What do you like about Mahler?

[Franco]

I was inspired to ask this from another thread, and I can't really answer it because I don't listen to Mahler much, but do like the 5th Symphony, and if I had to say, it would be the evocative quality of the music in how he seems to be expressing a nostalgic bittersweet feeling (especially in the 4th movement) for a way of life that was disappearing.  This is my own impression and I can't be specific - just what I get from the music.

But, what do others, those who love Mahler and listen to his music a lot - what do you find in his music that is unique to Mahler?

[Bulldog]

More than any other composer, Mahler makes me feel nature.

[greg]

I thinking about writing a list, applied in actual music theory- I've been studying these reasons for a few years, after all. 
Hmm... where to start...

[Josquin des Prez]

In his music one can find a refinement of the formal freedom of Liszt and the orchestrational genius of Berlioz combined with a logical sense of development which rivals that of Beethoven. The main difference is that with Beethoven there is a sense of constant stress and release in the way he manipulates form. Everything relates to the whole and is somehow borne from it. With Mahler, its all about the microcosm, the underlying formal structure being so large and spacious that sometimes it doesn't even seem to be there at all (the effect is illusory of course, since the structure is as perfectly crafted as anything by Beethoven).

Personally, when i think of Mahler i just think of modernity, not in the sense modernity is understood today, but something unique to Mahler which however correlates to modern culture. I don't see nature in his works, i actually find his music relatively urban. Mahler seemed to have a rather optimistic view of the future, there's no hint of the psychological nightmare expressed in the music of Schoenberg, or the writings of Kafka. Its hard to believe so many composers in the early 20th century took from Mahler considering none of them appeared to be sharing the optimism of the first. I heard some people refer to him as the "father" of modern music. Perhaps, but whatever it is he fathered it seems that the apple felt a bit too far from the tree. Mahler's own modernism died with him, severed at the root before it could develop into a new cultural entity.

[Franco]

Personally, when i think of Mahler i just think of modernity, not in the sense modernity is understood today, but something unique to Mahler which however correlates to modern culture.

[...]

Mahler seemed to have a rather optimistic view of the future, there's no hint of the psychological nightmare expressed in the music of Schoenberg, or the writings of Kafka.

I wonder what you mean by "modernism" if not how it is understood today.  I don't hear optimism, granted I have not studied his music in depth, only listening to most of the symphonies and songs, and only really listening in depth to the 5th - but still, what I hear is a kind of grieving for the end of the way of life of the 19th century as the 20th century and its mechanistic (modern) outlook was beginning to express itself.

Please expand your thoughts on how you perceive his optimism and modernism.

[springrite]

Grand scale chamber music.

[DavidW]

I also agree with JdP, I also hear optimism in his music.  Most of his symphonies start dark but end on a brighter note, the 6th is an exception.  The 9th and Das Lied von der Erde don't reach a bright ending, but there is catharsis and acceptance.  You don't find bright endings or catharsis in many of the modern works that followed him, including Shostakovich.

I also don't see nature in his music at all.  The militaristic fanfares that are all over his symphonies prevent me from seeing them as pastoral works, even the third symphony.

I see his symphonies as portraits of emotional turmoil.  

[Bulldog]

I also don't see nature in his music at all.  

Not even in the final movement of his 4th symphony?

[DavidW]

Not even in the final movement of his 4th symphony?

Nope, only heaven.

[springrite]

Nope, only heaven.

Well,  if not nature and if not human nature, then certainly super-nature.

[Sergeant Rock]

I don't see nature in his works...

I also don't see nature in his music at all.  The militaristic fanfares that are all over his symphonies prevent me from seeing them as pastoral works, even the third symphony.

"The Third is a great Hymn to Nature." Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler

In a letter to critc Richard Batka, Mahler says of his Third Symphony, it is "nothing but the sound of nature (Naturlaut). It's aim is to express the very soul of nature." When Bruno Walter came to visit him at Steinbach, Mahler told him not to bother looking at the landscape because "it is all in my music."

We know he originally meant the first movement of the Titan to be the sound of nature in the spring, and there are frequent pastoral moments in the later symphonies, made quite clear by the cowbells which instantly take me to an Alpine landscape.

Sarge

[ChamberNut]

I like the cowbells in Mahler's symphonies. 

.....and much more!  0:)

[The new erato]

Nature, humor and small scale chamber textures from a big orchestra.

[Josquin des Prez]

Well, Mahler did say a symphony must contain everything, which i suppose includes pastoral moments and elegies to nature. I'm still of the opinion that his works have little relation to nature, at least from a typical pastoral point of view. What i do see in his music is nature in the larger sense. There is something in his music which to me evokes the entire universe. I remember reading that Mahler was very keen on the scientific discoveries of his day (which led to Einstein's theory of relativity and a new understanding of nature) and its likely those ideas influenced his art as well.

I wonder what you mean by "modernism" if not how it is understood today.  I don't hear optimism, granted I have not studied his music in depth, only listening to most of the symphonies and songs, and only really listening in depth to the 5th - but still, what I hear is a kind of grieving for the end of the way of life of the 19th century as the 20th century and its mechanistic (modern) outlook was beginning to express itself.

