How to Push a Boulder Up a Hill

Boulders and meaning

Do you ever find yourself pushing a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down before you reach the top? Do you perhaps wonder why you should put up with having a spinach smoothie rather than cereal every day when eventually you’ll wind up dead underground anyway? Or why you should bother hopping on one leg in a straight line just because a clairvoyant promised to give you a spoonful of yogurt at the end of it? Do you frequently yearn to find the justification for all these things, yearning for meaning, and yet finding the world giving you the silent treatment?

Fear not – although I certainly don’t have the answers. This situation just is, and some people might say this is what we call the human condition. We like to find reasons for existing; why do we put up with all the pointless, pernicious, and pestilent situations, conversations and ambitions when there’s no real justification for them at the end? And often you don’t succeed in your undertakings at all.

Failure is just as inevitable as working against it. It’s an eternal game. So in this life, marked by constant hunting, eating, working, fighting, loving, sleeping, running, jumping, arguing, learning, forgetting, coping, failing, succeeding, moping, hoping, losing, winning and so on, you’d better hope that the world can be held accountable at some point, and that it deems us worthy of a straightforward answer. Unfortunately, we end up having to wonder whether the world is a bad player that never reveals its cards, even when we have placed the last bet.

The big question of meaning

Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus writes about the importance of this very question (regarding existence, not whether Gaia is indeed a keen gambler):

I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.

Albert Camus

This paradox puts a big question mark on everything. If you feel lost, find the suffering too great to bear, and find no meaning behind it whatsoever, you are liable to give up and die. Or, alternatively, if you have a cause that fulfils you to an endless extent you may find yourself giving yourself up for the cause. That we can find this sort of behaviour in countless ideologies and religions around the world need not be emphasised further.

Albert Camus

It almost makes you want to transform into a cat and just enjoy a pleasant form of existence in which you not only don’t think, but literally can’t think in greater detail about any of this. Your life is the same, day in, day out, and your happiness is little more than the satisfaction of treats and going hunting for mice every once in a while.

But human beings are cursed with more defective brains than other animals, and as much as Blackadder may remind us that for most of us, all we can do is try and make a bit of cash, this approach only helps us to go so far.

A couple of suggestions to tackle meaning

So: what do we do? For Sartre the solution lies in the fact that “existence precedes breakfast”.  Or it might have been “existence precedes essence”, but in any case, the point is that you are nothing before you are born, so anything that comes afterwards is arbitrary introjection based on your parents, teachers and peers. Therefore, Sartre recommends creating your own values and finding your own meaning. There is no truth out there, so you might as well create your own truth. It is basically making a fundamental choice about how to live.

The issue with this approach is that you are still infused by the ideas and attitudes of others. How can you truly become independent when your entire way of life is tied to that of others? How can you know that you really are an individual and doing your own thing? What if you fail to create your own values? Aren’t you still a slave to your circumstances and just trick yourself into believing you’re making up your own values?

Jean-Paul Sartre

An alternative approach to this is to follow an ideology that claims to have the answers. There are endless options to choose from, either spiritual or political. All claim to have knowledge that will set you free, or claim to be morally righteous, or claim to lead to a better world, in one form or another. This is essentially Kierkegaard’s Leap of Faith – to trust in something to take you to that sweet bowl of chocolate and whisky at the end of the rainbow.

But is that really so simple? Religions are often founded by definition on the unknowable that comes after death; political ideologies often have a utopic vision of the future. When either of these necessarily fail to provide satisfactory results, you either close your eyes and double-down in your ideology; or else you go through a drastic change and embrace some other ideology.  

So…. What now?

And all the while time presses on, you eventually run out of time, and then that’s it. Nothing knowable on the other side. Either it’s the endless void, or else everlasting life in some form or another – and god save us if it’s the latter, nothing is more terrifying than the prospect of endless time!

