Der Trunkene im Frühling
Should you need a score you can find one here.
The fifth movement of Das Lied von der Erde – The drunken man in Spring – starts shifting the focus back on the speaker. We’ve seen in the previous episodes how Mahler addressed the different emotions of the speaker through different narratives. In this movement he moves the attention back to the inner self, preparing the audience for the last movement.
The original poem, Li Tai-Po‘s “Feelings upon Awakening from Drunkenness on a Spring Day“, is very pessimistic in nature, most likely reflecting the author’s personal experiences. It did show though the hope for the poet in a better world – an aspect that was cut out in the German version.
Throughout the poem’s 6 sections, the speaker goes through his disillusion with life and decides to drink and sleep all day. When he wakes up, he hears some bird chirping amidst the flowers – this is the connection with nature. He actually talks to the bird, asking if spring has come already. At the bird’s answer – “Spring came overnight” – he sighs, and goes back to drinking. In the final section, the speaker sings to the moon and tries to forget everything.
This movement opens with the horns again, just like the first one. The opening line clearly symbolizes the birds, anticipating the middle portion of the text.

Even though we start in A major, the atmosphere is not quite jolly as it may seem. The constant key change, along with the partial usage of the pentatonic scale give it a flavor of instability.
“If Life is but a dream,
Why then toil and fret?
I drink until I can no longer drink,
The whole lifelong day.”

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Der Abschied
He turned the manuscript over to me to study. . . . When I brought it back to him, almost unable to utter a word, he turned to the Abschied and said: “What do you think? Is this to be endured at all? Will not people make away with themselves after hearing it?”
With these words Bruno Walter recalls his first encounter with Mahler’s Das Lied and particularly with its final movement – the Farewell. Mahler combined 2 poems here: the first one is set on a mountain where the speaker is waiting for a friend; the second one is a description of a conversation between 2 friends, discussing about withdrawing into nature.
The eternal, almost obsessive, presence of nature represents Mahler ultimate refuge from the suffering of life, the desire to abandon the material world, and to transcend both life and death.
The original poems are Mong Kao-Jen’s “Staying at a Teacher’s Mountain Retreat, Awaiting a Friend in Vain” and Wang Wei’s “Farewell”. Once again, in a pastoral style that was congenial to Mahler, the poet makes use of nature to describe the character’s emotions.
This final movement, which is almost as long as the previous five put together, is divided in 3 sections:
- in the first section the speaker describes nature at nightfall;
- in the second the speaker waits for a friend in order bid farewell;
- after a long orchestral interlude, the third section sees the actual farewell taking place and fades into silence.
Der Abschied begins in a heavy C minor: the sound is at the bottom of the orchestral register with the darkest color built on the contrabassoon, the cellos and basses, the harp, and 2 horns with an extra funereal tone is provided by the tam-tam.

To make sure that we don’t even get a glimpse of a clearer sound, Mahler makes sure to put a note indicating that if the double basses do not have the 5th chord, and thus cannot play the low C, they should pause and not play an octave higher. This is something that by the way he had done in the past already, for instance in his second symphony.

An obsessive motive arises in the oboe while the first and second horn answer with sforzato chords completing the harmony.
The introduction remains grounded on the C pedal. Even though the line tries to escape, it is forced back down to C. Notice the descending figure, a lamenting topos of classical music, which we will find later on.

“The sun is going down behind the mountains.
In every valley evening is descending,
Bringing its shadows, which
are full of coolness.”
The entrance of the speaker, the alto or baritone, is no different. The cello, always piano, maintains the pedal. The flute counterpoints the line with the material we heard in the introduction; the speaker sings, as Mahler requests, in a narrative tone, without expression.

The sun goes down on the last scale of the flute and moon rises in the following phrase. The orchestra introduces it with the lamenting figure and the obsessive motive combined. But the lamenting figure takes over, becoming more and more predominant.
“Oh look! Like a silver boat sails
the moon in the watery blue heaven.”
It dominates throughout the whole phrase till the very end of it when the obsessive motive reuses the accelerando of the introduction. Only for a couple of bars, and we’re stuck again. The words describe a fine breeze stirring behind the dark pines and the music moves from C to G incessantly.

The following stanza opens in F major with a rocking figure of triplets we’ve seen already in the second movement, representing the flowing of the brook depicted in the poem. The oboe anticipates the singer’s line, introducing it with the familiar motive.

