Most Tragic Symphony (four choices allowed)

[Mahlerian]

And as I stated, this is what I feel from the 9th and there's no need in trying to convince me, or anyone for that matter, to share your opinion. Can't help what I hear in the music regardless of what the facts present.

I'm not trying to convince you to change your opinion about the music, only to show you that Mahler did not know the end was coming (or if he did, he neither acted like it nor told anyone anything to that effect).  This is a misconception that has been based on the distortions of Alma and others, perpetuated by Bernstein and popular commentators.

The Ninth cannot be made more meaningful or less meaningful by Mahler's life circumstances at the time of its composition.  The music remains identical, and its meaning likewise.  It is only our perspective on that meaning that may (or may not) shift.

[Turner]

I don't understand what's tragic about Mahler's Ninth.  It doesn't end in the minor, it doesn't end in despair, it concludes in rarefied serenity and acceptance.  All of the stuff about Mahler writing his farewell to the world is BS, as we know for a fact he had no clue that he would die in only 2 years.

To me, like I said of Pettersson´s 6th, it´s not necessarily the question of the music´s progression towards the final part, but the overall language and expression, the staged environment, in a work. This is of course less in accordance with "tragic" in the strict sense of the Greek & Western theatrical tradition. But if sorrow, darkness, resignation or absurdities abound in the music, I still think it´s fair to use the word as a general, layman´s characterization.

There´s an extreme example in Nørgård´s symphony no. 4, inspired by the schizophrenic artist Wölffli, where a solo violin in the last few seconds plays a lyrical theme, as a small appendix, in a predominantly dark world of extreme contrasts, where "no idyll exists without catastrophic disturbances". Nørgård himself wrote of the symphony´s programme, quoting Knut Hamsum:"A prisoner on his tumbrel is wheeled on the scaffold. A nail chafes at his behind, he moves over and feels more comfortable."   

[vandermolen]

I haven't weighed in on this matter yet, but these spring to mind almost immediately:

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8
Weinberg: Symphony No. 5
Pettersson: Symphony No. 7
Mahler: Symphony No. 9

And about time too! 
Great choices John - could have selected them all myself. The Weinberg is a particularly appropriate choice as is the Pettersson. In fact they all are and all are works that I love.

[vandermolen]

I don't understand what's tragic about Mahler's Ninth.  It doesn't end in the minor, it doesn't end in despair, it concludes in rarefied serenity and acceptance.  All of the stuff about Mahler writing his farewell to the world is BS, as we know for a fact he had no clue that he would die in only 2 years.

I'm sure that there's a terrific section in the opening movement (especially in the Klemperer recording) which is Mahler imagining his own funeral - although maybe I've been too influenced by the Ken Russell film!

[Mirror Image]

I'm not trying to convince you to change your opinion about the music, only to show you that Mahler did not know the end was coming (or if he did, he neither acted like it nor told anyone anything to that effect).  This is a misconception that has been based on the distortions of Alma and others, perpetuated by Bernstein and popular commentators.

The Ninth cannot be made more meaningful or less meaningful by Mahler's life circumstances at the time of its composition.  The music remains identical, and its meaning likewise.  It is only our perspective on that meaning that may (or may not) shift.

A composer doesn't always express his opinion with words. Mahler doesn't strike me as someone who talked about everything under the sun including what he was feeling within himself. His music did plenty of the speaking for him.

From Mahler himself:

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

I don't really care what the facts are, because, like I said, not everyone discusses their innermost thoughts through day-to-day conversation or even deeper conversation.

[Mirror Image]

And about time too! 
Great choices John - could have selected them all myself. The Weinberg is a particularly appropriate choice as is the Pettersson. In fact they all are and all are works that I love.

Thanks, Jeffrey. Apparently, I was wrong for choosing Mahler's 9th, though.

[Mahlerian]

A composer doesn't always express his opinion with words. Mahler doesn't strike me as someone who talked about everything under the sun including what he was feeling within himself. His music did plenty of the speaking for him.

From Mahler himself:

I don't really care what the facts are, because, like I said, not everyone discusses their innermost thoughts through day-to-day conversation or even deeper conversation.

Yes, and "I feel that my death is coming" is in fact something that can be expressed in words!  That we're talking about it at all means that it isn't the type of thing Mahler meant by that statement.  What Mahler meant by that quote is that he was not writing music that could be expressed programmatically.  He had a very low opinion of the mundanely descriptive qualities of Strauss's tone poems and positioned himself in opposition to that school, so to speak, and it is in that context that the quote in question appears.

