I love the theatre
detrol Another song from the Des Knaben Wunderhorn set, this one imagines St. Antony of Padua preaching to the fish. “His words are immediately translated into their thoroughly tipsy-sounding language,” explained the composer, referring to the squawking high clarinet (no one brought out the clarinet’s potential for shrill parody as well as Mahler). “They all come swimming up to him... I swear while I was composing I really kept imagining I saw them sticking their stiff, immovable necks out from the water, and gazing up at St Anthony with their stupid faces... not one of them is an iota the wiser for it. But only a few people will understand my satire on mankind.”