Gustav Mahler

Die zwei blauen Augen

Mahler's song The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved is a part of the cycle Songs of a Wayfarer from 1896.
1987 was the year in which Gustav Mahler published his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) with Weinberger - in both orchestral and piano versions. Which Mahler prepared first is not known; a score of the work is not mentioned until 1895, but on the other hand, Mahler had described the piano version as a piano reduction in 1893. These songs were heard in Schoenberg's Association concert on 6 February 1920, in the small auditorium of the Konzerthaus in Vienna; however they were not performed in the piano version, which would have fitted well with the evening's other works (Second Suite from Daphnis et Chloé by Ravel in the piano arrangement for four hands; Piano Pieces by Satie; Nursery Songs by Mussorgsky; and Romance Op.23 for violin and piano by Szymanowski), but in an arrangement for voice, flute, clarinet , piano, harmonium and string quintet. This arrangement was not one Schoenberg had entrusted to a pupil, as so often, but one he had done himself, presumably because of his intense involvement with Mahler's thinking and with Judaism. He increasingly saw himself as a successor to his adored friend and champion. At the concert in February 1920, conducted by Schoenberg himself, the part of these typically 'male voice songs' was taken by a female singer. The arrangement of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen did not necessitate the preparation of a new score; Schoenberg simply annotated the orchestral edition of 1897. While flute, clarinet and strings tended to play their instrument's first part, most of the directions and changes affected the piano and the harmonium, which had to replace the wind instruments, harp and timpani. That means that these keyboard instruments often jump from one part to another.