So we’re caught between a rock and a hard place. And yet we continue to push that boulder up the hill. Every day of our existence. At times it feels tougher, at other points easier. But aside from a few very tough moments in which it is very hard indeed even to get those feet out of bed and onto the ground, most humans do press on. Each day. As futile as it seems.

This is ultimately the human achievement and the solution that Camus proposes. To embrace the absurdity of human existence, and the reality that we cannot know, and yet we desperately want to know. Sisyphus is a mythological Greek figure who tricked the gods, came back from death twice, and was finally condemned for his insolence to push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down before reaching the top, thus starting an endless cycle of his labour. To Camus, he is the ultimate absurdist hero.

It’s only in the consciousness of his predicament that Sisyphus is really tragic. Ascending the hill with the boulder is a moment of utter triumph to him – the triumph to do great things against all odds and to be proud of one’s work. Sisyphus doesn’t mope and complain, he just gets on with it. And this is the key difference between Camus and Sartre, essentially. Sartre tries to find a way out of the absurdity of existence. Camus realises there is no escape, and so proposes to take life as it is – in all its absurdist glory. In so doing, he creates a truly life-affirming philosophy that embraces all of life’s aspects – no matter how silly and paradoxical they may occasionally seem.

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Memories and Falsehoods

It’s a sad truism in one’s life that a lot of our memories are partly fabricated by the mind. Of course there are disagreements as to the extent of this fact, and some people have better memories than others, but it still doesn’t alter the fact that, as one moves through life like a leaf in the wind, the mind tries to construct a coherent narrative and to give meaning to one’s stories.

The phenomenon surrounding the discrepancy between memory and reality is best explored, I believe, by giving an account of an experience I had myself in the confrontation between my own adulthood and the memories of my childhood. As such, this will be a lot more personal than my usual analytical approach to the subject.

It can feel like a bit of a shock when one realises that many details held so dearly regarding a particular memory can turn out to be a fabrication. Especially when they relate to things which we treat with great sentimentality – especially childhood memories, but also those relating to other key events: school graduations or failures, job losses or successful interviews, first moments in one’s relationships and so on. If you wake up to find none of it was ever real, what does that say about your life in general? The power of nostalgia cannot be underestimated.

When I was growing up my family and I moved around a lot. Between the ages of 3 and 11, I lived in 5 different places, often for no longer than a single year. Although I find it difficult to remember everything that happened in chronological order, I do have a lot of memories from that time. Most of the images and sounds are blurred and fuzzy, but it seemed quite natural to me to want to visit some of the places I hadn’t seen in years once I was an adult.

It’s just one of those things one does, I suppose. I was still living elsewhere at the time and had some business-related reasons to go down to the city, and the village where I lived when I was very little happened to be on the way. While I never would have sought to go there without any ‘sober’ excuse – perhaps out of shame in the knowledge that it was silly, or perhaps just because the idea only came to me when looking at a map – this seemed like a reasonable pastime.

And so it came that, after my business was concluded in the city, I finally went back to this haunt of my childhood just to figure out whether I could remember anything and whether things were still the way my mind portrayed them after all this time. I wasn’t expecting much at all; perhaps just to spend a couple of minutes driving to and fro and then leaving again.

It’s an odd experience living through such a moment. You’ll suddenly be confronted by a range of images; flashes of individual moments you believe you experienced long ago, calling out to you, grabbing your attention and pulling you inwards in a descent into nostalgia, for better or for worse. I immediately recognized the house we lived in – it was fairly close to the edge of the village – and the path I used to take when going to school. I also remembered other details, such as a playing ground we used to go to. It’s the same satisfaction you get when you desperately try to remember a fact, and then finally remember it after torturing yourself for hours. But there were differences, of course.

The most striking difference was the scale. Having been seven or eight years old when we lived there, my perception of everything would have deemed everything much larger than it really was. There was a climbing frame I remembered being so large that I was almost frightened to clamber up to its peak when I was younger; now I tower over it. What used to look like a fairly large place turned out to be a tiny, insignificant – if rustic and interesting – village.

