My favorite song "Song of the Earth"
I no longer dare to claim to be a Mahler fan, because I have not listened to "Song of the Earth" for many years, although I was once sure that it was from this life. My favorite, maybe that was my misunderstanding of Mahler in adolescence! At that time, I saw all the sorrow and anguish in life tearing and wallowing hoarsely in his music, as if I had seen my savior, and I wanted to fall at his feet. Or simply put your soul into his hand. In my opinion, he was the "angry young man" back then. He broke his real flesh and blood into pieces and bloomed in the music. Loneliness and despair spread into a luxurious atmosphere. At the same time, he soared up to the beautiful melody, which is better than the wailing rock music nowadays. More lethal. I know that no matter how classical my taste and mood are, Mahler's blood and turmoil will always be like sweet poison, which can still make me feel depressed, trembling and unconscious after a long period of longing and isolation.
I still hopelessly list "Song of the Earth" as my favorite symphony. If you listen to that sticky and melancholic piano sound, it really is Mahler. His temperament is like the orchid in the valley, his domineering and ghostly energy is there, and his voice is so beautiful and intoxicating. What is "majestic" and what is "enveloping"? This is probably it. . The gorgeous orchestral sound remains the same as before, laboriously climbing up across the octave, then tearing and destroying, washing away the remaining beauty. After being reduced to the percussion on the piano, the sound suddenly became empty and strange, and the lines emerged with irregular outlines and sharp corners. Although the beauty is still there, there is a nervous and chaotic sound in the inner voice, like a handful of broken glass spinning in a kaleidoscope. It makes me imagine and move. I always think of "the return of the soul", sighing and snuggling in my arms with nostalgia. Generate heat. Mahler's songs drive me crazy. My whole body and blood boiled in the winter wind, listening to the six-song "Song of the Earth". I only heard the hot music paired with the sad lyrics, and the world turned upside down and took on an absurd tone. , people have no choice but to be "moved". By carefully tracing the connection between music and lyrics, we can see the sensitive Mahler's unique feeling for poetry.
For me, the Jewish Mahler’s music and his person are full of literary qualities. His own life was like a long and bleak poem, the source of which was the hard life of a Jew and his sad and precocious childhood. The marginalized conductor career in the middle was like the hoarse and dim ending of the music, and his death was like The suddenness of heading towards heaven. The famous Mahler biographer Lagrange once tried to trace the fragments of Mahler's childhood, such as his home, market, church hall, school, and the trauma left by the death of his brothers and sisters. Most of these can be found in his " The response is found in Song of the Earth. It is said that these marks had a symbolic meaning to Mahler, and they shaped his way of seeing the world. He can be enthusiastic and outgoing, or he can be quiet, and he can laugh like a child until he bursts into tears during a conversation. His character is full of contradictions, his delicate love and occasional rudeness sometimes hurt others and himself.
Mahler's "Song of the Earth" is a poem with complex imagery, full of metaphors and symbols. No matter what the occasion is, poetry will always preserve the sadness in troubled times. When I read Mahler, he is one of those huge symphonies full of details; when I don't read it, his soul dwells somewhere secretly, his fingers tapping faintly on the piano, leading me into a mysterious dream world. (Anonymous)
The Jewish music master Mahler was born in Bohemia on July 7, 1860. He was the son of a brewery owner. When he was 10 years old, he held a piano recital in his hometown. The following year, he was sent to Prague to study, but after two years of studying, he dropped out of school and returned home because of his physical weakness. In 1885, a farm manager who heard Mahler's performance felt that his talent was extraordinary and suggested that he take him to the Vienna Conservatory of Music for piano instruction. However, after he won the school piano competition, he wanted to switch to composition. development, while also taking philosophy courses at the University of Vienna and studying Bruckner's articles privately. Two years later, while teaching piano at school, he was writing a script for his first work, "Song of Sorrow."
