The first time I heard Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde I was deeply impressed and somehow became immediately addicted to the piece. I believe it is charged with a universal truth in its immanent value and absolutely everyone can identify with it. Furthermore, I think through Das Lied one can actually get to know Mahler himself and experience closely the way he felt in the last years of his life. It is as if the work would be the most honest, accurate and powerful self portrait of him. Not for nothing, he himself referred to the piece as “the most personal work I ever wrote”. It is perhaps this absolute honesty and transparency, this Mahler’s portrait in his ultimate vulnerability, that makes the piece so heart breaking. Of course, besides all reflections, Das Lied is an absolute master piece in all its technical aspects.
Bernard Haitink described Mahler as “a man with a talent to suffer”. A rather cruel remark, Haitink’s comment refers to the fact that the composer lived a tragic life and had to survive terrible circumstances, always alone, developing a huge sense of alienation.
Mahler was confronted to death since very young and later on, he experienced first-hand the discrimination suffered by the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 19 century:
“Always an intruder, never welcomed” , as he himself described the feeling.
It was in the summer of 1907 when a number of unfortunate events took place, all one after the other in a very short period of time. During that year Mahler suffered a campaign against him in Vienna that led to his resignation at the opera house. Exhausted by this, he took his family to their summer villa in Maiernigg. Soon after their arrival both his daughters fell ill with scarlet fever and diphtheria. Anna (the youngest one) recovered, but after a fortnight’s struggle Maria died on July 12th. Immediately following this devastating loss, Mahler learned that his heart was defective, a diagnosis subsequently confirmed by a Vienna specialist who estimated that the composer would not live much longer.
For one year Mahler did not write any music. It was until the summer of 1908 that he received a copy of Bethge’s “The Chinese flute”, a German translation of ancient Chinese poetry. In this text Mahler found the source of what would become Das Lied von der Erde, an allegory of life and death, picturing different aspects of existence through six songs. The core of the conflict that gives birth to Das Lied is the confrontation of the beauty of life with its unavoidable end. Mortality as a painful notion of leaving the world and life that we loved so much. In Das Lied Mahler expresses how he is confronted face to face with his own death. He would die and the world would remain, on and on. In this notion lies one of the most painful aspects of the piece; Mahler, the alien, never welcomed, is also expelled from life. A terrible blast to a man who always felt rejected and would eventually have some relief in nature, believing that at least he would belong to this earth!
Through the six pieces that form Das Lied von der Erde, the composer pictures several aspects of life with scenes of nature, people, youth, beauty, love, all to be resolved at the moment of having to face death as an unavoidable fact. It is at the very end of the piece, once a dramatic march portrays a painful struggle, that Mahler comes to terms with death and accepts it. He then looks for the last time to the earth’s eternal beauty before having to leave it.
“The beloved earth… that blossoms forth in spring… eternally”
Performing Das Lied and releasing this live recording with some of the best, most talented, powerful and honest musicians I have ever met in my life is a privilege for which I will be ever grateful.
Roberto Beltrán-Zavala © 2025
