Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde – Part 3

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.