Songs of a Wayfarer – Gustav Mahler
(Adapted for trombone and piano)
I. When My Sweetheart is Married
II. I Went This Morning over the Field
III. I Have a Gleaming Knife
IV. The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved
Dominic Ghiglione – trombone
Victor Cheng – piano
Recorded April 3rd, 2023 – Walter Hall, University of Toronto
About the piece:
In 1883, Austrian composer Gustav Mahler was named second conductor and choirmaster of the opera in Kassel, Germany and during his first season there he and one of the sopranos in the company, Johanna Richter, fell in love. By the following autumn the affair had come to a painful end, and the 24-year-old Mahler transformed his experience into music: between December 1884 to January 1885, he composed a set of songs about an unhappy young man setting out to find himself in the aftermath of a shattered affair.
These songs are more focused than Mahler’s early description might make them seem – rather than wandering “aimlessly,” the young man eventually achieves some measure of peace in these songs, and so the progress of the cycle is from pain to acceptance. Each of these songs concludes in a different key from its opening, and such progressive tonality serves to underline the notion of progress by the wayfarer across each of these songs. The term “journeyman” would best describe this piece rather than “wayfarer” as in German implies “mastery” in one’s craft, something that Mahler was only beginning to accomplish and learning music from others.
Despite writing the cycle between 1884-85, the songs were not published until 1897 due to orchestration revisions, with many themes and textures used this cycle incorporated in his Symphony No. 1, subtitled “Titan”. Mahler himself had written the text for these songs, most of which came from his previous work Das Knaben Wunderhorn. Versions for voice and piano as well as full orchestra exist, however composer Arnold Schoenberg also had written a version for chamber orchestra.
A summary of the four songs follows:
I. Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht (When My Sweetheart is Married).
The text describes the Wayfarer’s grief at losing his love to another. He remarks on the beauty of the surrounding world, but that cannot keep him from having sad dreams. The orchestral texture is bittersweet.
II. Ging heut Morgen ubers Feld (I Went This Morning over the Field)
This, the happiest music of the work, is a song of joy and wonder at the beauty of nature in simple actions like birdsong and dew on the grass. “Is it not a lovely world?” is a refrain. However, the Wayfarer is reminded at the end that despite this beauty, his happiness will not blossom anymore now that his love is gone.
III. Ich hab’ein glihend Messer (I Have a Gleaming Knife)
This is a more conventional song of lost love. It explodes to life – Mahler marks the beginning “Stormy, wild” – the lover’s pain is a burning dagger in his heart, and the only possible relief will come with death.
IV. Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz (The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved)
The image of those eyes causes the Wayfarer so much grief that he can no longer stand to be in the environment. He describes lying down under a linden tree, allowing the flowers to fall on his face and body. He wishes the whole affair had never occurred: “Everything: love and grief and world, and dreams!” The music is subdued and gentle, lyrical and reminiscent of a chorale in its harmonies.