Gustav Mahler

Songs of a Wayfarer for Voice and Orchestra

The songs are conceived as a whole, as if a wayfarer, with his destiny, is now looking out into the world and is wandering from place to place. … The most painful experiences were bound to come… (Gustav Mahler, 1885) Mahler's famous set of four songs for voice and orchestra is newly available in the handsome UE Study Scores format. Gustav Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) occupy a special position in his song oeuvre. Subsequent to the Frühe Lieder und Gesänge (Songs and Airs) which - with the exception of the Serenade and Phantasie from Don Juan - were composed between 1880 and 1882 as songs for piano and voice, the Gesellenlieder (Wayfarer Songs) were the first works to be presented in the dual versions (songs for piano and voice / orchestral songs) that were so significant for Mahler's song compositions. The Gesellenlieder were initially written as songs for piano and voice between late 1884 / early 1885 and 1890, and Mahler's orchestration only followed in the years between 1890 and 1893. Another unique feature is that they were explicitly conceived as a song cycle and together with the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) and possibly also the Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) - although the latter is far more akin to a symphony - these are the only song cycles in Mahler's song oeuvre. The Gesellenlieder ultimately express the subjective experience of suffering in a particularly remarkable way.