3 songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Lob des hohen Verstandes (1896)

Rheinlegendchen (1893)

Urlicht (1892)

Mahler’s discovery in 1887 of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano’s anthology of German folk poetry published in two volumes in 1805 and 1808 respectively - was a turning point in his career. It wasn’t a complete change of direction, since he had long favoured the folk idiom in the texts he chose (or even wrote) for song-setting. But in Des Knaben Wunderhorn he found a collection of such breadth, depth and variety that it took him thirteen years or more, not only in his songs but also in his symphonies, to realise its creative potential.

Mahler’s 1896 setting of Wettstreit des Kuckucks mit der Nachtigall (The Competition between the Cuckoo and the Nightingale), whch he retitled Lob des hohen Verstandes, was still in the composer’s mind six years later when he was working on his Fifth Symphony: a clear reference to it introduces the high-flown counterpoint of the Finale. In that case the irony is directed at the composer himself. The original song, on the other hand, is a wickedly satirical caricature of his uncomprehending, donkey-like critics. Whether even the biggest ears among them detected the discreet allusion to Die Meistersinger, on the words “Täten ein Wett’ anschlagen,” one rather doubts.

Rheinlegendchen - composed in a voice-and-piano version in 1893 but first published, like the other two songs in this group, among the ten Wunderhorn settings for voice and orchestra in 1899 - is a particularly delightful example of its kind, Naive sentiment and playful Ländler rhythms are combined with teasingly but not incongruously sophisticated harmonies. The melodic material was actually in Mahler’s mind before he discovered the words to go with it. What pleased him about his setting was its “childish, mischievous and heartfelt” qualities, and the “gentle and sunny”colouring of the accompaniment.

Urlicht was probably written as early as 1892 and was incorporated in the Second Symphony as a transition between the scherzo, which is based on another Wunderhorn song (Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt) and the setting of Klopstock’s Die Auferstehung in the finale. Its innocent faith - Mahler insisted that Urlicht should be sung “with the tone and vocal expression of a child who thinks he is in heaven” - is no less touching when the song is performed separately than when it is part of the symphony. The two versions, incidentally, are identical.