Please expand your thoughts on how you perceive his optimism and modernism.

Well, its kinda hard to explain. For me, the modernism of the early 20th century is an expression of the despair of a dying culture. With Mahler, there is nothing of the hopelessness and often ugliness of 20th century European art. In a way, he actually seems to celebrate this new mechanistic, modern outlook, as you say. Perhaps a manifestation of his optimism can be found in America, which at the time displayed no symptoms of the general malaise affecting Europe. I often even entertain the notion that, had he lived longer, and had America not been so taken by Afro-centric music he could have heralded a new national style unique to the continent, and in a way he might actually have done so, considering how much of Mahler can be found in the orchestral scores of Hollywood films. So when i listen to Mahler, i actually think of America more then i think of his Austrian heritage. Perhaps that his why Greg likes his music so much, since most Americans have experienced something of Mahler in one way or another.

[DavidW]

"The Third is a great Hymn to Nature." Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler

In a letter to critc Richard Batka, Mahler says of his Third Symphony, it is "nothing but the sound of nature (Naturlaut). It's aim is to express the very soul of nature." When Bruno Walter came to visit him at Steinbach, Mahler told him not to bother looking at the landscape because "it is all in my music."

We know he originally meant the first movement of the Titan to be the sound of nature in the spring, and there are frequent pastoral moments in the later symphonies, made quite clear by the cowbells which instantly take me to an Alpine landscape.

Sarge

You have me there.

[Papy Oli]

But, what do others, those who love Mahler and listen to his music a lot - what do you find in his music that is unique to Mahler?

This is probably not unique to Mahler but each symphony is like a journey in itself...definitely not always an easy one, even making you stop or give up along the way some of the time, but immensely rewarding when you eventually reach its end. So much so that you subsequently don't mind doing that journey again...and again. 

[greg]

With Mahler, its all about the microcosm, the underlying formal structure being so large and spacious that sometimes it doesn't even seem to be there at all (the effect is illusory of course, since the structure is as perfectly crafted as anything by Beethoven).

True- it's easy to sit and listen once to a symphony and say that it just wanders, but when you listen enough (and especially when you study the scores), you will see that nearly everywhere there is some motif at work (or several at the same time).

Personally, when i think of Mahler i just think of modernity, not in the sense modernity is understood today, but something unique to Mahler which however correlates to modern culture. I don't see nature in his works, i actually find his music relatively urban. Mahler seemed to have a rather optimistic view of the future, there's no hint of the psychological nightmare expressed in the music of Schoenberg, or the writings of Kafka. Its hard to believe so many composers in the early 20th century took from Mahler considering none of them appeared to be sharing the optimism of the first. I heard some people refer to him as the "father" of modern music. Perhaps, but whatever it is he fathered it seems that the apple felt a bit too far from the tree. Mahler's own modernism died with him, severed at the root before it could develop into a new cultural entity.

I would just consider some of his symphonies optimistic, others not so much. 

And I would also say that I hear nature in some of his works, but not in others... (for me, I might "hear nature" more in Brahms and Bruckner, typically).

I think the reason why Mahler's style pretty much died with him (despite occasional later influences, that don't really even sound like him anyways) is because he wasn't as progressive as Wagner or Liszt, who Schoenberg was influenced by more- and composers after him were mainly influenced by Schoenberg.

I wonder what music would sound like if Schoenberg were never born and Mahler lived an extra 50 years, and became extremely influential. Honestly, that's more or less my goal in writing music- to create a style that would sound like that scenario. 

[Josquin des Prez]

and your experience & knowledge of 20th century music (heck, music period) is obviously narrow & limited - so you shouldn't speak about it until you gain more experience first.

Believe me, i've had plenty of experience with it. Indeed, for the longest time i probably knew more about contemporary music then i knew about Romantic, Classical or Baroque. My problem with modern music is that it has no soul, something of which i became acutely aware as my depression progressed in this past several years. The more my life becomes seeped in despair, the more i have to rely on art as a mean to find comfort, and i found increasingly that contemporary art has a considerable damaging effect upon my mood, something i can no longer afford to tolerate, regardless of any intellectual attraction i may still have for this music. It is because of this that i also derive my notion of Mahler as a positivist, since his music rarely fails to put me in a good mood.

[greg]

Believe me, i've had plenty of experience with it. Indeed, for the longest time i probably knew more about contemporary music then i knew about Romantic, Classical or Baroque. My problem with modern music is that it has no soul, something of which i became acutely aware as my depression progressed in this past several years. The more my life becomes seeped in despair, the more i have to rely on art as a mean to find comfort, and i found increasingly that contemporary art has a considerable damaging effect upon my mood, something i can no longer afford to tolerate, regardless of any intellectual attraction i may still have for this music.

I find it enjoyable almost only when I'm in a good mood...

[Josquin des Prez]

I find it enjoyable almost only when I'm in a good mood...

Likewise, except now i'm almost never in a good mood so...