Other things were just as I remembered them. There was a convenience store on my way to school; I had a friend with whom I used to play detective all the time, and we had gotten into our heads that the shop keeper was a villain in disguise. When we snuck in to uncover his devious plotting, he believed we were trying to steal sweets – not a very nice conversation to have. The shop was still there, fairly untouched – I don’t know if I would still have recognised the villain had I bothered to go inside.

But my most vivid memories of the place are attached to the school. It was the first time, I think, I was aware of myself as a proper human being when I started going there. Naturally still in a very primitive state and with more awkward confrontations with other people than one would like to admit as an adult, but for all sense and purposes, I thought I was a being separate from others with my own thoughts and my own little issues to put up with.

I remember quite clearly my first teacher; conversations between her and my mother in which I was told I was a hopeless daydreamer. My best friend with whom I used to play in the cemetery up the road (I was weird). The class mascot, a mouse glove puppet. Playing a silly game which involved pushing other boys off of a log– mainly played by older kids, but I held my own and was said to be ‘a brave one’.

I was struck by a sense of disappointment, however, when I approached the school – not because it had changed drastically, but by merit of the entire original building no longer being there. There was no open yard at the front with the school buildings in the background. It was just one big concrete block, closed off entirely to one’s view. I wasn’t even entirely sure whether this was a school anymore; from what it looked like it might not have been; there wasn’t any writing anywhere to indicate its use.

I parked the car nearby and tried to see if I could recognise anything, but it really looked as different as it possibly could have since I’d been there last. I walked around the block but there didn’t seem to be anything that remotely reflected what I believed it used to look like. It might as well never have existed.

The shock, I suppose, isn’t so much that ‘things had changed’. That’s inevitable, of course, and I wouldn’t have expected everything to remain the same. The shock must have been the realisation that the disappearance of the school meant I could never try and test my memories against reality. My mind was robbed of the opportunity to see whether it had been right or wrong – or, to be a bit more cynical about it, to reconstruct my memories in a way in which it felt nostalgia and convinced me that I had been right all along.

What it does call into question is the validity of my memories. There’s a difference between knowing from a neurological perspective that one’s memories are often false, but another one to experience a breakdown of one’s certainty as a result of being confronted with drastic change after many years of absence. Seeing the old school gone should not have been too surprising, but my mind did experience it as such – evidently the change triggered something in me. I was robbed of the chance to test myself, to validate myself, and so the certainty broke away.

Essentially the ‘narrative’ as painted by the brain as to the validity of one’s memories is fragile, no doubt due to a subconscious awareness that much of it is fabricated, but the subconscious tries to cling on to the fabrication for as long as possible. And, considering one’s personality is largely based on this fabrication, on this culmination of memories which gives us our life experience and thereby our learned behaviour, it follows that it takes very little indeed to create a crisis in even the strongest personality. Not being able to validate this grounding in my memories was like knocking against the pillars of a building to test its firmness. In the end, it takes us to an end of humanity. As Wallace Stevens says in the first section of ‘The Rock’:

It is an illusion that we were ever alive,
Lived in the houses of mothers, arranged ourselves
By our own motions in a freedom of air.

Regard the freedom of seventy years ago.
It is no longer air. The houses still stand,
Though they are rigid in rigid emptiness.

Even our shadows, their shadows, no longer remain.
The lives these lived in the mind are at an end.
They never were . . . The sounds of the guitar Were not and are not. Absurd. The words spoken
Were not and are not. It is not to be believed.

A Defence of Difficult Art

Introduction

Wow! To address the elephant in the room, it’s been over half a year since my last post. Calling this slacking off is the understatement of the century!

It’s been a particularly busy half a year; I’ve recently moved and I was suffering from a severe back pain which was preventing me from spending too much additional time in front of the computer (aside from regular work).

And Christ, how the times have changed! We find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic. A recession is looming on the horizon. But I’m generally lucky and have had ample opportunity to keep myself busy, despite everything.

