Lieder und Gesänge

For composition dates (or possible date-ranges) of individual songs, see the list of songs and also the notes at the end of this page.

The following list includes the keys used for the published high and low voice versions (those in bold are the keys in which the songs were composed) the vocal ranges at notated pitch using Helmholtz notation (pitches in parentheses are  provided with ossias as indicated), dates, and durations derived from PFMD2 (those in parentheses are of the recording made by Desi Halban (the daughter of Selma Kurz) and Bruno Walter in 1947).

The texts are from a number of sources: Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Richard Leander (pseud. of Richard von Volkmann (1830–1899)), Tirso de Molina (pseud.: Gabriel Tellez (1571–1648)), and Gustav Mahler (or possibly Ernst Gettke); see also the notes on the texts below.

See the contents list above: the timings are derived from PFMD2.

Dates of Composition

Only one dated autograph - for the early version of 'Hans und Grete' - survives, so all other suggestions of composition dates are necessarily conjectural:

Volume I

'Frühlingsmorgen': terminus ante quem: first documented public performance, 19.04.1886

'Erinnerung': terminus ante quem: first documented public performance, 13.11.1889

'Hans und Grete': 5 March 1880

'Serenade', 'Phantasie': terminus ante quem perhaps 20 October 1887 (see below)

Volume III

'Scheiden und Meiden': terminus ante quem: first documented public performance, 13 November 1889

According to Bauer-Lechner and (see SHNSS, 52) Mahler recalled that he had first came to know Des Knaben Wunderhorn in his twenty-eighth year (i.e. June 1887–88: he made a similar comment to Richard Specht (RSpGM1, 18)) and that at least some of the Wunderhorn settings were composed with the children of Max and Marion von Weber in mind, which would also date them to 1887–8 (NBL2, 29; NBLE, 33–4). Clearly at least two of the songs included in volume I  were composed earlier (Frühlingsmorgen, and Hans und Grete) and at least one unidentified Wunderhorn setting was composed in June 1890 while Mahler was staying at Hinterbrühl with the Löhr family (. In the summer of 1891 Mahler undertook a long vacation trip that probably prevented any composition, and in October of the year he wrote to Ludwig Strecker of B. Schott's Söhne offering for publication, amongs other items, 'about 20 assorted songs' (FWGMV, 81) and it was presumably in connection with this approach that he prepared fair copies (see  AVc).

Texts

Frühlingsmorgen, Erinnerung

These two texts are by Richard von Volkmann (1830–1899), a distinguished surgeon and advocate of antiseptic surgery in Germany, who wrote poetry and fiction under the name 'Richard Leander'. They were published in his Gedichte (3rd ed., Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1885) where they appear as the ninth and nineteenth poems in a group of 20 Kleiner Lieder dated '1850-52'.

Serenade, Phantasie

The play by Tirso de Molina, Don Juan, der Verführer von Sevilla oder der steinerne Gast, from which the texts of these two songs are derived, was revived in 1887 by a number of European theatres to mark the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The Vereinigtes Stadt-Theater in Leipzig, where Mahler was conductor, was one of these, and according to the Berliner Börsenzeitung (4 October 1887) the performing version was adapted from the translation by Ludwig Braunfels (also used by Mahler in his settings) by the Oberregisseur, Ernst Gettke (1841–1912) and involved numerous scenic and textual changes; if Mahler's settings were connected with the production, which seems probable, it is possible that the second stanza of Phantasie was written by Gettke.

Fig. 1. Ernst Gettke

Des Knaben Wunderhorn

For a detailed discussion of Mahler's use of Wunderhorn texts  (and a valuable discussion of the creative evolution of 'Hans und Grete' (I, 3)), see RHVIW.

Transposition and vocal range

The earliest complete manuscript of the set of songs is the undated fair copy compiled by Mahler, AVc.

Publication

These songs were the first works by Mahler to appear in print under his name alone. On 14 October 1891 Mahler wrote to the Ludwig Strecker to enquire whether, as owner of B. Schott's Söhne, he would be interested in considering some of Mahler's music for publication, in particular the songs (FWGMV, 81). Strecker must have given a encouraging response, and by 9 November Mahler had sent to Mainz the manuscript copies that were to be used in the engraving of the Lieder und Gesänge and from those that survive it seems that Mahler himself may have decided on the published ordering. The first edition eventually appeared in February 1892 (in both high- and low-voice versions) and was reprinted on a number of occasions. For further details, see the chronology above, the account of Mahler's relationship with Schott, and the descriptions of the published editions.

It was Guido Adler (GA, 98) who misdated the publication of volume I to 1885, an error that survives in several library catalogues; ERGA, 121 silently corrects this and other mistakes in the entry for the work.

Critical Edition

Volume I, songs 1–5

SWXIII/5: Gustav Mahler, Verschiedene Lieder für eine Singstimme mit Klavier, Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Band XIII, Teilband 5, ed. Zoltan Roman ([Mainz]: Schott, 1990)

Because of tightly drawn editorial criteria, this edition omits some transposed versions – No. 1 (high voice, G major), No. 2 (low voice, F minor–G minor), No. 3  (low voice, E major), No. 5 (low voice, B minor) – for which no autograph or printer's copy has been located, despite the fact that there is strong evidence that Mahler wished all the songs to be available in high- and low-voice versions and would have supplied new copyist's scores for all the songs, specified on them the keys for the printed high and low voice versions, and would presumably have proof-read both before publication.

On the other hand, in the case of No. 4 the autograph (AVc) and the printer's copy (ACV1.4) are both in D but SWXIII/5 only prints the song in the transpositions requested by Mahler, C major and D major.

Volume II, songs 1–4; volume III, songs 1–5 (high voice)

SWXIII/2ah: Gustav Mahler, Neun Lieder u Gesänge aus „Des Knaben Wunderhorn” für eine Singstimme (hoch) mit Klavier, Band XIII, Teilband 2ah, ed. Peter Revers ([Mainz]: Schott, 1991)

Volume II, songs 1–4; volume III, songs 1–5 (low voice)

SWXIII/2at: Gustav Mahler, Neun Lieder u Gesänge aus „Des Knaben Wunderhorn” für eine Singstimme mit Klavier (tief), Band XIII, Teilband 2at, ed. Peter Revers ([Mainz]: Schott, 1991)

Conjectural outline stemma for volume II

Conjectural outline stemma for volume III