Mahler Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Zu Strassburg Auf Der Schanz (At Strasbourg On The Battlement)

The tenth song in this collection, “Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz” (At Strasbourg on the battlement), starts with a very colorful piano entrance marked “as a folk tune” and “imitating the shawm.” 

As Donald Mitchell points out, this is of a type very characteristic of Mahler in his vocal as well as symphonic output: the slow farewell song or funeral march…We have a relatively simple example of the kind, remarkable chiefly for the piano’s imitation of the “Schalmei,” the chalumeau or herdsman’s pipe, which lures the homesick soldier into swimming the Rhine by night. There is also the imitation, in the left hand, of the military drums that accompany his capture, his conviction as a deserter, and the march to his execution. Mahler explicitly instructs the right hand to play “like a chalumeau,” and notes for the left: “In all those low trills the sound of muted drums is to be imitated by means of the pedal,” a clear indication that he was moving towards a song form with orchestra.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Zu Strassburg Auf Der Schanz with Lew Smoley.