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492 SCRl:TINYthat caught my ear and eye at a time vvhen I was
also busv withlooking through the source materials of the movement;
or: to bemore precise, it was these bars and their immediate
predecessors,five bars after fig. 56, that led me to investigate
Mahler's composition sketch. For what we find in the published
score is this:Ex.2 ,, J I J I v r
Ich wer - de me mals
I confess that I had never in any sense questioned this phrase;
onthe contrary I had always thought of it as a neat example of
thekind of ntegration of Vhich Mahler was a master, that is, the
complementary vocal phrase 'Still ist mein Herz' ('My heart is
still') takingover the rhythmic pattern of 'Ich werde niemals' ('I
shall neveragain') and the identical interval and pitches, bu t
reversing theirorder and their direction. On this occasion,
however, I \Vondered\vhy, if Mahler were intent on making a point
\Vith the repeatednotes in his setting of Still ist mein Herz' (my
emphasis), he usedthe same device onlv a few bars earlier in an
entirelv different context, \vhere an imag-e of stillness, of calm,
was no t i ~ v o l v e d .
It was this consideration I had casually in mind when
turningover the pages of Mahler's short score of 'Der Abschied'
his'original composition sketch, which is owned by the
GemeenteMuseum ofThe Hague. What immediately leapt to my eye \vas,
ofcourse, 'lch werde niemals .. . 'which in the composer's hand
quiteclearly does 1101 follow the repeated-note pattern of Ex. 2 bu
t is laidou t thus:Ex. 3
W :J J If" r
Ich wer - de me mals
MAHLER'S ABSCHIED: A WRONG NOTE RIGHTED 493There is no doubt
about the composition sketch: the A (v.rhichappears in all
published versions) is undeniably a G. How, then, didthe repeated
As arise?
This can be answered simply: because they appear thus inMahler's
fair manuscript full score of Das Lied, now part of theRobert Owen
Lehman deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library inNe w York City.
There is no room for doubt either about whatMahler wrote in this
autograph. It is what \Ve are all thoroughlyfamiliar with and
reproduced in Ex. 2. On e might well conclude, ifthis vvere all the
evidence that might be assembled, that Mahler hadhad a change of
mind at a very late stage or made a slip of the pen,bu t that it
was impossible to determine which \vas the more likelyexplanation
of an A replacing the G. For reasons I shall come tonow, I think
there can be hardly any doubt that it was a slip of thepen and that
\Ve should without more ado correct the errant A toG. I can outline
my arguments as follows:I If we adopt G in bar 442, then the
repeated-note response to the
image of 'Still ist mein Herz' is no longer paradoxically
anticipated and its impact thus diminished in bars 446-7.
2 Th e motif with the G appears no t only in the
compositionsketch bu t also in the draft and probably earliest
extant orchestralscore in Mahler's hand (currently held by the
Gemeente Museum)and in the autograph fair copy of the vocal score
(owned byJohn Kallir. Scarsdale, Ne w York). 2 So there are at
least threemanuscripts in Mahler's own hand in which the motif in
itsA-G-A form appears; and it is indisputable that it was with theG
that Mahler first conceived the phrase.
3 There is on e further piece of evidence which I personally
findthe most convincing of all and which derives from the
specialcharacter of the counterpoint in Das Lied and in 'Der
Abschied'in particular. Adorno was among the first to spot this: in
hismonograph on Mahler he refers to it as the manifestation of
an
2 Mahler's piano reduction of D11s Lied was published in 1 9 ~ 9
: see note 5 belO\v. rEdirorialnote added by Mervyn Cooke for D ~ I
C N . ]
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494 SCRL.Tl!\JYz t n s c h a ~ f c Unisono ('unfocused unison')
in which 'identical voicesdiffer slightly fi:-om on e another in
rhythm' 3 This was a brilliantinsight of Adorno's, and it is indeed
the case that intensive studyof 'Der Abschied' will reveal numerous
examples of contrapuntal textures, which, in principle, are
heterophonic, that is, itis a rhythmically dis-synchronized unison,
shared between theparts, which is at the heart of the
counterpoint.It is precisely this relationship we encounter in bars
442-7,
where the voice part and the counter-melody of th e violins
arebuilt ou t of an identical melody and simultaneously combined
an' ' ,octave apart, in two ditierent rhythmic versions. At least,
that isho w th e passage \Vas originally conceived by Mahler and
how, inmy estimation, we should hear it in the future, if my
correction isaccepted and becomes established performing
practice:
Ich
r - - - - -3 - - - - ,* Jr*wer deIf we leave th e repeated As as
they appear, alas, in th e so-called
critical edition of the score (which makes no mention
whatsoeverof all this),; then of course this tiny bu t significant
feature ofMahler's marvellous finale no t only goes unheard bu t
allovvs its3 Theodor \ : ~ A d o r n o , .\J,Jh/cr: Ei11c
lll!lsik,tlische Physi(;tl/tllllik. p. 1S!+-4 71nec, :Ktually. For.
