The songs of ''Des Knaben Wunderhorn'' (''The Boy’s Magic Horn'') by Gustav Mahler are voice-and-piano and voice-and-orchestra settings of German folk poems chosen from a collection of the same name assembled by

Achim von Arnim Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim (26 January 1781 – 21 January 1831), better known as Achim von Arnim, was a German poet, novelist, and together with Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff, a leading figure of German Romanticism. ...

and

Clemens Brentano Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano (also Klemens; pseudonym: Clemens Maria Brentano ; ; 9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842) was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz ...

and published by them, in heavily redacted form, between 1805 and 1808. Ten songs set for soprano or baritone and orchestra were first published by Mahler as a cycle in 1905, but in total 12 orchestral songs exist,Donald Mitchell - 1980 "We have come to think of the Wunderhorn songs as a collection of ten rather than twelve songs — i.e. excluding the two excerpts from the symphonies" and a similar number of songs for voice and piano.

History of composition

Mahler's self-composed text for the first of his ''

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ''Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen'' (''Songs of a Wayfarer'') is a song cycle by Gustav Mahler on his own texts. The cycle of four '' lieder'' for medium voice (often performed by women as well as men) was written around 1884–85 in the wake of ...

'' (''Songs of a Travelling Journeyman'', often translated as ''Songs of a Wayfarer''; 1884–1885) is clearly based on the ''Wunderhorn'' poem "''Wenn mein Schatz''"; his first genuine settings of ''Wunderhorn'' texts, however, are found in the '' Lieder und Gesänge'' ('Songs and Airs'), published in 1892 and later renamed by the publisher as ''Lieder und Gesänge aus der Jugendzeit'' (''Songs and Airs from Days of Youth''). The nine ''Wunderhorn'' settings therein were composed between 1887 and 1890, and occupied the second and third volumes of this three-volume collection of songs for voice and piano. The titles of these nine songs (different in many cases from the titles of the original poems) are as follows: ;Volume II: # "Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen" – ''To Teach Naughty Children to be Good'' # "Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald" – ''I Went Happily Through a Green Wood'' # "Aus! Aus!" – ''Finished! Finished!'' # "Starke Einbildungskraft" – ''Strong Imagination'' ;Volume III: # "Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz" – ''On the Ramparts of Strasbourg'' # "Ablösung im Sommer" – ''The Changing of the Guard in Summer'' # "Scheiden und Meiden" – ''Farewell and Forgo'' # "Nicht wiedersehen!" – ''Never to Meet Again'' # "Selbstgefühl" – ''Self-assurance'' Mahler began work on his next group of ''Wunderhorn'' settings in 1892. A collection of 12 of these was published in 1899, under the title ''Humoresken'' ('Humoresques'), and formed the basis of what is now known simply (and somewhat confusingly) as Mahler's 'Songs from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn"'. Whereas the songs in the ''Lieder und Gesänge'' collection were conceived for voice and piano, with no orchestral versions being produced by the composer, the ''Humoresken'' were conceived from the beginning as being for voice and orchestra, even though Mahler's first step was the production of playable and publishable voice-and-piano versions. The titles in this 1899 collection are: # "Der Schildwache Nachtlied" – ''The Sentinel's Nightsong'' (January–February 1892) # "Verlor'ne Müh" – ''Labour Lost'' (February 1892) # "Trost im Unglück" – ''Solace in Misfortune'' (April 1892) # "Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?" – ''Who Thought Up This Song?'' (April 1892) # "Das irdische Leben" – ''Earthly Life'' (after April 1892) # "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" – ''St. Anthony of Padua's Sermon to the Fish'' (July–August 1893) # "Rheinlegendchen" – ''Little Rhine Legend'' (August 1893) # "Lied des Verfolgten im Turm" – ''Song of the Persecuted in the Tower'' (July 1898), see: '' Die Gedanken sind frei'' # "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen" – ''Where the Fair Trumpets Sound'' (July 1898) # "Lob des hohen Verstandes" – ''Praise of Lofty Intellect'' (June 1896) # "Es sungen drei Engel" – ''Three Angels Sang a Sweet Air'' (1895) # "Urlicht" – ''Primeval Light'' (1893) "''Urlicht''" (composed ?1892, orch. July 1893) was rapidly incorporated (with expanded orchestration) into Symphony No. 2 (1888–1894) as the work's fourth movement; "''Es sungen drei Engel''", by contrast, was specifically composed as part of Symphony No. 3 (1893–1896): requiring a boys' chorus and a women's chorus in addition to an alto soloist, it is the only song among the twelve for which Mahler did not produce a voice-and-orchestra version and the only one which he did not first publish separately. Other songs found themselves serving symphonic ends in other ways: a voiceless version of "''Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt''" forms the basis of the

scherzo A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often re ...

in Symphony No. 2, and "Ablösung im Sommer" is adopted in the same way by Symphony No. 3. An additional setting from this period was "''Das himmlische Leben''" ("Heavenly Life"), of February 1892 (orchestrated March 1892). By the year of the collection's publication (1899) this song had been reorchestrated and earmarked as the finale of the 4th Symphony (1899–1900), and thus was not published as part of the ''Des Knaben Wunderhorn'' collection, nor was it made available in a voice-and-piano version. After 1901, "''Urlicht''" and "''Es sungen drei Engel''" were removed from the collection, and replaced in later editions by two other songs, thus restoring the total number of songs in the set to twelve. The two new songs were: : "Revelge" – ''Reveille'' (July 1899) : "Der Tamboursg'sell" – ''The Drummer Boy'' (August 1901) Shortly after Mahler's death, the publisher (

Universal Edition Universal Edition (UE) is a classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, they originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market (which had until then been dominated by Leipzig-bas ...

) replaced Mahler's own piano versions of the ''Wunderhorn'' songs by piano reductions of the orchestral versions, thus obscuring the differences in Mahler's writing for the two media. In spite of this, voice-and-piano performances, especially of the lighter songs, are frequent. The original piano versions were re-published in 1993 as part of the ''critical edition'', edited by and

Thomas Hampson Thomas Walter Hampson (born June 28, 1955) is an American lyric baritone, a classical singer who has appeared world-wide in major opera houses and concert halls and made over 170 musical recordings. Hampson's operatic repertoire spans a range ...

Arrangement for chamber ensemble

In 2012, Ensemble Mini commissioned (as part of its "mini-Mahler series") composer and arranger Klaus Simon to transcribe the songs for a chamber ensemble of 16 musicians, the premiere of which was performed at

Berliner Philharmonie The Berliner Philharmonie () is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany, and home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The Philharmonie lies on the south edge of the city's Tiergarten and just west of the former Berlin Wall. The Philharmonie is o ...

on 20 June 2012. It is also published by

Other composers

Poems from the same collection have also been set as '' Lieder'' by several composers, including

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...

Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...

, Loewe,

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

, Schoenberg,

Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...

, and Zemlinsky.

Discography

* ''Rheinlegendchen'': Frederica von Stade and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Davis, Columbia, 1979 * ''Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?'': Frederica von Stade and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Davis, Columbia, 1979

References

External links

The German lyrics, with many translations to other languages
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The LiederNet Archive

Radio talk in which Deryck Cooke discusses the relationship between 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn' and Mahler's Fourth Symphony
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knaben Wunderhorn (Mahler), Des Song cycles by Gustav Mahler Compositions by Gustav Mahler Lieder