Satoshi writes:

>Yes but this really is Mahler's biggest weakness.  Mahler's brand of
>transcendentalism is so deus ex machina, an escape into Nature Mysticism
>or into angelic clouds of the Everafter - even the words 'ewig...ewig'
>with which das Lied end are but tacked on and as such fail to adequately
>resolve the view of life as' meaningless suffering' (Schopenhauer's words)
>presented in the first song from 'das Lied von der Erde' which climaxes
>with words about the pitiful brevity of life and all its 'rotting trifles'.

I don't think Mahler was suggesting escape.  He was combining the
pragmatism of Eastern philosophy with the individual assertiveness of
Western Philosophy.

The Eastern, (and pre-Biblical) philosophy that life is an endless cycle
with time perceived as a wheel that never alters its course, (ewig); makes
a wonderful foil to the Western:  though one is given a mandate to improve
himself, altering(!) life's course, one is reminded that, though fate has
its own agenda, loss and disappointment creates a vacuum for renewal and
rebirth.

Whether one takes the authors of the Old Testament seriously or not, it
must be said that the Jews were groundbreaking with their vision that men
and women could, in fact, carve out their own destiny, and that such an
idea had an impact on Western philosophy and lifestyle goes without saying.

Mahler to Schoenberg:  "With one blow I have simply lost everything I ever
achieved in clarity and comfort.  I stood face to face with nothingness,
and now at life's end I must again learn to stand and walk, like a
beginner." (Learn to stand and walk=Judeo/Christian/Western ideas, With
one blow, ...now at life's end....like a beginner=Eastern,
Pre-Judeo/Christian.)

By balancing the two, articulated by Mahler through poetry and music,
(observe the oboe turn that opens "The Farewell"--what a simple and
elegant way of capturing the Eastern idea of cycles--oscillation around
one note--immediately followed by the unstable chord of the horns--Western
asser tion), Mahler has certainly given this listener a adequately
persuasive and potent experience.

John Smyth