as David 0 . h t t h e w ~ pointed ou t to me. in the composition
sketch
the third part (system 3, stave 2. bar 4) yet .1gain gins us the
A-G-A pattern. (In rhc flitcopied fUll score this became d \L'cond
violin part and is delivered at a different pitch.)In the second
volume of the Stipplel/lellt fLl the .\L1hlcr C r i r i c t ~ !
EdiriotJ (Uni\ersal Edition,Vienna. 1 9 ~ 9 ) . which published ~ 1
a h l e r ' s own \'oral score of D.t Lied t 't l ll dcr
Erdc,Stephen E. Hefling. in his Dble of erraw (p. xxiv), l i ~ r -
. and corrects the error that wasoriginally !vbhler"s in his
autograph fair copy of the full score (blindly fOllowed in
theCriric,1! EdititJfl's published full score). \\ithout. howeYcr.
acknowledging 0.\f-; thoroughlydocumented discovery of the mistake
t()ur vears earlier. St:'e. ho\\en:r. Hefting's conrribmion
'Perspective on Sketch Sntdies' to !\1. T. Vogt (ed.). D,l.'
Ct1Sft1l'-.\!,ll!lcr-FcstH , 1 1 1 1 b 1 1 ~ ( ! 1989. pp. +45-)7.
[EditoriJ! note added by !'v1avyn Cooke tOr D.\IC.V.J
MAHLER's ABSCHIED: A \\ 1 RONG NOTE RIGHTED 495erroneous
substitution to blunt the effect of th e stillness that iscreated
by th e (legitimately) repeated notes a fe\v bars later.
A last point, though one no t directly related to the
manuscriptsources. If there is on e thing that I have learned from
\Vorkingclosely alongside composers during the last f\venty years
or so, it isto be sceptical about claims of infallibility made tor
their autographs, even when those autographs are impressively tidy
taircopies, wearing all th e signs of finality and authority. It is
in makin g his tair copy, into \vhich, very often, a substantial
element ofthe mechanical enters, that the composer can sometimes no
d an dcommit - and thereby umvittingly perpetuate - an error.
Ofcourse, if Mahler had ever heard Das Lied in performance, hewould
doubtless have made the necessary correction. That \Vas no tto be.
It is my guess that \vhen he started to pe n th e voice part
tor"Ich \verde niemals', his mind had already raced ahead to th e
nextvocal entry, 'Still ist mein Herz', and under the influence of
thoserepeated Cs, A-G-A became repeated As.We have become so
familiar with 'lch werde niemals' in itserroneous form that it may
take a little \vhile before we hear ho wnatural, convincing, and
expressive the correct version is: forinstance it brings to lite a
crucial word, \verde', which is otherwiselocked into an accentless
monotone.
Th e expressive gain was recently noticed by on e of th e
Londoncritics \vho attended the first performance of the revision.
SimonRattle adopted it to r his performance of Das Lied at the
RoyalFestival Hall, London, on 19 April 1984, when he conducted
thePhilharmonia Orchestra, with the contralto Florence Quivar
assoloist in 'Der Abschied'. Meirion Bo\ven, writing in the
Guardimzon 21 April, made it clear that in prospect the whole thing
seemedslightly ridiculous, this recovery of o11e note, and I
v.rould be th e firstto concede that the whole afiair might appear,
in th e abstract, to begrotesquely over-inflated (the same thought
occurred to me,especially \vhen, at th e morning rehearsal, Mm e
Quivar quite overlooked the emendat ion and stuck to what she had
always been usedto singing). An d yet, after Mr Bowen heard the
wrong note righted,he declared that tor him the phrase \vould never
sound right againif sung in its old form. I \Vould go along \Vith
that.
