Hello (warning: long-winded introduction)

[Daedalus]

Hello – I thought I would write and introduce myself to the forum - so here it is, my introduction for your delectation (or something like that, anyway). 

I am a 25 year old postgraduate literature student living in Hertfordshire, just north of London, in the UK. I have been listening to classical music for one year and, therefore, still consider myself to be a novice. However, I have been learning quite quickly and listening, plus reading, a great deal. I have found the David Hurwitz Unlocking the Masters books to be a wonderful aid to understanding musical forms, expressions and ideas. The Rough Guide to Classic Music, Michael Steinberg's The Symphony, Schonberg's Lives of the Great Composers and many more have also been very helpful.

I began my exploration in classical music with Beethoven, buying and listening obsessively to a cheap symphony boxset by Sir Charles Mackerras and the LPO (my first classical buy!). Then I sort of worked my way backwards for a while through Mozart, Bach and Handel. I found that Baroque music didn't move me quite as much as classical and romantic symphony music, and so I moved forward to discover Brahms and Elgar. Then I sampled Mahler and Sibelius. I went to see some concerts including Beethoven's 9th (my first classical concert), then Mozart's clarinet concerto and piano concerto no. 25, then Beethoven's 7th, Mahler's 5th - pretty much all at the Barbican in London performed by the LSO. I enjoyed these concerts thoroughly.
My favourite pieces were Beethoven symphonies  5, 7 and 9, Brahms symphony 3, Elgar symphony 1, cello concerto, sea pictures, Mahler symphonies 1 and 5, Sibelius symphony 5.

As you can see, my early discoveries have been purely arbitrary and not particularly methodical. This is quite unlike me – I am a literature student and I have always had a certain level of obsessive compulsiveness. I have to completely understand a work of art and I prefer to read, or listen, in-depth and very slowly, than to rush through works that are meant to be savoured.
Therefore, last summer, I decided to create a little project for myself to work through the Gustav Mahler symphonies and read in-depth about his life. Mahler was the symphonist that I had enjoyed the most so far – I felt genuinely moved by the music of his fifth – it was so violent and anxious to begin with, yet ended up joyful and uplifting. I wanted more of this - I wanted more of the incredible orchestral colours, and especially the tempestuous percussion and brass.
Anyway, I read Mahler His Life Work and World by K. & H. Blaukopf. I began to listen to the symphonies, starting at the beginning with Symphony no.1, listening to each piece somewhere between 7 and 10 times until it had 'sunk in', i.e. until I felt I had appreciated it. I read David Hurwitz's guide to the Mahler symphonies alongside my listening, which I can highly recommend.

What a journey I have been on  I was breathless for the first three symphonies, it was like a story unfolding in front of me. When I came to the familiar 5th symphony, I still loved it, but I found afterwards that I liked the 6th symphony even more.

I have just finished (for now) listening to the 7th symphony and I am about to begin the 8th, which I will no doubt start tonight. I have been slowly working through each piece, savouring every note and immersing myself in the world of Mahler. I think I would certainly call myself a Mahlerite now.

I plan to do the same kind of project with Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius & Shostakovich, and then see where I end up from there. I suspect that I will continue to make fantastic discoveries throughout my lifetime now that I have found this wonderful world of music.

As such, I have a superficial understanding of music theory and I am endeavouring to learn more. I did learn the piano as a young boy and I wish that I had continued my study. Some of the theory has stayed with me and I intend to work on this in order to understand the music a little better. 

My greatest passion is literature, and I see literature and music as very similar art forms. I certainly believe that one must work hard to understand a great work of art, to appreciate its subtle and hidden meanings. I particularly enjoy complex modernist literature and I think that is one of the reasons I have enjoyed Mahler so much. He has the same kind of intense romanticism and complexity in music as many of the first modernist writers.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. I hope to learn a great deal from this forum, which I must confess I have been sneaking a look at for some time now. I am always shocked to see how much music you guys seem to know and love  I seem to take such a long time in listening to each new piece of music. I hope that you will take pity on me in my relative ignorance. I am convinced that all of you must be crazy and obsessed, and therefore I look forward to corresponding with you soon! 

Yours Faithfully,
Daedalus.

[Harry]

What a fine write up! Enjoyed reading that. You are very welcome to this forum, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

[springrite]

As a former English Literature major, let me say you did yourself proud with that intro!

Welcome!

[Daedalus]

Thanks Harry and Springrite for your kind welcome!

