FROM COLLECTION TO CYCLE: POETIC NARRATIVE AND TONAL DESIGN IN MAHLER'S "LIEDER EINES FAHRENDEN GESELLEN"

Abstract

Although a number of the important sources for Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen are missing, and most of the others were left undated by the composer, the extant sources, together with recent ancillary research results, constitute a sufficient body of evidence to enable us to infer a developmental history for a work that is recognized by most observers as the first mature masterpiece by Mahler, as well as a pathbreaking work in the history of the orchestral song. But most importantly for present purposes, I hope to show that the establishing of a work history for these four songs is indispensable to a full, critical explication of their coherence as a genuine, poetic and musical ?cycle? of songs.1 Most authorities on the subject tell us that Mahler wrote the Geseilen-Lieder m 1883 or?not quite as wide of the mark?in 1884. As so often, such misinformation is rooted in apparently credible evidence. Mahler himself is responsible for the later date: his well known letter to Friedrich Lohr (?I have written a cycle of [Lieder], six of them so far?