With universal themes such as love, loss, happiness, oppression, suffering and defiance, Gustav Mahler's songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn are some of the most profound ever written for the voice. Katharina Kammerloher and Arttu Kataja, acclaimed performers from the Berlin State Opera, plumb the depths of this music with vocal power and striking presence. Eric Schneider accompanies them, injecting the piano parts with great drama and expression.
The most haunting pieces are performed with heightened intensity and great sincerity. In Der Tamboursg'sell (The Drummer Boy), we hear the last words of the condemned as he is marched to the gallows. Mahler denounces the futility of war in Revelge (Reveille). The piano part is filled with demanding trills, frenzied grace notes and octave doublings while the vocal part uses advanced expressive elements that were only later adopted by the composers of the Second Viennese School.
Mahler's humour can be dark, sarcastic and even grotesque at times. He described the animals in Ablosung im Sommer (The Changing of the Guard in Summer) as bizarre and tragic: "And it contains a gruesome, panic-fuelled humour that leaves you with a much greater sense of horror than laughter."
Beguilingly simple, the concluding Urlicht (Primeval Light) was later embedded in the great resurrection narrative of Mahler's 2nd Symphony. The magical imagery of the Romantic poetry seems to linger just below the surface of the piano part: "star and flower, spirit and garment, love, suffering, time and eternity".