[The new erato]

Welcome.You will discover that there's lots of longwindedness on this forum, but you will soon learn to avoid him.

[greg]

anyone with a Mahler avatar is automatically my friend, Daedalus, just so ya know 

[Daedalus]

Thanks Ggggrrreeg - the feeling is mutual 

Cheers for the welcome erato - I have been reading the forum for a few months, on and off, mainly for information and advice, so I have the feeling that I know who you mean by that comment. Does Elgar have anything to do with the individual concerned? 

I forgot to mention that I am also trying to see the Mahler symphonies performed by live orchestras in the future. This year, already, I have seen the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev perform Symphony no. 1. I thought it was absolutely fantastic - he got everything just right as far as I'm concerned. The first movement was full of colour and the final hesitation at the end, between the timpani and the orchestra, was wonderfully drawn out without sounding ridiculous. The funeral march was very slow and sinister, just how I like it. The only thing that disappointed me was the finale, because I read that the horn players are supposed to stand up towards the end. It was still absolutely fantastic.

I have tickets to see Gergiev and the LSO perform Mahler's 2nd, 7th and 9th symphonies later this year. I can't wait!

Also, BBC Radio Three is going to be showcasing some of Gergiev's Mahler cycle this week on Performance on Three. Indeed, tomorrow night (monday) the performance will be of the concert that I attended a few weeks ago (Mahler's 1st). Well worth catching, if you have DAB or can access it through the internet.

Also, I just wanted to elucidate upon my idea that music and literature are similar artforms - they both rely fundamentally on an interaction between their form and content and they both function in similar ways. To read and to listen is to be immersed in a transient world, with colours, images, sounds passing quickly before your eyes and disappearing leaving only a faint trace. It is to have all of your senses provoked and stirred, somehow made even more significant by the fact that you are concentrating on just one sense at the moment of appreciation.

I have recently been reading James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses and the Mahler symphonies have been the soundtrack to my reading. Thus, I have been immersed in a world of complexity, brilliance and genius for the last few months, endeavouring to interpret and understand subtle and hidden meanings in Mahler and Joyce. They make a good couple, once you've had the chance to think about it. Both misunderstood intellectuals much abused during their lifetimes, both outsiders (Mahler the Jew, Joyce the exile), and both created complex and enormous works of art. They both believed in art in an intensely romantic way and would not allow anything to compromise their work. At this moment in time, I would say that my favourite music is the entire Mahler symphony cycle, and that Ulysses by James Joyce is the greatest and most incredible work I have ever read. Certainly, if I was shipwrecked on a desert island, doomed to spend eternity alone, I could see no better occupation than to study the symphonic works of Mahler and the literary works Joyce!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Hello, Daedalus!

Excellent introduction! I like your moniker. I am a (Dutch) Joycean and Mahlerian, too - good to see a kindred spirit. You touch on many things that have preoccupied me too for the last thirty years (Modernism, the Romantic view of art, the Jew in modernity), but it would take me too much time to go into these things now. I am a writer who has been obsessed by the relationship music-literature. I'm now writing a novel in which I apply musical principles - in this my great examples are Joyce and Andrey Bely (you must read his 'Petersburg', if you haven't done so already!)

Good to see you here.

Johan

[Daedalus]

Jezetha - Perhaps I didn't realise it but it is clear that I am a Joycean and a Mahlerite! A Joycean Mahlerite maybe? I am very curious about your writing and I would like to hear more about it. It sounds very interesting to me. Also, thank you for your welcome.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Jezetha - Perhaps I didn't realise it but it is clear that I am a Joycean and a Mahlerite! A Joycean Mahlerite maybe? I am very curious about your writing and I would like to hear more about it. It sounds very interesting to me. Also, thank you for your welcome.

I'll send you a PM (not Gordon Brown, but a Private Message) when I have more time. I'm busy finishing an important part of my novel. I think we could have an interesting conversation. There are some things you say that I really want to discuss with you. As they say - watch this space...

P.S. Two books that are very interesting are 'Joysprick', by Anthony Burgess, in which there is a chapter called (iirc) 'Musicalisation' and Ada Steinberg's 'Word and music in the novels of Andrey Bely', which is fascinating even if you can't read Russian because of the underlying principles. Bely, for instance, wrote four 'Symphonies' - these are musically structured novels. And I call my own novel a 'logophony'...

