Gustav Mahler

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

During the summers of 1901 and 1902, Gustav Mahler set five poems by the German Romantic poet Friedrich Rückert to music. The third of these, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world), portrays a world-weary artist who exists in our everyday world, but who actually lives his life in another, more ethereal plane reserved for great artists. Mahler, much maligned as composer during his lifetime, identified strongly with the poem, saying that it expressed his very self. In fact, he felt so strongly about this song that he reused much of the music in the famous Adagietto of his Fifth Symphony, which he composed during the summer of 1902. The orchestral song begins with a mournful melody played by solo English horn. This melody is then restated and extended by the singer during the first stanza, which speaks of the artists isolation in a world that already thinks him dead. The tempo increases slightly for the second stanza, during which the artist reflects that he does not really care what the world thinks. The third stanza is remarkably peaceful as the artist describes the other world in which he resides: I live alone in my heaven, in my love, in my song. The gentle consonant-dissonant alternation of the violins and English horn in the coda seems to portray the artist staring beyond the horizon into his musical paradise. Many consider Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen as Mahler's greatest song, one of his most profound and moving works and as of immense personal significance...
Lyrics:
I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!