Video Transcript:

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Very beautiful. Okay.

Now, Nataly, there are two things that are, at the moment, stumbling blocks for you with this music. You come to music from the opera, and you are a great opera singer. I’ve heard you sing. And when you were singing at the conservatory in Jordan Hall that day, there were three of the women singing. And I said, “One of those women has a real career as an opera singer,” and that was you. And there was no question in my mind. So that’s very exciting. It’s a beautiful voice.

This, however, is not opera. And it’s something even at the far end of Lieder singing, because what Mahler is doing here is almost speaking to himself. Now, in 1901 when he wrote this piece, he was passionately in love with a singer. And this song is about his love for that woman. And he turned to the poetry of Rückert. At a certain point, he stopped writing music to anybody else’s poetry.

And he wrote with in mind a mezzo-soprano, not a soprano. And so that’s another issue. So beginning with those two issues, that you’re coming from opera and that you’re a true soprano, in a way disqualifies you from singing this. But I’m glad we’re doing it, all right? So we’re going to go on.

Nataly Wickham:

Sure.

Ben Zander:

You understand?

Nataly Wickham:

I just love them so much.

Ben Zander:

Right. Of course you love them so much, but you have to take in what Marla was trying to say, and we’ll get as close as we possibly can. It’s really for a mezzo-soprano, which means a darker sound and a lower key. Now, one of the problems with your key is that the oboe solo, which is one of the most beautiful moments in all of Mahler, cannot be played on an oboe, and so the flute has to play it. And the horn player, when he plays his beautiful solo, unfortunately can’t be played on a horn so it’s played on a clarinet. So you understand that these pieces were written for piano and for orchestra at the same time. So what we’ve got to try and do is find a way _… Do you happen to know this figure, in the piano? Could you play that?

Do you know who’s playing that in the orchestra version? It’s the violins muted, muted violin. So it’s so soft, and it’s marked pianissimo with a mute, which means that it’s almost inaudible. Isn’t that amazing? And it’s a consoling, tender murmuring to accompany your musings. You’re sitting in your room, it’s in your bedroom, and you have this smell of linden tree. And you, “I felt the smell. Not only I smelled the smell, but I felt the smell,” isn’t that right, of the linden tree. “I breathed a gentle fragrance of the linden tree in my room, a spray of linden. A present from a beloved hand,” the tenderness. It was a gift from her.

How lovely was the fragrance of that linden tree. So you are in trance, in a central trance there, just the _… And of course in German poetry, always the world of nature is connected to the human nature. So the tenderness of the smell is _… And then the oboe. Oh, we don’t have the oboe, because we just have a piano. But it’s beautiful.

Okay, so now let’s try it again. You are going to have to strain beyond where you are comfortable and they’ll understand that I’m going to ask Nataly to sing softer than probably she’s ever sung in her life. All right, here we go.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing).

Ben Zander:

Right. Beautiful, beautiful. Serene happiness. So don’t rush. Keep it very, very calm, very tender, very gentle, very dolce. Inside you. Inside you. Isn’t that beautiful? And notice in this, when he orchestrates it, no cellos, no bases, no second violins, just a few woodwinds, a gossamer texture, you got it?

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Can you get a floating grace? Just (singing) Don’t be in a hurry. Yes, it’s in 6/4, so there must be an underlying 2, but don’t rush anything. Beautiful, you’re doing gorgeously. Once again, the same thing. And that high F sharp, if you possibly can play it even softer, sing it even-

Nataly Wickham:

The high A? Even higher?

Ben Zander:

Oh, it’s your high A. Exactly, exactly. Imagine that he’s talking to himself. This is not _… Right. It’s not out there. He’s literally talking to himself. The fragrance of the lime trees in the bedroom, of course about love. Tenderness and love. It’s a private statement, it’s a private expression.

Nataly Wickham:

Sure. (singing)

Ben Zander:

Can I be very rigorous with you about how long the notes are?

Nataly Wickham:

Yeah.

Ben Zander:

You cut that note short. And I’ve heard a lot of singers do that, but just keep it full length. It’s so beautiful. Should we try?

Nataly Wickham:

Yeah. (singing)

Sorry about that.

Ben Zander:

No, but you know what I love about you? You will try anything. You’re a real trooper. You’re somebody who will _… Do you know what a samurai is?

Nataly Wickham:

Yes.

Ben Zander:

But you don’t really know what a samurai is.