But let’s start with today’s topic – a defence of difficult art!

Why this topic?

This post is a take on an issue which seems to be fairly present in today’s society – a general dislike of all things considered difficult art. That’s not to say that ‘difficult’ art doesn’t have its followers. It certainly does. Nevertheless, there’s a growing number of people who dismiss it out of hand without giving it a chance at all.

Why might that be?

A big portion of it has to do with the general perception that difficult art is elitist. That it is only meant to be for a particular group of people, and that it, as such, goes out of its way to be exclusive, rather than inclusive. Whether or not this adheres to reality doesn’t matter – they dismiss the art.

Consequently, many consider by default those people who enjoy ‘difficult’ art (or even old art, which many consider difficult just by merit of their age, and thus strangeness to a contemporary audience) are pompous or elitist as well (i.e. – ‘you only enjoy it because you feel like you should’).

Furthermore, some artists who create difficult works are often considered elitist as well – as though the difficulty were an inserted aspect with the intention of frightening off a wider, popular audience and hoping for an ‘elite’ audience.

The problems with this perception of difficult art

The issues with this way of thinking are many. First, it obviously bars the individual who is drilled into thinking this way from actually attempting to enjoy such art – it is a great pity since a lot of great art can be difficult when approached the wrong way, but some of these artworks have survived the centuries based on their merits – so dismissing them out of hand is close-minded at best, and arrogant at its worst – if considered under the pretence that it’s not worth engaging with it because it just reinforces a social elite. Difficult contemporary artworks may be lost to the centuries because they are being dismissed without being given a chance.

Worse still, if the insistence on art being easy spreads, then it will necessarily dumb the world of arts down. That’s not to say that only difficult art is great, but that deliberately making it easier will of course strip an artwork of some of its merits since its inherent difficulty is often a by-product of a composition which is dealing with a lot of complex matters at once – dumbing it down will soften the effect and create a worse work of art.

Third, forcefully insisting on easy artworks is extremely condescending to everyone – it creates the claim that the masses aren’t capable of understanding difficult art and that, therefore, they should only be confronted with works which they can comprehend and enjoy in a heartbeat. It’s purely undemocratic and in itself comes from a genuinely elitist position.

The solution to the perception of difficult art?

Discussing an issue in wider society won’t be fixed by merit of a single blog post. However, perhaps reading this will lead to some self-reflection, or if you find yourself engaging with difficult art yourself on a regular basis you may take your time to nudge friends and family gently into the direction of approaching some themselves – some of them may genuinely become interested.

I believe it’s important to acknowledge that in many cases an artwork’s difficulty is merely a result of whatever the artwork requires by its very nature. As such, it should be accepted for what it is – there are countless examples of great artwork which are easy and countless examples of those which are difficult.

In other words, an artwork should be as difficult as it needs to be. The reader/viewer/listener needn’t engage with it (lack of time or interest in the subject matter etc.). However, they should not dismiss it because they seem to be capable of reading the artist’s intentions and judging them to be elitist prats.

Trusting the general readership to be capable of understanding the artwork, and trusting the artist to create something which is as difficult or easy as it needs to be, is democratic. It can be rewarding to the participant who engages in the art. Indeed, with the right approach, I believe anyone can understand any work of art, even if some may take more time.

Closing thoughts

The one thing I didn’t include is examples of artists many people consider elitist. There are quite a few.

In poetry, T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound spring to mind (although many dismiss the latter due to his politics, which I find more justifiable). Closer to contemporary times is Geoffrey Hill, who also made a statement about the democratic nature of difficult poetry. In art, many consider anything born in the wake of modernism difficult. In music, people again see the modernists, or even Wagner before them as difficult. A writer-friend of mine rolled his eyes when someone mentioned Kafka recently!

No, examples abound, and it would be a great pity if their art were lost to the world in a dystopian future in which everyone thinks that difficult works of art – both new and old – hold no value whatsoever and that they think they can dismiss them as elitist nonsense which the world no longer needs.