Mahler had long had a sense of mortality, including his own.  The funeral march that opens the (ultimately optimistic) Fifth Symphony was written after a very close brush with death, and Das Lied von der Erde after the passing of his beloved daughter.  I would even agree that death is present throughout the Ninth: there is indeed the funereal section of the first movement, and I would note the quotation from the Kindertotenlieder on the last page.  What I don't agree with is either that, in Mahler's mind, death was necessarily connected with tragedy (it certainly was not; although more or less an agnostic as regards institutional religion, he believed in an afterlife), or that the Ninth is about his own death (if it was, there is no external or internal evidence pointing to this).

[Androcles]

Interesting. I don't really hear any tragedy in Mahler at all. Plenty of existential angst, and in the last two symphonies a sense of it being resolved, but no real tragedy. And I'd even say the same for the sixth, although thats the piece that comes closest. The end is certainly devastating, but its not quite that beautiful expression of the hopelessness of the protagonist....

Pettersson seems similar to me, even if informed by the horrors of the 20th century Neruda's poetry. As some have said, Symphony No. 6 is again the one that comes closest.

And I really like both composers.

Now Shostakovich 8 - thats tragic, although the most tragic thing Shostakovich wrote, in my view is the 3rd String Quartet. Miaskovsky 6  or Tchaikovsky 6? What is it about 6th symphonies? Russians are quite good at tragedy. Perhaps its the Byzantine/Greek influence on Orthodox culture. I agree that Miaskovsky 3 is certainly tragic too, but not quite such a powerful statement, perhaps.

Non Russian example - For me Elgar's Second works as a tragic piece, dedicated to the memory of King Edward VII, and perhaps the second movement of Bax's First.

[vandermolen]

Thanks, Jeffrey. Apparently, I was wrong for choosing Mahler's 9th, though.

No such thing as 'wrong' here I think - we just need to respect the views of others. Speaking personally I don't think that Mahler was unaware of the significance of 'No.9'. Vaughan Williams too - Michael Kennedy the biographer of VW said that there was no 'conscious leave taking' in Symphony 9. I don't agree at all and believe that it is a self-consciously valedictory score and, indeed tragic. Love those harps at the end following three great waves of sound.

[Mirror Image]

Yes, and "I feel that my death is coming" is in fact something that can be expressed in words!  That we're talking about it at all means that it isn't the type of thing Mahler meant by that statement.  What Mahler meant by that quote is that he was not writing music that could be expressed programmatically.  He had a very low opinion of the mundanely descriptive qualities of Strauss's tone poems and positioned himself in opposition to that school, so to speak, and it is in that context that the quote in question appears.

Mahler had long had a sense of mortality, including his own.  The funeral march that opens the (ultimately optimistic) Fifth Symphony was written after a very close brush with death, and Das Lied von der Erde after the passing of his beloved daughter.  I would even agree that death is present throughout the Ninth: there is indeed the funereal section of the first movement, and I would note the quotation from the Kindertotenlieder on the last page.  What I don't disagree with is either that, in Mahler's mind, death was necessarily connected with tragedy (it certainly was not; although more or less an agnostic as regards institutional religion, he believed in an afterlife), or that the Ninth is about his own death (if it was, there is no external or internal evidence pointing to this).

You sure are putting up a fight for something that I merely expressed in passing. I chose this symphony because I believe it's tragic. You're the only one who has now yammered on about how you don't understand why the symphony is associated with such opinions. In fact, you're the one who brought it all up! The fact that there are several people that do associate this symphony as being of a tragic nature speaks strongly of the music itself and not the way Mahler was feeling during this time in his life or what he had gone through in order to get to this point in his own writing. The facts are just the facts, but people can't help the way they react to the music and what kinds of emotions they associate with the music regardless of whether said emotions were intended or not. So, please, just drop it.

[Ken B]

You sure are putting up a fight for something that I merely expressed in passing. I chose this symphony because I believe it's tragic. You're the only one who has now yammered on about how you don't understand why the symphony is associated with such opinions. In fact, you're the one who brought it all up! The fact that there are several people that do associate this symphony as being of a tragic nature speaks strongly of the music itself and not the way Mahler was feeling during this time in his life or what he had gone through in order to get to this point in his own writing. The facts are just the facts, but people can't help the way they react to the music and what kinds of emotions they associate with the music regardless of whether said emotions were intended or not. So, please, just drop it.

We all have reactions to music. Those I think matter more than what biographers, or even the composers, say about how, when, or why the music was written. You could find a letter from Sibelius explaining why his Fourth was joyful and I would still find it bleak.

[Mirror Image]

No such thing as 'wrong' here I think - we just need to respect the views of others. Speaking personally I don't think that Mahler was unaware of the significance of 'No.9'. Vaughan Williams too - Michael Kennedy the biographer of VW said that there was no 'conscious leave taking' in Symphony 9. I don't agree at all and believe that it is a self-consciously valedictory score and, indeed tragic. Love those harps at the end following three great waves of sound.

