The odd one out, Liebst du um Schönheit (If You Love for Beauty) was composed explicitly as a love song for Alma. When she received it, she wrote in her diary: “the song is so indescribably moving… it almost brought me to tears…” Following closely with psychological expressions is Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder (Do Not Look at My Songs). The “defensive” stance of the verses is very well mirrored in the nervousness of the music, always in motion, as if shying away from the listener. Mahler’s best known song, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am Lost to the World) is probably his most personal utterance, of which he said “It is my very self.” The ecstatic ending of the poem and of the song is symbolic: “I live alone in my own heaven / In my love, in my song”. Um Mitternacht (At Midnight) evokes a different world, a more sombre and meditative one. The midnight hour is rife with fundamental European cultural references, all well known to Mahler: from Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, to Goethe’s Faust and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra - and all associated with profound moments of personal solitary crisis and insight. Dana Schlanger
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