MIDI of Mahler

For those of you who may have read about the
single work by Mahler that was praised by Partch
in _Genesis_ (_Das Lied von der Erde_) and are
unfamiliar with the piece, my latest version of
my MIDI sequence of the very end of it is one of
the best I've done.

So if you have a good sound-card or MIDI hookup, download:

http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/worklist/abshied.mid

and 'give it a spin'.

It's not microtonal (yet), but Partch discussed it,
so I thought some Tuning List readers could benefit.

I'm a huge Mahler fan, so it's tough for me to say
which of Mahler's pieces is his 'best',
but if it *must* be only one, this is probably it.

And Partch was right, it *is* the 'naked Mahler',
'a notable corporeal achievement', all the more
notable because it *doesn't* use the expedient of microtones
to acheive its corporeality (all this is quoted and
paraphrased from _Genesis_).

Unfortunately, MIDI cannot convey the words in the vocal line.

The piece is the last movement of
_Das Lied von der Erde_ (_The Song of the Earth_),
and is called _Der Abschied_ (_The Farewell_).

The poet is speaking as someone
ready to take leave of this earthly life.

The singer at this point is singing the words added
by Mahler at the end of the old Chinese poem.

In the section just before my sequence begins, the text goes:

> Where do I go? I'm leaving, I wander in the mountains.
> I seek peace for my lonely heart.
> I journey to my homeland, my resting place!
> I will never more go wandering far away.
> My heart is quiet, waiting for its hour.

Then my MIDI file begins:

> the dear Earth everywhere
> blossoms in springtime and comes alive again
> everywhere and forever a blue light in the distance
> forever . . . forever . . . forever . . .

The last climax (around 0:58) is the first utterance
of 'forever', and that word is repeated over and over
again by the singer until the end of the piece.

Enjoy!

-monzo

|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |

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