Mahler 1st

[tjguitar]

I love Mahler's 1st Symphony. We played it in the school orchestra a few years back...Specifically I like the extensive use of brass, especially in the first and fourth movements. Is that typical of Mahler or limited to this early composition?  What other composers write a lot for brass within symphonies?

[mahlertitan]

I love Mahler's 1st Symphony. We played it in the school orchestra a few years back...Specifically I like the extensive use of brass, especially in the first and fourth movements.

Glad to hear it, I love it too, for the exact same reasons.

Is that typical of Mahler or limited to this early composition?

yes, and it also occurred in his 3rd, 5th, 7th symphonies. While the first is an "early" work of his, his style has pretty much solidified.

What other composers write a lot for brass within symphonies?

well, the German late romantics, leading the way is Anton Bruckner, I do hope that you have heard of him (it depends how long you have been in this forum), if you haven't, do check out his symphonies.

But, in the meantime, explore Mahler a little further, and if you have questions or needs, PM me.'

-MT

[Bonehelm]

MT said it very well, I'd just like to add that Bruckner and Mahler used brass in different ways..Mahler was famous for his distant, off-stage horn/trumpet calls and muted instruments while Bruckner is known for his brass chorales and their out-standing character in tutti passages.

[tjguitar]

I am sadly not very familiar with Bruckner at all...I'll have to investigate further when funds allow.   

[The new erato]

If you love brass, try the scherzo from Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony.

[mahlertitan]

Don't forget Richard Wetz, our Bruckner copycat.

[Boris_G]

If you love brass, try the scherzo from Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony.

Why that movement?

[M forever]

MT said it very well, I'd just like to add that Bruckner and Mahler used brass in different ways..Mahler was famous for his distant, off-stage horn/trumpet calls and muted instruments while Bruckner is known for his brass chorales and their out-standing character in tutti passages.

There is also plenty of unmuted, onstage, and rather outstanding brass action all over the place in the Mahler symphonies.

The one who clearly led the way here was Wagner. Wagner's brass writing was highly innovative, inventive and demanding. He set completely new standards for orchestral brass playing and led the way for all who came after him, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss all owe many elements of their particular brass writing styles to Wagner.

[Boris_G]

There is also plenty of unmuted, onstage, and rather outstanding brass action all over the place in the Mahler symphonies.

The one who clearly led the way here was Wagner. Wagner's brass writing was highly innovative, inventive and demanding. He set completely new standards for orchestral brass playing and led the way for all who came after him, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss all owe many elements of their particular brass writing styles to Wagner.

Ah, thanks. You've actually just answered my question about the Tchaikovsky movement!

[M forever]

I did? How?

[Boris_G]

I did? How?

Sorry, it wasn't clear from my quoting your post - the answer was implied by Bonehelm's post which you quoted:

Mahler was famous for his distant, off-stage horn/trumpet calls and muted instruments

The Tchaikovsky brass passage is neither off-stage nor (so far as I know) muted, but it gives a very good impression of an off-stage band (a wonderful instance of shifting perspectives, I think after the chirpy 'forestage' woodwind). Or have I still missed the point of Erato's post?

[M forever]

I don't think they make an impression of being offstage at all. They are very onstage, physically and musically. The brass writing here seems to me to make allusions to the kind of band music derived from popular opera and ballet titles one could apparently hear played in pavilions in parks on Sundays in those times.

[Boris_G]

I don't think they make an impression of being offstage at all. They are very onstage, physically and musically. The brass writing here seems to me to make allusions to the kind of band music derived from popular opera and ballet titles one could apparently hear played in pavilions in parks on Sundays in those times.

Yes, except that kind of band music wouldn't be played sotto voce in 'real life', so Tchaikovsky actually is creating the effect of a band playing somewhere in the background (or, if you like, souding 'less immediate' in what is presumably an outdoor setting).

[M forever]

You are thinking of a different kind of band music. What I mean is not just loud marches and hymns. Those bands had a very wide repertoire which included a lot of arrangements of popular operatic titles, numbers from ballets, all sorts of things. A lot of these pieces were not loud at all, many of them could be very "graceful", for instance numbers from popular ballets. I don't think you can hear that kind of band music in many places anymore, maybe nowhere.