Mahler was a diligent musician. Apart from being busy as a conductor of orchestras and theaters, he spent the rest of his time composing music and rarely had time to rest. His conducting career began in 1880 in a small theater in northern Austria. From 1883 to 1885 he moved to another place, where he had a fruitless love affair with a female singer. After he sadly left, he went to work in Prague. At this time, he also wrote a set of songs for the singer's girlfriend, and he even wrote the lyrics. While in Prague, he performed operas by Mozart and Wagner and was highly praised by Brahms. At the age of 31, Mahler served as the conductor of the Hamburg Opera Symphony Orchestra. Later, he served as the assistant conductor of the most famous conductor at the time in Leipzig and the conductor of the Vienna Opera for 10 years. During these 10 years, he The most brilliant and active period of life. Mahler's bold display of originality led to many historic performances of Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner operas. He fought against conservative stereotypes in opera conducting. During the 10-year struggle, Mahler was constantly obstructed and attacked by the opposition, and finally had to leave the Vienna Opera House. In 1909 he was appointed conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and also conducted the Metropolitan Opera. Later, his heart disease worsened and he returned to his hometown in February 1911. Mahler died in Vienna on May 18 of the same year due to a heart attack and severe blood infection. He was buried in Grenzinger Cemetery.
Mahler had great respect for his predecessors. In 1875, the famous symphony composer Bruckner's "Third Symphony" was first performed. At that time, Bruckner was not as famous as he would later be. The band members did not really appreciate the author of the symphony, so the whole performance was full of "perfunctory" "Things", the failure of the first performance can be imagined. During the performance, the audience booed and whistled constantly. In the end, there were only 25 people left in the audience. Mahler, who was only 17 years old at the time, was among these 25 people. At the end of the performance, they congratulated Bruckner with a standing ovation.
Mahler's symphonies are majestic and majestic, bringing this musical form to an unprecedented level of grandeur. Mahler is an extremely important figure in the history of symphony development. His symphonies have been performed very frequently for more than 100 years. Some even consider Mahler to be the greatest symphony composer after Beethoven. However, many music critics believe that although Mahler's works are grand, they are full of pessimism and world-weariness, and every symphony is like a tragedy. This statement is not unreasonable. Music is indeed a reflection of the composer's own world view. Mahler's life was not smooth, but full of ups and downs, frustrations and misfortunes. His friendship with Freud was based on this foundation. The ill-fated Mahler was tortured by various troubles in life, so he sought advice from the psychoanalyst Freud. At that time, Freud's theory was misunderstood by people. Freud was naturally overjoyed that someone came to ask for advice. The two had a very good conversation, and Freud was surprised to find that Mahler could understand the principles of psychoanalysis very quickly.
The longest existing symphonies are all works by Mahler. His "Third Symphony" has 6 movements, and the first movement is 45 minutes long. The Eighth Symphony is known as the "Symphony of a Thousand People" because there were so many people on stage when it premiered in Munich.
"Resurrection Symphony" is the alias of Mahler's "Second Symphony", composed from 1890 to 1894. C minor, ***5 movements. The fourth movement uses a song "Primordial Light" from his song collection "The Magic Horn of Youth", and the fifth movement uses the soprano, chorus and orchestra to compose the German poet Klopstock's poem "Resurrection". The author got along well with the German musician Bülow. He once showed the draft of this song to Bülow and received enthusiastic encouragement. When the author wrote the final movement, he struggled to get the point. When Bulow died in 1894, the author heard the chorus tone of "Ode to the Resurrection" at the funeral, suddenly understood it, and successfully wrote the final movement, hence the name of the whole song "Resurrection".
The "Fourth Symphony" is the smallest and simplest structure among Mahler's symphonies. Together with the Second and Third Symphonies, it is called the "Youth Symphony". The lyrics are as follows: Part of the theme melody is taken from the folk song collection "The Song of the Young Devil's Horn". The content described in this collection of folk songs includes medieval legends, gods, monsters, and satirical stories from the Thirty Years' War and the Seven Years' War. The protagonists are either people suffering in purgatory, or people suffering from hunger, waiting to be shot or exiled. These stories thrilled Mahler, who seemed to have found his roots in this collection of folk songs. This piece of music takes the form of focusing on the fourth movement. Thematically, it also maintains a connection between the previous movements and the fourth movement, using poetry and music to express the joy of heaven. And the orchestration of this symphony is smaller than before. From the appearance, the instrument arrangement does not use heavy-sounding instruments such as trombones or horns, so it has an elegant feeling like a watercolor painting.