The Classical Music Book

198

IF A COMPOSER COULD

SAY WHAT HE HAD

TO SAY IN WORDS, HE

WOULD NOT BOTHER

SAYING IT IN MUSIC

DAS LIED VON DER ERDE (1908–1909),

GUSTAV MAHLER

W

hen Gustav Mahler

began work on the six

settings of Chinese

poems that make up Das Lied von

der Erde (The Song of the Earth),

he was exploring what was for him

new territory. But exotic oriental

subject matter was already a

familiar theme in European art and

culture, reflecting the yearning of

the popular imagination for more

colorful and intriguing worlds.

This sense of longing had come

into sharper focus in the 15th and

16th centuries, when long-distance

sea voyages had led to the discovery

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Exotic worlds in music

BEFORE

1863 Set in Ceylon, The Pearl

Fishers, by rising opera-

composer Georges Bizet, is a

success at its Paris premiere.

1882 Wagner’s final opera,

Parsifal, blending elements

of Buddhist spirituality with

Christian ideas and imagery,

is first performed at Bayreuth’s

Festival Theatre.

AFTER

1926 Maurice Ravel composes

Chansons madécasses (Songs

from Madagascar), based on

three prose-poems written in

1787 by Évariste de Parny.

1957 Benjamin Britten

conducts the premiere of

his ballet The Prince of the

Pagodas in London. The score

is influenced by Indonesian

gamelan music, which Britten

heard in Bali in 1956.

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