I attended a beautiful rendering of Gustav Mahler’s symphonic song cycle, “Das Lied Von Der Erde”, on Sunday. It was performed by a masterful chamber orchestra, the Apollo Orchestra, that my wife Andrea and I have been following for some years in the Washington, DC area.

I had heard the work before and remembered its musical beauty as well as its stirring evocation of the magnificence of Nature. Listening to it again evoked even deeper feelings this time.

The chamber version of Mahler’s original scoring for a very large orchestra proved to be very effective in eliciting the lyrical intimacy of the work. “Das Lied” consists of six parts, each containing a vocal rendering of an ancient Chinese poem, translated into German. The work has two singers, a tenor and a mezzo soprano, alternating in their renditions of the six poems.

In this essay, I’m going to focus on the last of the six poetic songs, “Der Abschied” (“The Farewell”). It was sung on Sunday by the talented operatic mezzo, Jennifer Johnson Cano. This extended song/movement is about half an hour in length, almost as long as all five preceding songs.

The song is a farewell to mortal life, with an affirmation of eternity within the continuance of life on Earth.

Mahler wrote this work a short time before he died of heart complications in his early 50’s. At the time of composition, a young daughter had contracted a mortal illness, he had just learned of his own heart failings, and he had been summarily dismissed from his longheld leadership positions with the Vienna Opera and Symphony orchestras. In addition, Mahler reportedly felt painful isolation owing to his Jewish identity within a markedly antisemitic Austrian society. Despite a remarkable career as conductor and composer, he carried a heavy weight of melancholy.

In “Der Abschied”, he found the perfect text for expressing his deep love of the natural world and his deep sorrow in leaving it.

The song begins with a beautiful picturing of the sun setting behind a mountain, and a cooling darkness descending on the valley below. Soon a full moon rises “like a silver boat in the watery blue heaven.” The evening’s beauty continues to unfold:

“The brook sings out clear through the darkness.
The flowers pale in the twilight.
The birds roost silent in their branches.
The earth breathes in full rest and sleep.”

Within this hauntingly beautiful dusk, the singer stands and waits in the shadows of a pine forest. She is waiting to bid a final farewell to a beloved friend, longing for her friend’s company to share the beauty of her last evening:

“I yearn, my friend, to enjoy the beauty of this evening at your side.
Where are you? You leave me long alone!
I walk up and down with my lute
on paths swelling with soft grass.
O beauty!
O eternal loving and life-enebriated world”.

At this point, there is a long orchestral interlude, lyrically expressing the poignant, yearning feelings of someone about to pass into the next world.

Finally, the beloved friend arrives on horseback, handing her “the drink of farewell.” As she drinks, he asks why and where she must go.

Her answer is full of melancholic resolve:

“Ah my friend,
Fortune was not kind to me in this world.
Where do I go?
I wander in the mountains,
Seeking peace for my lonely heart.
I wander homeward to my abode.
I’ll never wander far.
Still is my heart, awaiting its hour.
The dear earth everywhere
Blossoms in Spring and grows green anew!
Everywhere and forever
Blue is the horizon!
Forever…
Forever…”

The renowned conductor Leonard Bernstein became a champion for Mahler’s music during his long tenure as head of the New York Philharmonic. He famously described “Der Abschied” as a depiction of attaining Nirvana.

A close friend has long crusaded for a deeper understanding of the great teaching and comforting role of this bounteous planet Earth that we take so much for granted. I felt my friend’s presence strongly at the end of this marvelous performance, and recognized on an emotional level the profound truth she had long been espousing.

John Bayerl, 11/13/2025