I'll have to revisit RVW's 9th (his symphony cycle is one of the best to have ever been written IMHO). To make a further side note, I think it's an absolute shame that RVW's symphonies haven't really traveled all that well. I'd love to hear the Scandinavians tackle these symphonies. Are you reading this Sondergard, Dausgaard, Aadland, or Lindberg?

[Mirror Image]

Mahler 9

Spot on, dude.

[Mahlerian]

You sure are putting up a fight for something that I merely expressed in passing. I chose this symphony because I believe it's tragic. You're the only one who has now yammered on about how you don't understand why the symphony is associated with such opinions. In fact, you're the one who brought it all up!

Yes, because like I said, I've found the opinion that the work is tragic, whenever it is brought up, as by Bernstein, to be associated with misconceptions about Mahler and his music.

I'm not fighting your opinion, much less your emotional reaction to the work (didn't I say that that wasn't what I was talking about?).  I'm trying to show you that the basis that you are giving to support your opinion is faulty.

I don't believe the work is tragic, though it is certainly extremely powerful.  My own thoughts are more in line with La Grange (and could there be anyone who knows more about Mahler???):

Like that of Das Lied von der Erde, this ending is in no way pessimistic or tinged with despair.  Whether one discovers a message of hope, a farewell of heart-rending tenderness or the serene acceptance of fate, it cannot be denied that this final Adagio brings with it a sense of supreme fulfillment, an ideal catharsis.

[Mirror Image]

Yes, because like I said, I've found the opinion that the work is tragic, whenever it is brought up, as by Bernstein, to be associated with misconceptions about Mahler and his music.

I'm not fighting your opinion, much less your emotional reaction to the work (didn't I say that that wasn't what I was talking about?).  I'm trying to show you that the basis that you are giving to support your opinion is faulty.

I don't believe the work is tragic, though it is certainly extremely powerful.  My own thoughts are more in line with La Grange (and could there be anyone who knows more about Mahler???):

Okay and my own thoughts are more inline with Bernstein's. See, how that worked? We both have a differing opinion of the work. Case closed.

[Mahlerian]

Okay and my own thoughts are more inline with Bernstein's. See, how that worked? We both have a differing opinion of the work. Case closed.

But Bernstein was working off of disproven information which has since been superseded by a wider perspective on Mahler's life and character.  You can't just expect someone who says that Beethoven was 100% deaf when he wrote the Eroica and uses it as the basis of their arguments to be accepted simply because other people in the past believed it.

[Androcles]

How about KA Hartmann Symphony No. 1, 'An Attempt at a Requiem'.

The intentions there are certainly very tragic. Does anyone see this as something that could fit on their list?

[Mirror Image]

I'll add that the first performance of the 9th I ever heard was Tennstedt's on EMI. This was seven years ago. Even as I sat listening to this symphony, I was overcome with the feeling that this symphony was much more notes affixed to a piece of notation paper (to paraphrase a great Takemitsu quote). I sensed some kind of resignation in this music. Whether it was Mahler's own resignation from the world or merely a musical statement on the grand cycle of life, I didn't know and I'll never know. I knew nothing about Mahler's life except a little biographical information, but I certainly did not know where he was at this point in his life and I certainly didn't know what kind of mindset he had upon the writing of the 9th. I simply took away from the music what I perceived to be there. I would never make a ridiculous assertion that these thoughts of my own were, indeed, factual. I will, however, say that these thoughts about what I had experienced are simply my own feelings towards the music and reading Mahlerian's own thoughts and reading what Mahler actually did indeed say during this time of writing his 9th, doesn't, and will never, change my view of the symphony as being one of the most profoundly tragic pieces of music that I know hence why I chose it.

[Mahlerian]

I'll add that the first performance of the 9th I ever heard was Tennstedt's on EMI. This was seven years ago. Even as I sat listening to this symphony, I was overcome with the feeling that this symphony was much more notes affixed to a piece of notation paper (to paraphrase a great Takemitsu quote).

Do you think I don't feel that way?  I believe that the Ninth is a profound and beautiful work and the fact that Mahler had no idea about his coming death does nothing whatsoever to diminish that.

My own view of the work as not being tragic is influenced by the way I hear the piece as ending in glorious and serene resolution of the piece's conflicts.  Also, I will admit that I think that Bernstein's view (his expressed view, not his musical interpretation) cheapens the work by narrowing its meaning, as well as by distorting Mahler's personality and aesthetic.

[Mirror Image]

But Bernstein was working off of disproven information which has since been superseded by a wider perspective on Mahler's life and character.  You can't just expect someone who says that Beethoven was 100% deaf when he wrote the Eroica and uses it as the basis of their arguments to be accepted simply because other people in the past believed it.

Read my above post. All is explained there.