Mahler and Enzensberger in Lisbon

Abstract

On May 1, 1988, Hans Magnus Enzensberger attended a performance of Gustav Mahler's Fourth symphony in Lisbon. Two years later, the poem "Vierte Symphonie, Coliseu dos Recreois, Lissabon" appeared in the volume Zukunftsmusik. The present article analyzes the impressions generated both by the music itself and by the ninety-year-old concert hall in which it was performed. It also demonstrates the thematic links between the poem and the essay on Portugal that the author had previously published in Ach Europa! My analysis then focuses on Enzensberger's fascination with time and, more specifically, the phenomenon of anachronism. Beginning with the publication of Die Furie des Verschwindens in 1980, the poetry concerns itself to such an extent with outmoded customs, activities, and language that there emerges an unmistakable paradigm of disappearance, the thematic and lexical elements of which this article then maps out. (AJC)