TRUST, New Cd, containing works by Mahler, Elgar and prokofjev

1. Oh, but fear not, the day is lovely.
Before comfort comes grief, and before that pain. It is wonderous how close they are,
well, have to be. Whoever listens to Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder – which he wrote
before one of his daugther’s death, not after – will certainly feel it. ’Sad’ the songs begin
and ’dying’ they end. In between there is a space, which makes it perfectly clear why
these ’painful songs’ belong in a ’trust’-program.
Even before the year 1900 Mahler composed two of the songs, which doesn’t
mean that they belong to the early, brilliant Wunderhorn-Lieder. In 1904 the three other
compositions existed, which Mahler had written to Friedrich Rückert’s poems from his
Kindertotenlieder-cycle, consisting of no less than 428 poems, which the poet wrote
following the death of two children. Mahler chose a few of the best and with them he
kindled a strong ray of hope. Since man does not know what awaits on ’the other side’,
these Kindertotenlieder should be perceived more like a song of longing than one of
mourning. Mahler has with the unmistakably intimate, lyrical idiom he delevoped in
connection with his middle symphonies, minutely pinned down an ambiguous room for
mourning and comfort, which still has something to tell us who are born in this later day
and age. The death of the children clipped the wings of happiness. This is the experience
which Mahler imbedded in painfully beautiful music. You only have to listen to the
bittersweet french horns in the fourth song, to the longingly ascending string motive in
the second, which the composer took from the motive of longing in Tristan. In these
songs Death must withdraw, but he is still standing in the space of hope, which the light
is so eager to penetrate. If we are talking about ’switching out the light of joy’ it is natural
to assume, that it perchance might shine on over there ’on the other side’. Only too often
the songs glow with this hope as if their meaning was exhausted with the grief. But on the
contrary: Only in distance lies promise. ”Just look at us, soon we will be far away from
thee’. Mahler did not compose these verses as a farewell – not even as a pleasant parting
from this troublesome Earth. He who cannot feel the comforting tone at this point will
probably also be deaf to the strange melancholy tone of the third song’s ostinato-
character. What we hear is in fact a funeral procession in the style of Johann Sebastian
Bach – the woodwinds with cor anglais and oboe contribute to the impression that the
model being quoted is historic – yet the children are only ’going for a walk’ to get to the
place where even the highly romantic poet Friedrich von Hardenberg, also known as
Novalis, saw all our wanderings end, namely: home.
Thus the songs in serious as well as sweet tones of grief and of overcoming grief
only preach this credo: ”Oh, but fear not, the day is lovely”. Did Mahler believe this?
Does the boldness of this allegation not prove that it resembles the kind of whistling
children use to calm themselves in the dark?
We don’t know, but we can assume that the serious Christian panteist, Mahler,
believed in the comfort which lies in the Hereafter one may hope for. His music is in
itself comforting, the way it subtly combines earthly sorrow with buddhistic calm. The
storm is raging in the beginning of the last song – but in the end of the song as in the
whole cycle, we hear this tune again, but now it sounds as if being dead must be the most
wonderful of all. Thus the music arrives at its true note and thus man will finally be