Do you disagree? Anything interesting to add which I hadn’t thought about? Then why not leave a comment in the comment section below? If you enjoyed this post, why not share it on the social media of your choice? Then click on one of the tender buttons below.

The Horror of Saturn Devouring His Son

An inhuman, horrifying expression. A dark palette reeking of bleakness, save the pale skin of the victim’s body. There’s little doubt that Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son is a masterpiece of the Grotesque – but what makes this painting so effective?

In Roman myth, there is a prophecy that one of the sons of Saturn would overthrow the titan in the same way that he overthrew his father previously. Attempting to counteract the prophecy, Saturn ate his children immediately after their birth. Only Jupiter escapes thanks to his mother and eventually fulfils the prophecy.

A nasty story indeed, when a father would not only kill, but gobble up his children – and it has consequently inspired many artists. You may be familiar with Peter Paul Rubens’ Saturn, a Baroque piece depicting Saturn hunching over his son, holding the infant with one arm and biting his chest. It is excellently crafted, depicting the titan’s power over the child through his piercing eyes and his muscular stature.

But while it is undoubtedly brilliant, and the child’s horrified gaze will undoubtedly give any viewer a shiver down their spine, it doesn’t even come close to the sheer terror of Francisco Goya’s take on the myth. But what is it that makes it so haunting?

The painting

When comparing Rubens’ with Goya’s version of Saturn, we can’t help but be amazed at the stark differences. Yes, there are many similarities: the scene is obviously the same, both feature largely a dark palette with a few exceptions on the bodies, and both are unquestionably terrifying.

But Goya’s painting seems to stand out more. Instead of the clearly human, muscular body, here we have a slightly off-looking, deranged, with not-quite-fitting limbs and a posture which seems more animalistic than human. Instead of a well-groomed beard, his hair appears unkempt and wild; instead of a calculated and powerful grasp with a single arm, his claw-like hands grasp the child’s body like a predator feasting on its prey. Whereas Rubens’ Saturn wears a cloth for clothing and grasps a staff, Goya’s Saturn appears naked.

But the most striking difference lies, perhaps, in the gaze. Rubens’ version depicts a piercing, determined gaze; the patriarch dominating the situation and taking control of his own destiny (or so he thinks). Goya’s painting? An egregious, mad gaze, seemingly out of control, and a gaping hole for a mouth. When looking into his eyes one would suspect that there is no soul present – or at least one which has been corrupted for a long time.

Why is it so unsettling?

The terror of Rubens’ painting stems from the scene, primarily. It is a nasty situation; the boy is in utter agony, the heartless father continues nevertheless, as cold and calculating as ever. It is a display of terrible power the god has over his own family, evoking an unsettling feeling through the depiction of cannibalism and the murder of an infant.

Goya’s painting, on the other hand, dwells in the realm of the uncanny. The scene is the same, but rather than depicting something which we understand very well as humans – power – this Saturn has lost all human features, despite his human shape. This Saturn is creepy, merely living out his urges, and is therefore something we dread – he represents a loss of control.

The depiction of the child, too, is void of humanity. Instead of the gaze of terror, here we have a decapitated body, and Saturn is in the progress of biting off one of the arms. The other one may well already have been bitten off (although it could be folded to the front). It’s a lot more gory than in Rubens’ version, despite the lack of a facial expression.

In short, the painting evokes some of our darkest fears. Loss of humanity, vulnerability, cannibalism, murder – a psychopath in frenzy who has lost all control over his own body, a madman suffering from a hysterical stroke, all combined in a bleak depiction which is sure to cause many a viewer nightmares.

Background

Goya’s life was not a happy one. After becoming deaf in 1792, surviving two deadly diseases, and constant (understandable) worries that he was going insane, he bought a house near Madrid known as the Villa of the Deaf Man (not named after him), where he decorated the walls with a series of 14 works, now known as the Black Paintings, including Saturn.

