Last month, German baritone Christian Gerhaher's recital of Mahler songs at Lincoln Center seemed no less momentous.
Mahler's songs cap one of the richest traditions of Western art: the German art song, or Lied.
To be present at this recital was to witness a profound act of communion-between Mahler and his musical forebears and between Mahler and his interpreters, all engaged in that dialogue across time and space that constitutes what Robert Maynard Hutchins called the Great Conversation.
Gerhaher himself sounds defensive about the original piano settings, which he calls, in the liner notes for his first recording of Mahler songs, "More than just fair-copy short scores whose essence lies in their orchestration." Rather, they are "Works with an artistic integrity and significance all their own," he writes.
It is the piano versions that are superior, since they reveal the structural essence of a song and make tangible the dialogue between interpreter and composer that the Gerhaher recital embodied.
Gerhaher began the song with a flat, emotionless tone.
In a world dominated by identity-based narcissism, when individuals obsess over ever more arcane aspects of their allegedly victimized selves, to witness Gerhaher and Huber's all-consuming commitment to a mind outside of themselves reaffirmed our common humanity and inducted the audience into a higher realm.
https://www.city-journal.org/christian-gerhaher-mahler-recital
Mahler's songs cap one of the richest traditions of Western art: the German art song, or Lied.
To be present at this recital was to witness a profound act of communion-between Mahler and his musical forebears and between Mahler and his interpreters, all engaged in that dialogue across time and space that constitutes what Robert Maynard Hutchins called the Great Conversation.
Gerhaher himself sounds defensive about the original piano settings, which he calls, in the liner notes for his first recording of Mahler songs, "More than just fair-copy short scores whose essence lies in their orchestration." Rather, they are "Works with an artistic integrity and significance all their own," he writes.
It is the piano versions that are superior, since they reveal the structural essence of a song and make tangible the dialogue between interpreter and composer that the Gerhaher recital embodied.
Gerhaher began the song with a flat, emotionless tone.
In a world dominated by identity-based narcissism, when individuals obsess over ever more arcane aspects of their allegedly victimized selves, to witness Gerhaher and Huber's all-consuming commitment to a mind outside of themselves reaffirmed our common humanity and inducted the audience into a higher realm.
https://www.city-journal.org/christian-gerhaher-mahler-recital
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