I don't know if Tchaikowsky wanted to create a "background" effect and my personal assocition with the pavilion in the park on Sunday is certainly not an attempt to explain the music or give it a program, it's really just an association based on what kind of setting I would picture that kind of music to be played in, based on what I read about that and some recordings of this kind of music I heard. But those are all vague associations, and I don't think Tchaikovsky wanted to make a programmatic reference by that, certainly not in the way Mahler did in his muted and offstage writing. I think in Tchaikovsky's case it is just a stylistic reference to this type of "light and gallant" brass playing. I don't think he intended any kind of offstage or distance effect here.

I don't think erato meant that either. I think he just meant this is a nice brass passage in general, and indeed it is, especially in the way the brass echoes and at the same time contrasts the string pizzicati. In fact, what the brass is playing here is material that you would normally hear orchestrated as string pizzicato in, say, a typical ballet score. Then in the band arrangement of that same number, it would sound like this, and Tchaikovsky brings these two sound worlds together in a very interesting and refreshing way.

[Boris_G]

You are thinking of a different kind of band music. What I mean is not just loud marches and hymns. Those bands had a very wide repertoire which included a lot of arrangements of popular operatic titles, numbers from ballets, all sorts of things. A lot of these pieces were not loud at all, many of them could be very "graceful", for instance numbers from popular ballets. I don't think you can hear that kind of band music in many places anymore, maybe nowhere.

I don't know if Tchaikowsky wanted to create a "background" effect and my personal assocition with the pavilion in the park on Sunday is certainly not an attempt to explain the music or give it a program, it's really just an association based on what kind of setting I would picture that kind of music to be played in, based on what I read about that and some recordings of this kind of music I heard. But those are all vague associations, and I don't think Tchaikovsky wanted to make a programmatic reference by that, certainly not in the way Mahler did in his muted and offstage writing. I think in Tchaikovsky's case it is just a stylistic reference to this type of "light and gallant" brass playing. I don't think he intended any kind of offstage or distance effect here.

I don't think erato meant that either. I think he just meant this is a nice brass passage in general, and indeed it is, especially in the way the brass echoes and at the same time contrasts the string pizzicati. In fact, what the brass is playing here is material that you would normally hear orchestrated as string pizzicato in, say, a typical ballet score. Then in the band arrangement of that same number, it would sound like this, and Tchaikovsky brings these two sound worlds together in a very interesting and refreshing way.

I absolutely go along with what you say about the brass echoing the pizzicato strings, which is certainly a piquant effect. But I can't say I was convinced by your suggestion that the brass music is meant to be 'light and gallant', and on checking what Tchaikovsky wrote to Nadezhda von Meck about that very passage I find he spoke of 'somewhere in the distance, a military procession passed'. It could be, of course, that Tchaikovsky was condescending to his patroness by making up a programme for her, but I think his description fits the character of the music very well. But anyway, I've enjoyed thinking further on this passage, and I'm grateful to both you and to Erato for reminding me of it.

[M forever]

Well, does a military procession necessarily have to be heavy and loud? Can't it be "gallant", young dashing tsarist officers and a band in chic uniforms rather than the 32nd Red Army tank division thundering down the Red Square?
Thanks for checking that passage. That is highly interesting. I didn't know that Tchaikovsky had a "programmatic" idea for this. Or maybe it isn't a "programmatic idea" in the sense that the music describes a program, but more an athmospheric association or program. Could be that he just made that up for von Meck, sounds like it actualy, but it still reveals what kind of association he had in mind. What I don't quite understand though is why the piano brass writing "in the distance" is so closely associated with the virtuoso woodwind writing "showing off" clearly in the "foreground". Well, I guess it's because it is really not "describing a scene", he is just playing with stylistic elements. What did he write about the rest of the movement, the pizzicato passages?

[Boris_G]

M, I'm sure you're absolutely right that Tchaikovsky meant the band music to be 'atmospheric association' rather than too specifically programmatic.

Here's the entire paragraph (as published in David Brown's full-length Tchaikovsky biography):

'The third movement expresses no definite feeling. It is made up of capricious arabesques, of the elusive images which rush past in the imagination when you have drunk a little wine and experience the first stage of intoxication. Your spirit is neither cheerful nor yet sad. You think of nothing; you give free rein to your imagination - and for some reason it began to paint strange pictures. Among these you suddenly recalled a picture of drunken peasants and a street song... Next, somewhere in the distance, a military procession passed. This [movement is made up of] these completely disjointed images which rush past in your head when you have fallen asleep. They have nothing in common with reality; they are strange, wild, and disjointed.'

[M forever]

Ah! Capricious arabesques! Very nice.