2. himself, when he has overcome the earthly life. This was at least the great artist Mahler’s
conviction. He discovered ’truth’ in the tone of stillness – not in the raging storm which
bleakly blows through modernity.
Before the storm we have the well known silence, before comfort, prayer. In 1893 Mahler
set a poem by Friedrich Nietzsche to music and included it in the fourth movement of his
Resurrection Symphony (The 2. Symphony): Urlicht (Primal Light). According to
Mahler’s own short description the poem depicts: ”The soul’s questioning and search for
God and for his own eternal existence beyond this life.” The voice of a human being asks
to be heard. This is the heartfelt voice of the people and of innocent children. The part of
Urlicht for voice is remarkably written in a harmonious pianissimo. Only a molto ritenuto
is accentuated, a slowing down of the tempo only once to put emphasis on this particular
passage: the words ”Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben.” (”The loving God will grant
med a little light.”). Mahler has accentuated every syllable to note that this should be
performed non legato, it should in other words be recited. Just like the christian hymn for
Pentecost in the 8. Symphony, this demands lumen – the light of spiritual transfiguration.
How does it sound? After the poem’s ’motto’ follows a choral introduction which
shares motives with the last part of the work: ”Der Mench liegt in grösster Not” (Man
lies in greatest need): this motif is varied in ”Ich bin von Gott, ich will lieber zu Gott!” (I
am from God and shall return to God!) The middle part is quite different with its light
instrumentation: clarinets, glockenspiel, the harp and the solo violin characterizes the
graceful, enchanting episode which from b-minor to A-major and then from a-minor to f-
sharp-minor creates an angelic music based on folk tunes. Mahler said that he thought:
”from the stroke of little bells up to the soul in heaven, where it in a ’chrysalis state’
could begin the world again.” The seven (the symbolic figure, of course) bellstrokes ring
in the eternity followed by the symphony’s last movement where the fight over the soul
at last will bring the hoped for resurrection.
Women running across a battlefield: the frozen lake Peipus. They are looking for their
men, brothers and fathers. Now and then a dying man lift up a head, only to let it drop
again fading into death. Focus falls on a beautiful girl. She is given a face and a name:
Olga Danilovna. Will she find her nearest and dearest alive in this the field of the death?
The masterly film director Sergei M. Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevskij answers
this question: one survives. This film, which was shot in 1938, does not througout, nor in
this scene, deny that it is a propaganda against the aggressive nazis – but with the help of
Sergej Prokofiev’s brilliant music the director managed to create much more than just a
propaganda movie about the hero Alexander Nevskij, later Prince of Novgorod, who in
1242 succeeded in defending himself against the Teutonic Knights. Prokofiev’s music is
full of sorrow, even during the passage when the girl says that she will not marry a
handsome man, but only a valiant one, who will be able to defend their home. In the film
the beautiful Vera Ivashova plays this part: a girl wooed by the two hotspurs Vasili
Buslai and Gavrilo Oleksich. On the ice they compete to win the girl. The most valiant
shall win, but Buslai admits that neither he nor his friend was the most valiant – that
honour must go to Vasilisa the daughter of a Boyar. In the end he marries the bravest girl,
and Gavrilo leads Olga to the altar, since they all survived. The music mourns the dead

3. who were left on the battlefield, while the survivors will live on happily. Eisenstein was
right: ”These people were very different to the ones we see on icons and miniatures, on
reliefs or engravings. They were people like us ...”
How does it continue? Edward Elgar was a faithful Catholic and was in other words sure
that the believing soul will join the reighteous.
This is obvious if you listen to the end of the great oratorio Gerontius, which
Elgar wrote between 1899 and 1900 in a true extasy of creativity, having just finished
composing one of his famous major works, The Enigma Variations. Just like Gustav
Mahler Elgar loved to compose in the countryside, and Gerontius was mainly composed
in Birchwood. Elgar turned back to a literary source which he had known for quite some
time, namely a monumental poem, published in 1865 by the canonized cardinal John
Henry Newman, and now adapted by August Jaeger. The first performance took place on
the 3. October 1900 at Birmingham Triennial Festival and was a near disaster: the chorus
master had died suddenly during the rehearsal period and had been replaced by an elderly
gentleman who did not really comprehend this music, the conductor Hans Richter only
received a full score at the first orchestral rehearsal and the amateur choir was not able to
do this complex work justice. Only at the Niederrheinische Music Festival in December
1901 did The Dream of Gerontius get recognition.
In lyrical and dramatic episodes the cardinal’s poem describes the soul’s way to
salvation after having left the body. Firstly the soul has to meet its guardian angel who in
the presense of God himself prays for the soul’s salvation. The soul is then judged and
finally goes to heaven after being cleansed in Purgatory. The Angel’s song Softly and
gently is the crowning of the soul’s ordeal, just before the work fades in heavenly D-
major. The sorrow is not forgotten, because ’redemption’ can only be achieved when you
have something to be redeemed from: worries and tears. Elgar too knew that, when he set
the cardinal’s words to music in a delightfully rocking, dying cantilena.
Farewell, but not for ever! Brother Dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.
Farewall! Farewell!
Frank Piontek
Oversættelse: Vibeke Sandberg