Robert Peters wrote: >>My criticism of Mahler's Lied is that there is not even one good poem in >>the work... To which Steve Schwarz adds: >I'd be interested to know (since I thought enough of them to do a >"literary" translation of them) what makes them so bad in your eyes. In my mind Das Lied is Mahler's masterpiece, and I like the poems he sets. I am concerned why he picks on these poems when there are large numbers of German language Lieder set to texts by less than first rate German poets? Although I must admit to knowing more about German literature than that of any other language, I cannot but fear a certain cultural imperialism ('Auslaenderfeinlichkeit') to be at work here. It is an irony when Robert Peters condemns Wagner as guilty of just this sort thing. Although I do not read Chinese I do know that Li-Po is regarded as one the literary masters of the far East. He is like a Chinese Hafiz - a poet much admired by Goethe. Indeed the image of resignation to life's bitterness with a glass of wine is a classical image found both in Middle and Far Eastern poetry. The connection between Li-Po and Mahler comes through the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Of course Mahler, whose idea of something soothing for Alma Mahler as she went into labour was read her some Kant (!), had read Schopenhauer whose metaphysic of music was a powerful influence in the musical culture of the times. Das Lied asks the fundamental question asked by Schopenhauer: From 'Der Trunkene im Fuehling' Wenn nur ein Traum das Leben ist, warum denn Mueh' und Plag? If life is but a dream, then why then so much toil and misery? Compare this to a passage from Book I of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung of Schopenhauer, and you will see that Mahler has chosen his texts carefully: ...das Leben ist so voller Plagen und Huderleien dass man entweder, mittelst berichtiger Gedanken, darueber hinaussetzen, oder es verlassen muss. ..life is so full of misery and annoyances that one must either confront it through rightful thought or one must depart it. It is in short just what Albert Camus says in a nutshell in the opening of the Myth of Sisyphus: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental problem of philosophy. It is just this dark and probing question that the first movement of Das Lied asks, setting the mood of the whole work as it erupts in an anguish little short of hysterical. I am reminded of Munch's painting The Scream at the point the howling of the ape is mentioned: Du aber Mensch wie langst du? Nicht hundert Jahre darfst du dich ergoetzen an all den morschen Tande dieser Erde! ..Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod! But thou, O man, how long dost thou live? Not a hundred years canst thou enjoy all the rotting baubles of this earth! ..Dark is life, dark is death. Of course much of Das Lied involves momentary escapism into fleeting delight in drunken enjoyment of Chinoiserie and pentatonic tone-painting before the final confrontation demanded by Schopenhauer occurs in the finale. Whether one agrees with Schopenhauer or not it is the idea of his resignation from all Hope as the thing that inflames the strivings of the Blind Will that the finale presents. Before Mahler's own words enter the original poem ends with suggestions of a Schopenhauerian bitter resignation to death: My heart is still and awaits its hour! There Mahler draws consolation by a Nature Mysticism, the philosophical meaning of which could be interpreted in any number of ways. The final answer remains fundamentally abstract, and that is the beauty of the work. Satoshi Akima Sydney, Australia [log in to unmask]