Notice how the line almost sounds erratic, without a specific direction. The harp and clarinet are replaced by the violas in the last part of this introduction, where the oboe keeps wandering around
The first phrase is quite serene, with the flute counter-lining the singer
“The brook sings out clear through the darkness.
The flowers pale in the twilight.”
Then we have something totally unexpected: a small orchestral parenthesis, verging into the dramatic in contrast with what we’ve just heard. Perhaps the speaker is being pulled to reality? Perhaps it is just a dream being shattered?
The will to move away from this is stronger and from one moment to another we move from the abyss to the comforting rocking movement.
“The earth breathes, in full rest and sleep
All longing now becomes a dream..”
Everything seems right again.
“Weary men traipse homeward
to sleep; forgotten happiness
and youth to rediscover.”
The birds are anticipated by the obsessive motive played by the horn. They roost in silence on the branches and the world falls asleep.
There’s a pedal of A that starts almost unnoticeably 3 bars before number 20. This pedal carries us all the way to the next singer’s entrance, with a new stanza, and then keeps going. It’s another cadenza-like moment between the singer and the flute

“It blows coolly in the shadows of my pines.
I stand here and wait for my friend;
I wait to bid him a last farewell.”

What follows at number 23 is notoriously one of the most difficult passages to conduct: it needs a lot of push and pull while respecting the constantly changing inner rhythms.
All of this to describe the emotional status of the speaker, yearning to enjoy this beautiful evening with the friend who has yet to arrive. Notice the presence of the mandolin, posing for the lute mentioned later in the poem
“I yearn, my friend, at your side
to enjoy the beauty of this evening”
For a full technical analysis, look up the video in the repertoire section
The wait is becoming unnerving: “Where are you? You leave me long alone!”. But Mahler, the speaker, finds comfort once more in nature: “I walk up and down with my lute on paths swelling with soft grass.” We’re back to the cradling movement, soothing our soul swollen by sorrow
A praise to this beautiful world lifts up the mood: “O beauty! O eternal loving-and-life-bedrunken world!“
But inevitably sinks back into the opening motive. The final farewell is about to begin.
The rocking figure makes its way through this entire passage. Now, it sounds anything but comforting. Bits and pieces of previous musical elements interject and overlap each other, like the horn’s line or the bassoon’s headless sextuplet. The juxtaposition of different rhythms contributes to creating an unstable terrain. We’re not really sure what we’re about to walk into.
The darkness of the opening returns, with the double basses now playing divisi. The lines are more troubled, looking and searching into each other for a way out.

Look at 4 bars before number 40 for example: on top of the C pedal, and the weeping figures of the clarinets and violas, a cello solo wanders insistently around the same notes.

The chromatism adds that sensation of instability and wandering around, looking for an answer or a safe passage perhaps. The journey continues on 41 with the weeping motive turning into an accompaniment, while an extended version of the same figure moves around different sections.
Everything is moving and yet everything remains still. Time is expanding to the point of imperceptible pacing. We’re constantly moving from piano to forte in a spasm of contrasting emotions pulling each other only to return to the same place.
At number 45 we start seeing a crescendo, both in dynamic and orchestration. The weeping figure is extended all through number 46 and desperately lands in the same abyss once more.

And Mahler keeps digging until he reaches the bottom with the cellos and double basses on their lowest note
The interlude ends and we’re taken into the final stanza. Once again the singer declamates the text on a C pedal. There’s no room this time for any other instrument to counterline. Only a tam-tam in pianissimo darkening the color.
“He dismounted and handed him the drink
of farewell.
He asked him where he would go
and why must it be.”

Another orchestral parenthesis separates us from the next entrance. Two words: “he spoke“.
A toneless singer in silence.
And the weeping starts again, in its various variants.
A glimmer of hope seems to rise at the word friend
“Ah my friend,
Fortune was not kind to me in this world!”
But hope is not meant to last and fades away. The tempo slows down as we wander around the mountains and even more when we look for peace in our lonely heart
We’re back to our rocking rhythm. The comfort of nature is not far. The obsessive motive is now played by the first violins and the flute in a luminous F major.

“I’ll never wander far.
Still is my heart, awaiting its hour.”

The phrase keeps going in the same key, and we expect to end on it. But Mahler is quite finished, the resolution is postponed and the phrase lands on a 7th chord on an F#, 4 bars before number 57

We’re left in a limbo on these words, until consolation comes from the earth itself, blossoming and growing everywhere.
Everything is pianissimo. Mahler even asks specifically for no crescendo.

The line is flowing somewhere above our world. Nature is lifting us and liberating our heavy hearts.
There is still some tension left in the triplets against the quadruplets. After all, we’re still humans and struggle to understand how our quest for peace can finally come to an end.

But “Everywhere and forever blue is the horizon!“
The celesta adds a final touch of ethereal sound around 62 and following

and we’re left with the word “forever” repeated a number of times, while we, finally, find our much longed for peace.
Conclusion
This was quite a journey. As it is Das Lied von der Erde: a journey in our inner and outer selves, looking for some answers to our tormented lives. Answers we won’t ever be able to find. We can only surrender, and hope to find some rest before our 100 years are over.
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