Five Songs to words by Friedrich Rückert

Liebst du um Schönheit

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

Um Mitternacht

“It is I myself,” said Mahler of Rückert’s poem, Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen. In Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) Gustav Mahler had found a profoundly, even uncannily kindred spirit – one whose loss of his children, commemorated in his Kindertotenlieder, so sadly foreshadowed a similar tragedy in the Mahler household a few years after the composer had completed his setting of those same Kindertotenlieder in 1904. With one exception, the other five Rückert songs were written in a sustained surge of inspiration in the summer of 1901.

Liebst du um Schönheit was written a year later and in a different situation. A comparatively simple love song, it was intended as a surprise for his wife, Alma Schindler, whom he had married five months earlier. It was presumably because of its essentially intimate nature that Mahler never orchestrated it. The present version, by one M. Puttmann, was published five years after the composer’s death in 1916.

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft describes, according to Mahler, “the way one feels in the presence of a beloved being of whom one is completely sure without a single word needing to be spoken.” Cellos and basses are excluded from a texture in which evocative woodwind melody floats fragrantly on the air. In Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! the orchestral material derives from the sound of the bees which, in the poem, are introduced in the second stanza but which, in the song, buzz industriously throughout. According to someone who knew him well, the poem “is so typical of Mahler that he might have written it himself.”

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen    was inspired, Mahler said, by “the feeling that fills one and rises to the tip of one’s tongue but goes no further.” It is a feeling which Mahler explored further in the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony, with much the same melodic material and similarly nostalgic harp colouring. All the strings are excluded from Um Mitternacht from which, until the change to major amid fanfares and flourishes for the chorale-like last stanza, light and warmth are also excluded.

Gerald Larner©

Ich atmet' einen linden Duft

Liebst du um Schönheit

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder

Um Mitternacht

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

“It is I myself,” said Mahler of Rückert’s poem Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen. In Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) the composer had found a profoundly, even uncannily kindred spirit – one whose loss of his children, commemorated in his Kindertotenlieder, so sadly foreshadowed a similar tragedy in the Mahler household a few years after the composer had completed his setting of those same Kindertotenlieder in 1904. With one exception, the other five Rückert songs were written in a sustained surge of inspiration in the summer of 1901. Although they are more familiar in the orchestral version, they are no less authentic when accompanied by piano – perhaps even more so, since the orchestration of Liebst du um Schönheit is not Mahler’s own.

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft describes, according to Mahler, “the way one feels in the presence of a beloved being of whom one is completely sure without a single word needing to be spoken.” The lower notes of the piano are largely excluded from a texture in which evocative right-hand melody floats fragrantly on the air. Written a year later, Liebst du um Schönheit is a comparatively simple love song intended as a surprise for his wife, Alma Schindler, whom he had married five months earlier. In Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! the piano part echoes the sound of the bees which, in the poem, are introduced in the second stanza but which, in the song, buzz industriously throughout. According to someone who knew him well, the poem “is so typical of Mahler that he might have written it himself.” There is no such sign of life in the accompaniment to Um Mitternacht from which, until the change to major amid fanfares and flourishes for the chorale-like last stanza, light and warmth are also excluded. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen    was inspired, Mahler said, by “the feeling that fills one and rises to the tip of one’s tongue but goes no further.” It is a feeling which Mahler explored further in the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony with much the same melodic material.

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

Um Mitternacht (arr D. Matthews)

Liebst du um Schönheit (orch M. Puttmann)

“It is I myself,” said Mahler of Rückert’s poem, Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen. In Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) he had found a profoundly, even uncannily kindred spirit – one whose loss of his children, commemorated in his Kindertotenlieder, so sadly foreshadowed a similar tragedy in the Mahler household a few years after the composer had completed his setting of a selection of those same Kindertotenlieder in 1904. With one exception, the present five Rückert songs were written in a sustained surge of inspiration in the summer of 1901.

According to someone who knew the composer well, Rückert’s Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder “is so typical of Mahler that he might have written it himself.” The orchestral material derives from the sound of the bees which, in the poem, are introduced in the second stanza but which, in the song, buzz industriously throughout.

