Rheinlegendchen from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1893)

Liebst du um Schönheit from 5 Rückert-Lieder (1902)

Lob des hohen Verstandes from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1896)

Love and constancy are again at issue in Mahler’s Rheinlegendchen although that theme was not, as it happens, the inspiration of the song. The melodic material was actually in Mahler’s mind before he discovered the words to go with it, a Bavarian or Tyrolean folk song, in Des Knaben Wunderhorn. What pleased him about his setting was its innocence, its “childish, mischievous and heartfelt” qualities, and the “gentle and sunny”colouring of the accompaniment.

Liebst du um Schönheit, one of the most beautiful of Mahler’s Rückert settings, is very much more personal. Written in August 1902, it was intended as a surprise for the composer’s 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.” Alma was presumably not slow to recognize the allusion to Tristan at as the song approaches its climax at “Liebst du um Liebe…”

Lob des hohen Verstandes, the last of Mahler’s Wunderhorn settings, is directed not at a loved one but, on the contrary, his uncomprehending critics. The Wagnerian allusion in this case - to Die Meistersinger on the words “Täten ein Wett’ anschlagen” - would presumably have escaped the attention of the ears, however large, of the objects of Mahler’s wickedly satirical caricature.