GMG Classical Music Forum

What are your favorites? Yes, I'm including the songs from Das Lied von der Erde.

Question for discussion: What's your favorite of the cycles? Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder, DLvdE...? How much am I missing out on by not including the earlier songs?

Did I forget anyone's favorite?

My preference for the cycles, from least favorite to most favorite
dKW
LeFG
KTL
dLvdE
RL

Quote from: vers la flamme on August 02, 2022, 01:02:51 PM

Question for discussion: What's your favorite of the cycles? Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder, DLvdE...?

Overall I'd say Des Knaben Wunderhorn, even though it's not so much a cycle as a collection (in modern terms, an album). I do like them all, though.

Having recently worked through the entire Bernstein III set, I got to reassess the song cycles.   Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder are my favorite cycles, and the Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Lucia Popp was much better than remembered.  The first two cycles I like without reservation, but the others are very much performance dependent.  I typically find it hard to get into Das Lied von der Erde, no matter the performers.  I don't really listen for the individual songs.

Quote from: vers la flamme on August 02, 2022, 01:02:51 PM
Did I forget anyone's favorite?

Not from one of the cycles but my favorite is O Mensch Gib Acht from the third symphony.

I don't count and didn't vote for any of Das Lied von der Erde as I don't consider them separate Lieder. They are never performed separately and "Der Abschied" is an half hour symphonic movement (containing, I think (part of?) three different poems), so this is just too different. The three shorter pieces (Drunkard, Beauty, Youth) could be performed as singles but also never are.

Although they are sometimes included in Lieder collections I also almost never listen to "Urlicht" or "Das himmlische Leben" separately as I consider them part of the symphonies. (I also think all Mahler lieder are MUCH better in the orchestral versions, I recommend therefore also the bunch of early Lieder orchestrated by Berio)

My favorite single Lied is "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" but I don't care much for the other Rückert settings, so as a group they are my least favorite. The Wunderhorn are my favorite but they are even more a loose collection (not even published together originally), not really a cycle and there is at least one (Verlorne Müh) I find so unbearably silly that I usually skip it.
So I voted for my three favorites, all "military", "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen", "Revelge" and "Der Tamboursgsell".

I rarely listen to Kindertotenlieder, maybe because they are just too depressing, so as a (small) cycle my favorite are "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen", they are also the most "Schubertian", so the last vote went to "Die zwei blauen Augen".

I concur with much of what Jo498 says in the post above, and —just like Todd— I have problems enjoying DLvdE. Now, I have heard Der Abschied performed as a lied (live here in Madrid, by Gerhaher and Huber, in an all-Mahler recital some years ago), and it worked surprisingly well, despite its length. On that occasion (and in another all-Mahler recital by the same performers I attended some years earlier, also at the Teatro de la Zarzuela), the encore was Urlicht (in the last recital, Gerhaher said that could be the only possible encore after Der Abschied) and, again, that worked beautifully as a stand-alone lied.

My personal favourites among the cycles are the Fahrenden Gesellen and the Rückert. I rank Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen very highly among Mahler's works (up there with the Fourth and the Ninth), and have a soft spot for Die zwei blauen Augen. My remaining votes went to Rheinlegendchen (which brings back fond childhood memories to me —the Christa Ludwig recording with Bernstein at the piano), Urlicht, and Liebst du um Schönheit.

I don't consider DLvdE to be a song cycle, otherwise Der Abschied would probably have gotten all five votes.  :D

As matters stand l put four into Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the last into Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Tbh, I'd have been much happier with twenty choices, but you can't have everything...

I like all Mahler's Lieder, but my personal favourites are Das Lied von der Erde (although I don't exactly consider this work as a song cycle), Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Rückert-Lieder.

Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on August 02, 2022, 02:07:35 PM
Overall I'd say Des Knaben Wunderhorn, even though it's not so much a cycle as a collection (in modern terms, an album). I do like them all, though.

+ 1.

Quote from: JBS on August 02, 2022, 01:32:31 PM
My preference for the cycles, from least favorite to most favorite
dKW
LeFG
KTL
dLvdE
RL

I agree.