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft describes, in Mahler’s words, “the way one feels in the presence of a beloved being of whom one is completely sure without a single word needing to be spoken.” Cellos and basses are excluded from a texture in which evocative woodwind melody floats fragrantly on the air.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen    was inspired, Mahler said, by “the feeling that fills one and rises to the tip of one’s tongue but goes no further.” It is a feeling which Mahler explored further in the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony, with much the same melodic material and similarly nostalgic harp colouring.

Um Mitternacht is something of an anomaly in this collection, partly because of the religious sentiment expressed with so much fervour at the    end but also because of Mahler’s scoring: it not only excludes the strings but also includes low wind instruments (trombones, tuba and double bassoon) which have no part to play in the other songs. In today’s performance it will be heard in an arrangement by composer and Mahler expert David Matthews.

Liebst du um Schönheit was written a year later than the others and in a different situation. A comparatively simple love song, it was intended as a surprise for    the composer’s wife, Alma Schindler, whom he had married five months earlier. It was presumably because of its essentially intimate nature that Mahler never orchestrated it. The present version, by Max Puttmann, was published five years after the composer’s death in 1916.

Gerald Larner © 2009

Liebst du um Schönheit

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

Um Mitternacht

“It is I myself,” said Mahler of Rückert’s poem, Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen. In Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) Gustav Mahler had found a profoundly, even uncannily kindred spirit - one whose loss of his children, commemorated in his Kindertotenlieder, so sadly foreshadowed a similar tragedy in the Mahler household a few years after the composer had set the same Kindertotenlieder to music. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!, dated 14th June 1901, was the first of Mahler’s Rückert settings. By the end of that summer he had also written Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft, Um Mitternacht, and Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen as well as three of the Kindertotenlieder.

Liebst du um Schönheit stands slightly apart from its companions in that it was written a year later, in August 1902, and in a different situation. A comparatively simple love song, it was intended as a surprise for his wife, Alma Schindler, whom he had married five months earlier. Aware of her passion for Wagner at the time, he slipped it between the pages of her copy of Die Walküre. “Then,” Alma later recalled,” he waited day after day for me to find it; but I never happened to open the volume, and his patience gave out. ‘I think I’ll take look at Die Walküre today,’ he said abruptly. He opened it and the song fell out. I was overwhelmed with joy and we played it that day twenty times at least.” It was presumably because of its essentially intimate nature that Mahler never orchestrated the song. The present version, by one M. Puttmann, was published five years after the composer’s death in 1916.

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft describes, according to Mahler, “the way one feels in the presence of a beloved being of whom one is completely sure without a single word needing to be spoken.” The pianissimo arpeggio on celesta and harp not only has a peculiar acoustic fragrance: it is also the source of the vocal line and of the legato quavers which run gently through the song on the strings. Cellos and basses are excluded from a texture in which woodwind melody floats evocatively on the air.

In Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! the orchestral material derives from the sound of the bees which, in the poem, are introduced in the second stanza but which, in the song, buzz industriously throughout. According to the composer’s confidante, Natalie Bauer-Lechner, the poem “is so typical of Mahler that he might have written it himself.”

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen was inspired, Mahler said, by “the feeling that fills one and rises to the tip of one’s tongue but goes no further.” It is a feeling which Mahler explored further in the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony, with much the same melodic material and similarly nostalgic harp colouring. It is the most freely constructed, perhaps the most spontaneous, and certainly the most inspired of all the Rückert settings.

All the strings are excluded from Um Mitternacht from which, until the last stanza, light and warmth are also excluded. The first part of the song is dominated by the desolate three-note midnight motif with which it begins and the descending scale figure first heard low down on fourth horn. The oboe is replaced by the still more plaintive oboe d’amore. The point of the initially gloomy scoring is to offset with maximum effect the change to the major, the horn fanfares and the harp and piano flourishes, for the chorale-like setting of the last stanza.

Gerald Larner 2005

Liebst du um Schönheit

Liebst du um Schönheit, o nicht mich liebe!