Goya was, at this point, entirely embittered, resentful, and disappointed with the political situation in Spain. The pictures are, as the name suggests, all bleak and feature depraved takes on their subject matters. They are equally intense and unsettling and were probably never intended to be displayed publicly.

Interpretations: necessary?

Aside from the surface-level depiction, art historians have interpreted the painting in many ways across the years. For some it represents the conflict between youth and old age, an allegory of the political situation in Spain, the wrath of God, a representation of his relationship with his own son, an allegory of the French revolution or of Napoleon.

But does the specific intention behind the painting really matter? I would suggest that the painting represents all of this, and more. It is a depiction of the general human condition when taken to an extreme situation and is, as such, applicable to a whole range of specifics.

And this is perhaps part of the genius of the painting. It is so wide-ranging, so understandably human in its display of a loss of humanity or the fear thereof, that it, perhaps, helps us understand a wider range of human terrors through its sheer depiction of animalistic frenzies.

Closing words

Do you like the painting? Anything to add? Do you disagree? Then why not tell me so in the comment section below? Otherwise, please share on the social media of your choice by clicking on one of the tender buttons below.

Top 10 Kunstlieder

Ah yes – the Kunstlied. One of the most popular genres in classical music. Often associated with the Romantic period, their lyrical, contemplative nature is ideal to brood over the beginning of Autumn. Here are my top 10.

A Kunstlied (German for ‘Artistic song’) is a poem set to classical music. Unlike the traditional Lied – which often has roots in folk music and lyrical ballads – it is particular in that it is ‘artistic’, i.e. it has a definite composer to it and is often artistically more complex in nature. A traditional Lied, on the other hand, would be passed on orally throughout the centuries (the lyrics, the melody, or both).

Especially the 19th century and the Romantic period popularised the Kunstlied. Consequently a lot of the typical themes depicted in them are pastoral or romantic in nature. Composers continued to create Kunstlieder well into the 20th century.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 Lieder!

Mondnacht (Moonlit Night) – Robert Schumann

Based on the renowned German Romantic poet Joseph von Eichendorff’s ‘Mondnacht’, this Lied is a perfect example of the Romantic spirit in Germany. The lyrics depict a speaker yearning for some form of transcendental beauty evoked in the world of nature. Watching the sky widening he compares and projects his own life and feelings into the scenery. Schumann’s music similarly captures the dream-like feeling and gently increases the intensity as the speaker gets more involved.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau:

Ständchen (Love Song) – Franz Schubert

You can’t really have a top 10 list of Lieder without at least one Schubert in it. Here’s my first. This one is another prime example of Romanticism, although the poem itself is less well-known than Eichendorff’s. It’s quite a simple love song, actually, in which the speaker again evokes nature and begs his lover to fulfil him. Slightly old-fashioned, certainly, and the lyrics wouldn’t be significant if it weren’t for the sheer gorgeous music that Schubert presents, bringing Ludwig Rellstab’s poem to life. Just listen for yourself – it’s absolutely delightful.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Peter Schreier:

Tagebuch eines Verschollenen (Diary of one who disappeared) – Leoš Janáček

Perhaps my most unusual entry, and it’s actually a cycle, rather than an individual lied, Tagebuch eines Verschollenen is based on a text by Josef Kalda, composed in 1917-1919. It’s more dramatic than lyrical, containing a plot in which a rich farmer’s son falls in love with a gypsy. Ostracised by society, he begins a new life with her in nature; his family disowns him. Several days after he disappears they find a chamber with his poetry which confesses his doings. The music is conservative in comparison with the composer’s operas, but nevertheless very successful.

No English lyrics available, though the section titles can be found here.

