE
[Feel free to skip this section -- I really had to include it, though. -- Ed.]

You've probably noticed that we haven't had music on Sunday Classics since early October, and that's because essentially all our music is lodged on the indispensable Internet Archive, which describes itself as "a non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more." The Archive took itself offline in response to massive cyber-assaults beginning Oct. 8-9 (prefigured by lesser attacks in the spring). This update was posted by I.A.'s director of Library Services. (There are numerous links, which you can see in the online posting.)

Internet Archive Services Update: 2024-10-21
Posted on October 21, 2024 by Chris Freeland

Brahms knew, and so did Mahler: Being a for-real functional artistic genius is (gosh!) really hard work

"Mahler's way of thinking in music did not easily conform to the rules of the symphonic scholars. He could not contain himself in the A B A divisions of symphonic form. In this unique first movement he adapted large-scale sonata form to his own power of improvisation. He believed that music should continually grow, phrase by phrase, one section balancing another, by laws not only of musical form as usually obeyed but also by psychological and organic growth and the logic of contrast. . . ."

-- Neville Cardus, in his "Appreciation of Mahler's Third"
[reproduced in part in the last post in this Mahler 3 series]

"This final published version [of the Andante sostenuto of Brahms's First Symphony] is clearly both tauter and richer, for there is less repetition and more diversity, and Brahms has cast fresh light on his themes by bringing them into new relationships. Altogether these changes provide a deeply fascinating insight into genius at work."

-- Robert Pascall, vice chair of the New Complete Brahms Edition (and editor of the symphonies), in his notes for the Mackerras-Teldec Brahms 1

REMEMBER THE VERY DIFFERENT VERSIONS WE'VE
HEARD OF THE ANDANTE SOSTENUTO OF BRAHMS 1?

BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68:
ii. Andante sostenuto

► A reconstruction of the "initial performing version":

► And this: the familiar published (i.e., final) version
(which we'll be hearing -- and thinking about -- a lot more!):

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. Telarc, recorded in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, January 1997

WE'LL TALK ABOUT THEM, BUT FOR NOW MIGHT WE HAVE
MAESTRO M. PLAY US ANOTHER SYMPHONIC ANDANTE?

BBC Philharmonic, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. BBC Music Magazine, recorded live in Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (England), Nov. 16, 2002 (published 2005)

by Ken

It's taken us a long time and a crazy path to get here, "here" being out-the-other-end of the first movement of the Mahler Third Symphony --

OUR CRAZY PATH TO WHEREVER WE ARE NOW:

► "Setting out to trace the lineage of Boston Symphony concert-masters back to 1962, we wind up trapped in the gigantic first movement of the Mahler Third Symphony," July 23

► "Coming momentarily (if not sooner): An adventure in musical metamorphosis -- presented in a pair of mutually accessible parts," Sept. 22

► "Part 1: Marching in anguish, or to triumph, or toward what? In the 1st movement of Mahler 3, we've sure left BrahmsWorld behind!," Sept 23

► "Part 2: Marching in anguish, or to triumph, or toward what? In the 1st movement of Mahler 3, we've sure left BrahmsWorld behind! (Then again, are we so sure?)," Sept. 27

► "Brahms knew, and so did Mahler: Being a for-real functional artistic genius is (gosh!) really hard work," today

BECAUSE THE ANDANTE SOSTENUTO IS SO DEAR TO ME,
THE SC ARCHIVE TEEMS WITH PERFORMANCES OF IT

While we've got another whole group of recordings coming up in this post, for immediate hearing I've plucked out two, from the Brahms symphony cycles I feel closest to, returning to them regularly with tingly expectation that's always rewarded. Kurt Masur's Andante sostenuto and Kurt Sanderling's are different; notably, though Masur sounds in no way rushed, Sanderling sets a still-more-spacious pace, which the Dresden players fill with glowing life. But both draw me back above all because the orchestras have achieved real identification with the music, playing not just with heart-enriching beauty and finesse but with a soul-stirring sense of really living the music, whether in melodic or accompanimental or ensemble writing -- all of it sounded and made to fit together with such fullness and depth and general "rightness" of expression.

(It sobers me to realize that I've been loving the Sandering-Dresden Brahms cycle for something like half a century now, especially enjoying, in the early decades, those beautiful Eurodisc LP pressings.)