Listening to one of Gustav Mahler’s most beautiful songs courtesy of the incomparable Stephan Genz on Hyperion Records. Those of you who only know Mahler from listening to his (rather bombastic) symphonies may be shocked to hear this album. Mahler pulled out all the stops in his lieder, laying his soul bare to everyone to see. He was dying of a heart ailment, yet he wanted to continue his compositions and knew death was knocking at the door. As the incomparable poet Emily Dickinson wryly noted in her miniature poems:
“I had no time for Death, so Death made time for me. The Carriage held but the two of us and eternity”.
Hear this majestic performance and weep. For Death comes knocking at all our doors. But we must live life to the fullest while our hearts beat.