Thursday 4 October 2012

Coffee and cigarettes with Gustav Mahler

Photograph: Moritz Nähr, 1907   Wikipedia

Would you spend your coffee break at work listening to Mahler? Well, classical music can be full of surprises. The format of the song may be less common than that of the symphony or the concerto, but lieder, song cycles setting romantic poetry to music, have offered some of the finest moments in the history of the genre. If I was to choose just one example, that would inevitably be Gustav Mahler's Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I have lost track of the world), an incredibly emotional piece from his Rückert-Lieder, a song cycle based on the poetry of Friedrich Rückert. The following version features the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, one of the best conductors of our time, and an outstanding Mahler interpreter.


Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, 
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben, 
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen, 
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben! 

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen, 
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält, 
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen, 
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt. 

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel, 
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet! 
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel, 
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied! 

English translation by Emily Ezust

I am lost to the world 
with which I used to waste so much time, 
It has heard nothing from me for so long 
that it may very well believe that I am dead! 

It is of no consequence to me 
Whether it thinks me dead; 
I cannot deny it, 
for I really am dead to the world. 

I am dead to the world's tumult, 
And I rest in a quiet realm! 
I live alone in my heaven, 
In my love and in my song!



And there is actually a coffee break in which Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen plays a key role; Champagne, the final segment of Jim Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes, begins and ends with this very song, in its 1967 version by Janet Baker. Jarmusch here breaks the conventional barrier between classical music and everyday life, as well as blurs the line separating fantasy and reality, wealth and poverty, sleep and death; I always thought of this bittersweet tale of two aged janitors, played by Bill Rice and Taylor Mead, as the director's most important work.

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