Creativity Friday: The Song of the Earth

It’s a rainy, gloomy day in Brooklyn. So it seems appropriate to post this video, taken of the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra concert I performed in last Sunday. It’s of the second song of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (aka “The Song of the Earth)”. If you look closely, you can see me in the third stand of the cello section, playing along.

The song is titled Der Einsame im Herbst (The Lonely One in Autumn). Yes, it’s a sad song. But I’ve always found something so cathartic about sad songs—especially one as gorgeous as this one is. The whole of Das Lied von der Erde reflects Mahler’s increasing sense of doom about his life. Among his other difficulties, he had just been diagnosed with a heart ailment and had been pushed out of his conductor post with the Vienna Opera. Yet it ends in uplifting praise of the earth, which is forever verdant and beautiful.

Here are the lyrics of Der Einsame im Herbst in English:

Autumn mists roll across the lake as if a dust of Jade had been spread over the flowers, and their scent is gone.The withered lotus leaves will soon float on the lake waters. My heart is weary, and I come to this beautiful place of rest, for I need solace: I weep much in my loneliness. Autumn lasts too long in my heart: Sun of Love, will you never shine and dry away my bitter tears?”

Playing in this concert was an intense but wonderful experience for me. I first heard Das Lied von der Erde when I lived in a small cottage in Dartmoor, while a young artist working on my first illustrated book. I immediately loved Mahler’s music in that passionate way that you can only have when you’re relatively untried by life. Since I had recently had a difficult love break up, I identified with the song’s sense of loneliness and isolation. Since the moors and forests surrounding my cottage were so staggeringly beautiful, I exhalted in Mahler’s joy over the earth’s eternal renewal.

While I rehearsed with the orchestra, it was strange to realize that here I was, almost two decades later, playing cello in Das Lied von der Erde—as if two corners of my life had suddenly become tied together in a surreal, magical way.

Thanks to Marshall Sponder for posting the video. If you’re interested, the rest of the concert is linked from this page on Youtube here.

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