Here performed by John Heuzenroeder, Adriana Bastidas Gamboa, Justyna Samborska, Judith Thielsen, and Maarja Purga:

Die Uhr (The Clock) – Carl Loewe

Based on a little-known poem by the little-known poet Johann Gabriel Seidl, Carl Loewe’s ‘Die Uhr’ is a general contemplation about time and how we measure it using a watch. Loewe isn’t one of the most-beloved Lied-composers, but in this one he displays a finesse in changing the mood quickly from regular and ongoing, via more dramatical elements when talking about the death of the speaker’s father and jubilant when contemplating the birth of his child. During his lifetime Loewe was more beloved than he is now, having popularised many ballads as a sub-form of the Kunstlied.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Hermann Prey:

In der Fremde (In the Strange Land) – Robert Schumann

Another composition based on Eichendorff, Schumann’s ‘In der Fremde’ is a beautiful musical rendition of explorations relating to abandonment, solitude and meaninglessness. It’s a lot bleaker than ‘Mondnacht’ both in its themes and musical presentation. Here we have an abundance of minor keys and a generally pessimistic take on the Romantic sensibility, giving you an overall feeling of what it would be like to be hopelessly abandoned  in this world. Even the second stanza, which seems, at first, to be calmer in nature, ultimately represents a longing for death rather than a way out of the situation.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau:

Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) – Franz Schubert

Another Schubert, and this one is actually composed to the lyrics from Goethe’s Faust, when Gretchen contemplates her never-ending love for the titular hero. This one is particularly brilliant: the piano accompaniment mirrors the ‘rolling’ sound one would imagine on a spinning wheel. It is fast-paced and dramatical more than lyrical and provides a perfect sense of the desperation Gretchen feels at this time, realising that she can no longer live without Faust. Knowing of her tragic outcome provides us with a particular sense of mournfulness.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Jessye Norman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeKgNMKcUng

Wesendonck Lieder (Songs of Wesendonck) – Richard Wagner

While Wagner is definitely more at home in the world of opera than that of the Kunstlied, his Wesendock Lieder are nevertheless beautiful to listen to. He wrote them while working on Tristan und Isolde, so he was already very accomplished at this point in his career. They are based on the poems of his friend – and part-time muse – Mathilde Wiesendonck. Altogether, they invoke a sense of unfulfilled love and Wagner’s skill in dramatical renditions of music – all things he was simultaneously building into Tristan und Isolde, of course.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Waltraud Meier:

Les illuminations (The Illuminations) – Benjamin Britten

The newest entry on this list, Britten’s Les illuminations are based on part of Arthur Rimbaud’s collection of the same name. The poems – published in the 1870s – can be considered a dreamlike precursor to surrealism in their hallucination-like evocation of their themes, tackling many different subjects throughout the collection. Britten’s music is particularly efficient in highlighting that, managing to capture a range of moods within the roughly 20 minutes of runtime. Always eerie and powerful, curious and beautiful, they are definitely worth checking out.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Ian Bostridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XQGHOfIdYY

Der Erlkönig (The Erl King)– Franz Schubert

Final one by Schubert, I promise! Very popular in general, it nevertheless needs to be said that this is very unusual for a Kunstlied in that it is entirely dramatic in its telling of a single narrative. It’s based on Goethe’s ballad of the same name which tells the story of a father trying to bring his sick and hallucinating child to the doctor in the middle of a stormy night. The brilliance of the music is undeniable; it always feels urgent and tragic and moves seamlessly between the four different characters in evoking different moods (the narrator, the sombre father, the terrified child, the tempting hallucination of the Erlkönig).

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau:

Das Trunklied vom Jammer der Erde (The Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow) – Gustav Mahler

Alright – yes, I’ve written about this one before. But I just can’t help myself. Since it was composed at an important point in the history of art at the emergence of Modernism, Mahler’s Kunstlied captures the general Zeitgeist perfectly in a rendition which is extremely effective, pessimistic, and dramatic in its music. However, there’s little I can do here to capture the general magnificence of this Lied after having written so extensively about it elsewhere – so just go and listen to it, or else read my other post should you think it worth your time.

Find the translated lyrics here.

Here performed by René Kollo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypf4kGQ1IGQ

Closing words

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