I relate to this song in ways I fear I shouldn't. When I was a kid, I knew well the songs of beggars grinding away at their guitars' strings as the winter cold set in. I was told to not even make eye contact with them by my parents. But then, when I started to run away from school, they were the among only people I could turn to and trust. And so I went with the strange old men, and to their songs I lived the darkest years of my life.
A masterpiece! When the artist being Schubert or Muller or Dietrich Fischer, etc. looks back, in late life and takes stock of his existence, his hard journey, his losses, the perception of his contemporaries of him and his work, and his sad ending and oblivion. It’s like Dietrich is singing for himself and recalling a personal experience he had two hundred years ago, composed by Muller and Schubert.
I feel that too very much, his disabled brother starved during the war and his wife died in childbirth - his son was named after him.. just seeing his 2000 mile stare.
I have become almost invisible, to some extent like a dead man In the deep and dark hours of the night No one knows what shadowy memories haunt them to this day Of grace and providence A golden pheasant on the black ground The quilter standard
The interplay is amazing between the major and minor keys, representing the joy of being reunited with a sweetheart on the one hand, and the looming, and probably fatal, outcome of being sent to a war, on the other.
...Trying to find the Geharer/Boulez recording, BUT, what a pleasure this is! Immortal Bernstein delicately bringing out the silky, sinuous strings of a peerless orchestra and Accompanying a fine and stylish singer... Mahler is doubtless delighted. x
She was a unique angel put down on this earth. Far away the best soprano ever. I never heard anyone sing so emotional and expressive with such control and beauty. And then accompanied by the Worlds greatest conductor ever the big genius Leonard Bernstein. This is music on its highest level. Unique beauty that is hard to surpass. Simply divine.
Stunning! It is a struggle to summon the literary skills to provide an accurate word picture of the bleak scene that this rendition evokes. So profoundly haunting! The expression on the face of DFD is so telling.
Schubert y Faulkner...unidos por la compasión...: Este organillero...Der Leiermann...despertó en el joven vienes Franz Schubert un sentimiento de compasión ante el "mendigo cantabile"...en pleno invierno...!!! El premio nóbel de literatura norteamericano.. William Faulkner...en su discurso de recepcion del Nóbel... en 1949...manifiesta y resalta que la compasión es una fuerza poderosa e inmarcesible de cara a la pobreza...!!! Loor a Faulkner y a Schubert...en esta conmiseración ante la pobreza material...que es la más desgraciada de todas las pobrezas...!!!
There is something archetypal about the figure of the Hurdy-Gurdy Man. I recognize him as an image first encountered in my childhood. His origin is Eastern Europe. Why do I think he might be Jewish? The Fiddler on The Roof. The Rag Picker. The Outcast The Stranger among us who has looked upon things we all shy away from and so, we shy away from him all the while knowing he has something wise and terrible to teach us. Someone recently said to me that more than being loved, we need to feel that we belong. I thought about that and it feels right ! Family, Religion, Nation, City Class Sexual orientation Local Sports Team College Fraternity Political party These are things we belong to. We support them. We exalt them. We defend them. We oppose those who attack them. We feel elated when another member of our tribe succeeds. What does it feel like when we belong to no group? Who among us does not belong to any group? The beggar. The homeless The elderly living alone. The black man in a white world. The mis-shapen The grotesque. This is the Hurdy Gurdy man.....the Leiermann The one we fear most because he lives our greatest nightmare. But when we are dying we feel the ultimate alone-ness. We are alive but no longer belong to the world of the living. Perhaps Schubert, who was dying when he wrote this, was making common cause with the Leiermann. Outcasts... together. " May I come along? Will you play my song ?"
Schubert is a genius to come up with this simple depiction of a hurry-gurdy player rather than try to set the text in a more typical, melodic manner. Chilling!