Nataly Wickham:

No.

Ben Zander:

Okay. An ordinary person, if you ask them to do something, they’ll say, “What is it?” And then they’ll decide. A samurai, you ask them to do something, they say, “Yes.” And then they find out what it is. So you’re a samurai. I am thrilled. You’re trying your utmost. And you’ll probably never sing this in public because it’s not your voice, but you are trying. Once again.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Oh, that’s such a moment. Now you are letting the cat out of the bag. This is really about love, it’s not about that damn flower.

Nataly Wickham:

No.

Ben Zander:

No, right? Okay. So let’s _… Tell us with that chord, it’ll help you. You know what instruments come in there though? Two horns. It’s so beautiful, that’s one of those magical moments. So should we try, is that right?

Nataly Wickham:

Mm-hmm. (singing)

Ben Zander:

Yeah. How lovely it is, how lovely it is. And it’s a little high for that. That’s a different _… I understand you’re doing _… but if you can get as much love into that voice as you possibly can, you’re doing beautifully. Bravo. Do it again.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Now the oboe.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

That’s another modulation. All Right. You plucked that spray of lime yourself, right? And that’s why that modulation is there, isn’t that beautiful? And the change of key makes it more vivid, more human. It becomes more present, as if the relationship has come closer, you are actually addressing your partner, your lover. You picked that lime tree. Isn’t that beautiful? Bravo. You’re doing beautiful. Should we try?

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

This is trance-like music, isn’t it? It’s trance like. She’s saying, “Softly I breathe amidst the linden fragrance, love’s gentle fragrance.” Isn’t that beautiful? So she’s mingling the two, the fragrance of the plant and the fragrance of her love or his love, whichever it is. And it’s almost as if she’s become the lime tree that _… And that sets you in a trance-like state of these violins just floating in the gentlest possible way.

And the horn. Oh, the horn. Because you’re in a partnership with the horn. It’s almost like the woman and the man together with those two instruments, the voice and the horn. It’s just an incredible thing. And sadly, in the version that you’re doing, the horn player can’t play. So isn’t that interesting? But it’s fine. So do that once again with those two changes of key there and there. So it means gentle, delicate. And a linden tree, it’s a pun on those two words, isn’t it?

Nataly Wickham:

The whole thing’s a word play.

Ben Zander:

The whole thing is a word play. Okay.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

You know what that is, that’s love. She’s expressing love, outward love, for the first time. Now we know what it’s about. And so give full love to that sound by making it warm as you can make it. Right, exactly.

Nataly Wickham:

Sorry, I don’t know where that _…

Ben Zander:

Beginning of that bar.

Nataly Wickham:

Oh, right.

Ben Zander:

Yeah.

Nataly Wickham:

This one, right here?

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Let’s do it again, so you get into it. That’s a hard place to start.

Nataly Wickham:

Sure, absolutely.

Ben Zander:

Beautiful. Now with delicate love.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Beautiful. Bravo. Bravo, bravo, bravo.

In 2004, Boston Philharmonic celebrated the 25th anniversary. And you know what we did? We played Marla. Every concert. Every note we played that year was Mahler. And one of the things we did was this. And we got a great singer called Mitsuko Shirai. Do you know who that is?

Nataly Wickham:

I know the name.

Ben Zander:

Well, you’re about to hear her because I brought her along. She’s unfortunately not with us here in America, but she’s a great Japanese singer. She sang this song, and I want them to hear it because it’s with orchestra. So they’ll hear the whole orchestral texture. Now, having heard it on the piano, would you play that, Ben? This is Mitsuko Shirai singing this very song with the Boston Philharmonic.

(singing)

Peggy Pearson. (singing)

Great. That recording is not available anywhere, so you are the only people who’ve ever heard it. Anyway, that’s of course Another World with orchestra. And at the lower level you can keep that very _… but it’s a wonderful attempt you’re doing. Should we do the other one?

Nataly Wickham:

Sure.

Ben Zander:

Yes. Great. The other one is probably the single most famous song that Mahler ever wrote, Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen. And it is a striking poem. I think it’s worth if I just read you the poem before she sings it. “I am lost to the world with which I used to squander so much time. It has heard nothing from me for so long that it may very well believe that I’m dead. It is of no consequence to me whether it thinks me dead. I cannot deny it, for I really am dead to the world. I’m dead to the world’s commotion, tumult, and I rest in peace in a still land. I live alone in my own heaven, in my love, and in my song.” Great.

