A Journey of the Heart: Unraveling Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer"

To immerse oneself in Mahler's music is to step into a captivating realm, a world unto itself—one where you can feel great joy and sorrow within several moments. Here, the trees share their whispered secrets, and the flowers beckon to be witnessed in all their splendor. Mahler once said “A symphony must be like a world. It must contain everything” and he does just that. 

Mahler's “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” was one of his earlier works but shows that even at a young age Mahler was going to change the orchestral scene as the world knew it. This song cycle didn't premiere until the release of both Mahler's first and second symphonies. At the time of composition, Mahler was in his mid-20s and was the recently appointed conductor of the opera house in Kassel. He was then introduced to a young soprano, Johanna Richter, at the opera house and instantly fell in love with the young woman and her talent. Their relationship seemed to be somewhat short-lived, however, with most things Mahler pursued, his feelings ran deep, and when the end came he turned to the written word as an outlet for his pain. Mahler wrote a series of six poems and four of them became the movements of “Songs of a Wayfarer”. For the sake of simplicity, I will be including the English translations of the poems instead of the original German. 

The first song is titled “When My Sweetheart is Married” and it follows our protagonist through his experience watching his love getting married to another man. It can be assumed that when Mahler wrote these poems, he pictured himself as the protagonist in all of these stories. The text is: 

When my darling has her wedding-day,

her joyous wedding-day,

I will have my day of mourning!

I will go to my little room,

my dark little room,

and weep, weep for my darling,

for my dear darling!

Blue flower! Do not wither!

Sweet little bird - you sing on the green heath!

Alas, how can the world be so fair?

Chirp! Chirp!

Do not sing; do not bloom!

Spring is over.

All singing must now be done.

At night when I go to sleep,

I think of my sorrow,

of my sorrow!

This movement is marked by its poignant and emotional character, as it reflects the pain and sorrow of lost love. Mahler paints the picture of a wedding through the use of bell motifs which is a universal sign to most. One of the other interesting things about the song is that there isn’t any certainty on which theme is the main melody of the music. When listening you can hear two different themes, one in the voice and the other in the piano. It is believed that these two themes show the two different storylines within our poem.

The first is the actual wedding. The piano has this upbeat, joyful theme that would naturally depict the happiness found in the wedding ceremony. The second theme is a bit more somber and I believe it is the piano theme but at half tempo, which means it is moving at half the speed that the piano is. This is to represent the protagonist himself. He is observing from the outside and is watching his love slowly slip away. In the poem, he says “I will have my day of mourning!” To him, this is a life-altering event but not in the sense that it is for the bride. This slower theme almost gives a sense of timelessness, as if time has stopped and the protagonist is watching this in slow motion. By the end of the song, the music has entered despair along with our protagonist and the entire mood has changed to a sense of hopelessness. This all seems to change very quickly with the beginning of the second song. 

The second song is titled “I Went This Morning Over the Field” and seems to be a very jubilant song. If it was removed from the context of this song cycle, it would probably have a very different meaning. When talking about this song it is worth talking about Mahler's connection with the earth. 

Most of Mahler’s works can be traced back to finding inspiration from the earth. Some of Mahler’s more popular symphonies were drawn from the idea of nature and all of its beauty. Mahler's Third Symphony had the intention of creating the entire world. Each movement is titled after an organism of life starting small and consequently ending with Heaven. Later on in his career, Mahler wrote “Lieder von der Erde” or rather “Songs of the Earth” which some consider to be his ninth symphony however Mahler wrote it in hopes of evading the curse of the nine, a curse he suspected lied on all composers who passed shortly after writing their ninth symphony. Ironically, after Mahler wrote his official ninth symphony, he passed away from a heart condition. Aside from these two pieces, which seem to be wholly fixed on nature as the inspiration, there are several movements within his symphonies that also derive from the earth. Mahler felt a strong connection with nature's never-ending presence. Two of his three composition homes were in the Austrian countryside and the third was in the Italian countryside. 

If we keep all this in mind we can truly understand how our protagonist in “Songs of a Wayfarer” found true solace in nature. The text for this song is: 

I walked across the fields this morning;

dew still hung on every blade of grass.

The merry finch spoke to me:

"Hey! Isn't it? Good morning! Isn't it?

You! Isn't it becoming a fine world?

Chirp! Chirp! Fair and sharp!

How the world delights me!"

Also, the bluebells in the field

merrily with good spirits

tolled out to me with bells (ding, ding)

their morning greeting:

"Isn't it becoming a fine world?

Ding, ding! Fair thing!

How the world delights me!"

And then, in the sunshine,

the world suddenly began to glitter;

everything gained sound and color

in the sunshine!

Flower and bird, great and small!

"Good day, is it not a fine world?

Hey, isn't it? A fair world?"

Now will my happiness also begin?

