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The pencil heading,
squeezed in at the top of the page, was presumably a later
addition. The phrase is adapted from the Gospel according to
St. John, v. 5 (Vulgate): 'et
lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt' ['The
Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it
not']. On 29 June Mahler used the phrase in the announcement of
the completion of the composition draft of the fifth movement (GMB2a,
136;
GMSL,
154–5):¹
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Lieber Fritz! Melde hiemit die glückliche Ankunft
eines gesunden, kräftigen, letzten Satzes der II.
Vater und Kind befinden sich den Umständen
angemessen; letzteres ist noch nicht außer Gefahr.
Es erhielt in der heiligen Taufe den Namen: „Lux
lucet in tenebris". |
Beg to report safe delivery of a strong, healthy
final movement of the Second. Father and child as well as can be
expected; the latter not yet out of danger.
At the christening it was given the name 'Lux
lucet in tenebris'. |
The dating of this draft
text relative to
AL3
is uncertain and contrary views have been taken by Edward R.
Reilly (ERBH,
62) and, apparently, the editors
of
NKGII. Reilly believed that
AL3
to be the earlier of the two documents, chiefly
because of the absence of the crucial lines:
O
Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer!
Dir bin ich entrungen!
O
Tod, du Allbezwinger!
Nun bist du bezwungen!
These are present in AL2
and the text as set, so their omission is perplexing if
AL3
post-dates AL2. In a footnote (ERBH,
61, fn. 14), Reilly also suggested that 'it is most
interesting that a thematic link that one finds between the song
and the finale in just that passage that was added by Mahler to
his text [i.e. in AL2]', which, were it the case, might
also offer
some slight support for J.B. Foerster's report that the decision
to include Urlicht in the Symphony was a late one, made
only after the work's finale had been completed. But one might
respond that the reference to the music of Urlicht
(b.660ff) is a setting not of the four 'missing' lines absent
from
AL3, but text that is present,
albeit in variant forms, in both AL2 and
AL3:
[Mit
Flügeln, die ich mir errungen]In
heissem Liebesstrebenwerd' ich
entschwebenzum
Licht, zu dem kein Aug' gedrungen!
On the wider issue of the chronological ordering of the libretto
drafts, some observations can be offered in support of
the alternative ordering of the drafts adopted here and in
NKGII.2:
• AL2 retains a closer connection with the
Mahler's original source of inspiration, by ending with a return
to the opening stanza by Klopstock;
AL3
drops this idea and
instead uses stanza VI of AL2 as the
concluding text, the solution adopted in the text as set.
• The assignment in
AL3
of the third stanza to the alto (rather than
the soprano, as in AL2) was adopted in the final setting.
•
AL3 adopts revisions made in AL2
(e.g. stanza IV, line 2)
•
S5.6
adopts revisions made in
AL3
(e.g. stanza III, line 2)
None of these observations is decisive, and because of the
unavailability of most of Mahler's composition draft [SS5]
and the entire orchestral draft [OD5] the issue of the chronology of these text drafts
cannot be resolved at present.
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