Nataly Wickham:

(singing)

Ben Zander:

Well done. Well, you choose cruel things to put yourself through. This is about as difficult as music gets and you’re doing a wonderful attempt at making that voice, which is really a big voice and you’ve got a operatic voice. It’s where _… I drive a BMW. And if it goes anything under 100 miles an hour, it’s really not doing _… it just doesn’t feel right, which I tried to explain to the police, but they don’t quite get it. But there’s a certain way that a voice, the feeling that, “I belong here.” You don’t really belong here. And I admire you for trying. I really do. And you were trying to sing so softly, but your voice doesn’t get a bloom over that. This is music that is so intimate.

Mahler was obsessed by death. I only discovered this recently. He almost died in 1901 when he wrote this. We know that he died in 1911 of the heart condition, but he had a serious hemorrhaging. He lost so much blood that the doctor said if he’d had one more hour, he would’ve been dead. And of course he was brought up around death. He lost a brother when he was five and another when he was six, and a sister when he was 11, another when he was 14, there was six of them, died. Imagine children dying in the household and they come with the coffin and they take the children out one after another, after another, after another. So death was absolutely part of his life.

And this song is a strange story. It’s a strange poem because it sounds as though he’s seeking for death. In fact, he’s seeking for peace. It’s a kind of almost Buddhist nirvana that he’s looking for where there’s cessation of all activity, a cessation of music and of love and of everything. It’s extraordinary, actually. So it has to be so soft and so tender. And let’s just try, we don’t have a lot of time, but I just want to _… if we can just explore it a bit. And if I may, I’ll be a little bit of a conductor here and imagine that we have an orchestra because the orchestration of this piece is just magical, and we do what we can with the piano. But so the English-

Nataly Wickham:

Which is lovely.

Ben Zander:

What?

Nataly Wickham:

She’s lovely.

Ben Zander:

Yeah, she’s fantastic. She’s really as great as they go. Really.

So the theme of the song is the withdrawal into a secluded world of love and art and nature. And that’s what the song _… And he wrote something very good, I don’t know if you’ve seen this. He wrote, “It creates a feeling that rises just up to the lips but does not pass beyond them.” And then he wrote, “It is my very self.” So what he’s describing here, he was, I understand, passionately in love with a young woman at this point. And again, not Alma, it was before Alma, but it’s addressed again to her. Her name was Selma Kurz. That name is only famous because Mahler was in love with her, otherwise she would not have been.

All right. So this is _… He needed to escape from the bustle of the world in order to compose. And we must create a hypnotic, sublime Mahlarian inwardness. Can we do that? We’ll try and do that. Here we go.

Do you recognize that (singing)? It’s the fifth symphony, it’s the Adagietto. This theme, (singing) or in this case, (singing) It’s the same gesture, the same feeling, and the same tempo. Exactly the same. Once again, English horn. (singing)

Bravo. It’s amazing because the limitations of the piano and the limitations of a soprano singing a mezzo piece somehow disappeared. And that’s the miracle of relationship, because we were in a relationship. And I was able to create an environment in which your singing _…

Nataly Wickham:

Got me off of this.

Ben Zander:

Got you off of that. And it was beautiful. And we delivered the piece in spite of all the limitations. It’s very beautiful. When we finished, the _… Jane is not here, is it? Jane? No, it’s not. When we finished our Mahler year, we played nothing from September to April, but Mahler, and we ended with the seventh symphony. And at the end of the seventh symphony we played this song with Jane Struss, who is one of the great singers. And Peggy Pearson playing the oboes, nobody can play _… It’s just so heavenly.

The trouble is the sound. The sound. I think we should leave it, but I’ll put it online. Can we get online with each other so that we can _… Today I delivered a long blog about the tour of the Youth Orchestra to South America. Kristo and I worked on it till 1:30 last night. And I delivered it into the _…

I’d love to get it to you, I’d love you to have it. So if you can leave us your email, just leave the email with us and I’ll send the tape of Jane singing this song with the Boston Philharmonic, which is the most moving thing. But unless you hear it with good sound, it doesn’t really make the impact, and we don’t have a sound system comparable. But leave your email when you go, okay? And especially in Utah. That would be great. Just leave us a piece of paper with that. But bravo, just wonderful work. Bravo, bravo. I’m very impressed. Very, very impressed.