No, no - the happiness I mean

can never bloom!

Similar to the first song, Mahler spares no time immersing the audience in the world our protagonist is experiencing. As Mahler often did, the protagonist takes a walk in the meadow to try and feel better about the emotional turmoil he is experiencing. We immediately hear bird calls in the upper woodwinds as if they are responding to our protagonist's questions. The orchestra sounds like the very embodiment of nature and one could say that this song is voice and nature rather than voice and orchestra. It seems like he finds the birds and flowers to truly be his friends and he seems to feel better about his heartbreak. That is until we reach the end and once again the music seems to be in anguish as the protagonist realizes that he may never find happiness and, at the end of the day, nature doesn’t care. 

The third song is titled “I Have a Gleaming Knife” and it sounds exactly like you would imagine. The text reads:

I have a red-hot knife,

a knife in my breast.

O woe! It cuts so deeply

into every joy and delight.

Alas, what an evil guest it is!

Never does it rest or relax,

not by day or by night, when I would sleep.

O woe!

When I gaze up into the sky

I see two blue eyes there.

O woe! When I walk in the yellow field,

I see from afar her blond hair

waving in the wind.

O woe!

When I start from a dream

and hear the tinkle of her silvery laugh,

O woe!

Would that I lay on my black bier -

Would that I could never again open my eyes!

The music emulates the protagonist's hopelessness with the use of unstable tremolos and extreme musical elements. Mahler seems to rely on extreme dynamics that add the feeling of unsteadiness. As if the music is barely holding on, similar to the protagonist's emotional grasp. By the end of the piece, he is essentially asking for death after acknowledging that the heartbreak he feels is similar to a “red hot knife”. He is haunted by visions of her in everything he sees, from the sky above to the field he found peace in just a moment ago. As he is asking for his end, the singer uses this downward motif that seems based on the octatonic scale which provides lots of half steps that add tension to the music. It also makes it sound like the singer is sighing or slowly descending into the never-ending ending pit of pain the protagonist has entered.

The fourth song is titled “The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved” and is in direct reference to the love he lost at the beginning of the song cycle. The protagonist seems to be moving towards healing but just the beginning phases of it. He claims that he has no companions as moves out into the world except for the love he has for his sweetheart and the sorrow that he carries that she is not his to have. The text is:

The two blue eyes of my darling -

they have sent me into the wide world.

I had to take my leave of this well-beloved place!

O blue eyes, why did you gaze on me?

Now I will have eternal sorrow and grief.

I went out into the quiet night

well across the dark heath.

To me no one bade farewell.

Farewell! My companions are love and sorrow!

On the road there stands a linden tree,

and there for the first time I found rest in sleep!

Under the linden tree

that snowed its blossoms onto me -

I did not know how life went on,

and all was well again!

All! All, love and sorrow

and world and dream!

This song is also interesting because, while the second song alludes to Mahler's affinity with nature, this song alludes to Mahler's interest in death. Mahler pulled the main theme from Donizetti's opera “Don Sebastian” in the scene where the hero, who had been left for dead on the battlefield, returns home just in time to witness his funeral. I believe that Mahler uses this theme to allude to the death of a part of the wayfarer who had love and aspirations. Now all he feels is “eternal sorrow and grief.” He recognizes this part of himself as he treads off into a barren landscape, which is articulated in the footstep-like pattern in the bass and harp, and finds rest under a linden tree.

The Linden tree is a unique symbol that Mahler chose because it can be seen in several stories across German romantics. In this case, it seems that Mahler is referencing Schubert's song “Der Lindenbaum” where the main character finds peace and rest while under the Linden tree. One of the lines says “And its branches rustled as if they were calling to me: ‘Come to me, friend, here you will find rest.” For some, it symbolizes a final resting place. It is unclear as to which Mahler intended for the Wayfarer. What is known is that after the protagonist sleeps under the tree, with blossoms falling on his figure, the music continues with a funeral march that can also be heard in the first movement of Symphony No. 5. The question remains, was the lonely wayfarer able to finally heal his heartache, or did he find eternal rest under the linden tree?

Sources:

Ezust, E. (n.d.). Songs of a Wayfarer. Songs of a wayfarer | LiederNet. https://www.lieder.net/lieder/assemble_translations.html?SongCycleId=108&LanguageId=7&ContribId=

Mahler, G. (2008). Lieder eines fahrenden gesellen. IMSLP. https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/c/cf/IMSLP21559-PMLP12556-Mahler_-_Lieder_eines_fahrenden_Gesellen_(orch._score).pdf

Starr, Jason. On Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer. Cultural Media Collaborative , 2019.

Wigmore, R. (n.d.). Der Lindenbaum: Song texts, lyrics & translations. Oxford Song. https://oxfordsong.org/song/der-lindenbaum-2