Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen

Erinnerung

Aus! Aus!

Hans und Grete

Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?

All the Mahler songs in today’s programme were written in the composer’s twenties or early thirties - in a period when he went through several formative love affairs but was inspired more by Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the highly influential collection of German folk songs edited by Arnim and Brentano in the early nineteenth century, than by even the most passionate romantic attachment. Um schlimmer Kinder artig zu machen, which was one of his first group of Wunderhorn settings written between 1888 and 1891, is a characteristic example. Mahler clearly takes a delight in the naivete of the words, their homely Swiss dialect, the repeaed cuckoo calls and, and above all, the country dance tune they give rise to. If there is a suggestion of parody in the clumsy rhythms in the piano part it is an indication of affection rather than disdain.

By contrast, Erinnerung is an early example of the Mahler art song. One of two settings of words by Richard Leander dating from between 1880 and 1883, it is clearly modelled on Brahms and is highly sophisticated in its harmonies and surprisingly passionate in expression. Aus! Aus!, on the other hand, belongs to the same group of Wunderhorn songs as Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen. It is an entertaining study in characterisation, with a particularly witty stanza devoted to the misery of the girl’s anticipation of life in the nunnery, and at the same time a prophetic example of the Mahler military march in its brisk duple-time metre and its echoes of drum rolls in the piano part.

It has been said that Mahler did not discover Des Knaben Wunderhorn until 1887. It is quite clear from the words he wrote for the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, however, that he was under the spell of the Wunderhorn at least four years before that. The folky quality of his words for Hans und Grete, the first versions of which (Maitanz im Grünen) was written in 1880, doesn’t necessarily mean that he was aware of the Wunderhorn as far back as that, but it does at least suggest he already had an affinity with the idiom. It is interesting too that the waltz-time strains of Hans und Grete - which are as prophetic of later developments as the march-time rhythms of Aus! Aus! - reappear in the Scherzo of the First Symphony.

Wer hat dies Liedlien erdacht? is the latest and perhaps the most attractive of the five songs in the present selection. Although it is more familiar in its orchestral version, as one of the ten Lieder aus des Knaben Wunderhorn, the piano version was written first (in February 1892) and is in no way a make-shift or second best. In whatever form it is presented, it runs along with irresistible charm on the whistling or piping tune that so cheerfuly pervades the accompaniment and so effectively enters the vocal part at the end of the first and last stanzas.