Customer Reviews

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

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Judging by the fact that I am the first reader to review this book, I wonder how many people will read this!
Anyway, this book is a must for real Mahler aficionados, as it explains Mahler's masterpiece in great detail. The book is divided into 4 sections:
1- Preface on Mahler's work before 1908, date of compostion of Das Lied.
2- Genesis.
3- Reception.
4- Study of the Music
Chapter 4 gives an in-depth analysis of each of the six songs (or movements), with an emphasis on the first (Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde) and the last, the marvelous "Der Abschied". At the end of the book, the author gives, as an Appendix, his own English version of the poems, which I found better than all the other translations I have come across so far, as they fit the music very closely.
All in all, a marvelous book, that will greatly help Mahler enthusiasts to better understand and enjoy the masterpiece that he considered to be his Ninth Symphony, but was afraid to publish as such.