Liebe die Sonne, sie trägt ein goldenes Haar!

Liebst du um Jugend, o nicht mich liebe!

Liebe den Frühling, der jung ist jedes Jahr!

Liebst du um Schätze, o nicht mich liebe!

Liebe die Meerfrau, sie hat viel Perlen klar!

Liebst du um Liebe , o ja - mich liebe!

Liebe mich immer, dich lieb ich immerdar!

If you love for beauty

If you love for beauty, oh love not me.

Love the sun for its golden hair.

If you love for youth, oh love not me.

Love the Spring, which is young each year.

If you love for treasure, oh love not me.

Love the mermaid with her wealth of bright pearls.

If you love for love, oh yes - love me.

Love me for ever, as I will love you for ever.

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft.

Im Zimmer stand

Ein Zweig der Linde,

Ein Angebinde

Von lieber Hand.

Wie lieblich ist der Lindenduft!

Das Lindenreis

Brachst du gelinde;

Ich atme leis

Im Duft der Linde

Der Liebe linden Duft.

breathed a sweet scent

I breathed a gentle scent.

In the room there was

a sprig of lime

a gift from a

dear hand.

How lovely is the scent of lime!

The sprig of lime

you gently broke;

I breathe softly

in the scent of the lime

the gentle scent of love.

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!

Meine Augen schlag’ ich nieder,

Wie ertappt auf böser Tat;

Selber darf ich nicht getrauen,

Irhem Wachsen zuzuschauen:

Deine Neugier ist Verrat.

Bienen, wenn sie Zellen bauen,

Lassen auch nicht zu sich schauen,

Schauen selber auch nicht zu.

Wenn die reifen Honigwaben

Sie zu Tage gefördert haben,

Dann vor allem nasche du!

Do not spy on my songs

Do not spy on my songs.

I lower my eyes

as if caught in wrongdoing;

I don’t even dare myself

to watch them grow:

your curiosity is betrayal.

Bees, when they make their cells,

don’t let you watch them,

don’t even watch themselves.

When the rich honeycombs

are brought to light

you will be the first to taste them.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,

mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben;

sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,

sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts dran gelegen,

ob sie mich für gestorben hält.

Ich kan auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,

denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel

und ruh’ in einem stillen Gebiet!

Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel,

in meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied.

I am lost to the world

I am lost to the world

with which I once wasted so much time;

it hasn’t heard from me for so long

it might well believe that I am dead!

I don’t care at all

if it thinks me dead.

I cannot object

because I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the tumult of the world

and rest in a silent region!

I live alone in my heaven,

in my loving, in my song.

Um Mitternacht

Um Mitternacht

hab ich gewacht

und aufgeblickt zum Himmel;

kein Stern vom Sterngewimmel

hat mir gelacht

um Mitternacht.

Um Mitternacht

hab ich gedacht

hinaus in dunkle Schranken.

Es hat kein Lichtgedanken

mir Trost gebracht

um Mitternacht.

Um Mitternacht

nahm ich in acht

die Schläger meines Herzens.

Ein einziger Puls des Schmerzens

war angefacht

um Mitternacht.

Um Mitternacht

kämpft ich die Schlacht,

O Menschheit, deiner Leiden;

nicht konnt ich sie entscheiden

mit meiner Macht

um Mitternacht.

Um mitternacht

hab’ich die Macht

in deine Hand gegeben:

Herr über Tod und Leben,

du hältst die Wacht

um Mitternacht.

At midnight

At midnight

I awoke

and looked up to the sky;

no star in the swarm of stars

smiled on me

at midnight.

At midnight

my thoughts

went out into utter darkness.

No thought of light

brought me consolation

at midnight.

At midnight

I became aware

of my heart beats.

One single pulse of pain

started burning

at midnight.

At midnight

I fought the battle,

oh mankind, of you sorrows;

I couldn’t win it

with my own strength

at midnight.

At midnight

I gave my strength

into your hands:

Lord, over life and death

you stand watch

at midnight.

text: Friedrich Rückert

translation: Gerald Larner