We need to remember that when Mahler composed "Das Lied Von
Der Erde" he did not simply take straightforward translations
of poems from Chinese into German. Inspired he certainly was,
but the texts that he had read and which he was moved to set to
music were in fact free creative paraphrases in German, glosses
if you like, by Hans Bethge. They owed at least as much, probably
more, to Bethge's own input as they did to their original Chinese
authors. Therefore any attempt, however laudable, to make a straight
translation into Mandarin of Bethge's original German texts would
not be to return the poems to their original Chinese form. There
is even one poem in the work where Chinese scholars have difficulty
in tracing an original. Let me say that I would have no problem
with a straight translation of what Mahler actually set if it
were the case here. Indeed, as you will see below, I think this
would have been a more worthwhile and useful aim. There is, after
all, an honourable tradition of making works more accessible to
local audiences through translations. Think of Andrew Porter's
translation into English of Wagner's Ring for the production
and recordings by Reginald Goodall, for example. There are losses
along the way. Music written for one language might not quite
suit another. However, the gains in helping an audience understand
what is going on are considerable. So allowing Chinese-speaking
audiences to follow Bethge's words in a performance of Mahler's
masterpiece would certainly have merit. However, this is not at
all what has happened in this recording. Here we have something
much more radical, much more problematic and controversial, leading
me to question just who this is aimed at and why it is being aimed
at all.
The sung texts here are the responsibility of Daniel Ng. What he
has done is to take original Tang Dynasty poems, only some of
which are behind those of Bethge and Mahler and further adapt
those to the music. Material that is often profoundly different
from those in Bethge's work as well. So here "Das Trinklied
von Jammer der Erde" becomes (if translated into English)
"Song of Sorrow" rather than "Drinking Song of
Earth's Sorrow" with references to specific characters.
Bethge's repeated phrase set by Mahler "Dark is life, is
death" here becomes "woe is me, woe is me" which
is far less dark and profound and surely not what Mahler intended
at all. Later the version of "Der Abschied" that we
have here is, we are told in the notes, assembled by Ng from
five different sources as opposed to just the two used by Bethge
with the added end lines stitched on by Mahler himself. These
two examples must suffice to illustrate that what we have here
is very far indeed from what Mahler intended and, I think, in
the end does no favours at all to Chinese listeners and certainly
not to Mahler. But there is a further impediment to consider,
maybe a clincher. As the liner-notes explain, German is polysyllabic
whereas Chinese is not. So, to quote the infamous remark by
the Emperor to Mozart, there are too many notes to spread around
and what we get is a kind of vocal running which destroys Mahler's
careful composition completely. Listen to the end of "Der
Abschied" if you want a more convincing case against this
project. For such a carefully composed work as this maybe German
is the only way to hear it.
Lan Shui conducts the Singapore Symphony very well. He has Mahlerian
feel and so does his orchestra. The first song is delivered
beautifully but it must be said that their contribution from
then on becomes a bit patchy. They are better in the all-out
parts than in the reflective sections, but the problem is that
this work is mostly reflective. Woodwinds don't have the innate
tradition of European or American players, for example. They
often stick out from the texture too much. You would also have
thought that an orchestra from this part of the world would
have been able to manage a better tam-tam than this. Perhaps
the rather thin sound of that emblematic Chinese instrument
over ones used in Europe that can be heard on this recording
could serve to remind us that what we are dealing with in Mahler's
work is chinoiserie rather than authentic Chinese music
and so rule this project out of court altogether. The two soloists
are enthusiastic but the fact that their contributions are best
forgotten might have more to do with the complications of the
project rather than any shortcomings of their own. Both suffer
from pitching difficulties. Warren Mok seems to have to spend
so much time wrapping himself around all those notes to try
to be a Heldentenor and Ning Liang has too much vibrato for
my taste in addition to the problems faced by her colleague.
An oddity, then. For Chinese speakers a straight translation from
Bethge's German would have been of more use and more merit,
though even then I do wonder. But this is one step too far and
it's a step that is over a precipice.
Tony Duggan