[Sean]

Deadalus, hi there. Repeated listening is the key to art music, you're certainly on the right lines there, as you obviously well know: I also don't like to move on until I'm happy that I've got the better of a piece- often it transforms completely in the mind, of course. All the core repertory which you're focussing on has to be revisited several times, I argue for x5 at least; I'd say this core of the vast empire of art music, our civilization's greatest achievement, is maybe 700 hours' worth, beyond which things remain extremely interesting, but the returns are less for the effort put in.

Not sure about Ulysses though! I'm no literary expert but did try to read this once, before giving up in some disgust, along with Proust and Woolf; however I'm sceptical about the entire high modernist project. Deadalus is the protagonist isn't he? (by the way there's a poster here with a very similar name).

[Daedalus]

Jeztha - I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sean - Yes, you're right about repeat listenings. I find that, as a I continue to listen, the form and content of a piece, and the way that they interact, becomes clearer and clearer. With Mahler, I have found repeated listens especially important, as each particular episode is often repeated in a more elaborate way, or sometimes with little resemblance to its previous apperance, apart from in terms of timbre and tempo. I found Mahler's 7th particuarly challenging actually, possibly the most difficult of his symphonies for me to 'digest' so far. It took around 4 or 5 listens before I had it 'worked out' so to speak. Strange really, because the form of the movements is quite symmetrical when you think about it.
As for Ulysses, I will have to disagree with you and state that it is simply fantastic. Joyce uses some very musical ideas actually, in terms of the language he uses and the organising principles or form of each section. Indeed, one whole chapter, 'Sirens', is supposed to be musical in terms of its form, structure and language use. I concede that it is one of the most frustrating books I have ever read but also, in compensation, one of the most brilliant and often vivid descriptive works ever written. Joyce, broadly speaking, generally thought that the harder the reader had to work to decode the meaning of his sentences, the more he would be rewarded by the effort in terms of the significance of the meaning. I think the key to enjoying Ulysses is to take lots of time over each passage and re-read until you understand. I also read Homer's Odyssey  beforehand. Plus I read Harry Blamires's excellent paraphrasing of the novel entitled Bloomsday for those moments when I got really stuck. I would say that it is well worth reading and sticking it out until the end. Joyce has a wonderful ability to build to a climax and then let it entirely disintegrate - he is a master of the artform and of language. In fact, going back to Mahler, I noticed this similar 'narrative' technique in his works, where Mahler often builds to a climax and then lets it disintegrate into a nothingness, a kind of anti-climax. They both sort of take you on an emotional journey and then let you almost reach the point of catharsis before pulling you back under for more! I guess I've been listening to Mahler and reading Joyce too much!

Thanks for your kind welcomes.

[Sean]

Alright there Daedalus

With Mahler, I have found repeated listens especially important, as each particular episode is often repeated in a more elaborate way, or sometimes with little resemblance to its previous apperance, apart from in terms of timbre and tempo.

Yes indeed. The point is that the music's own logic is revealed to you- and hidden to those who haven't gone through the same internalization process (or are unable to).

I found Mahler's 7th particuarly challenging actually, possibly the most difficult of his symphonies for me to 'digest' so far.

It's controversial in parts, particularly the finale, with the ideas strewn around with less control than in some similar movements. The Bernstein recording makes the most sense of it I know. Still a masterpiece of course.

As for Ulysses, I will have to disagree with you and state that it is simply fantastic. Joyce uses some very musical ideas actually, in terms of the language he uses and the organising principles or form of each section. Indeed, one whole chapter, 'Sirens', is supposed to be musical in terms of its form, structure and language use.

Mmm. My objection to modernism is that the building blocks of either English or music are broken down with a view to trying to create something new- very confused thinking that in its pure form leaves only chaos. I may give the book another go eventually. Thanks for the advice. I've read part of the Homer, what amazing passion, so weird!

In fact, going back to Mahler, I noticed this similar 'narrative' technique in his works, where Mahler often builds to a climax and then lets it disintegrate into a nothingness, a kind of anti-climax. They both sort of take you on an emotional journey and then let you almost reach the point of catharsis before pulling you back under for more!

These are good observations, and this sort of device I think is found variously from the late romantic onwards.

[Harry]

Joyce, yes I read him in my student days, and it took me quite some time before I was into the core of his thinking.....
But did I really?

[Daedalus]

Mmm. My objection to modernism is that the building blocks of either English or music are broken down with a view to trying to create something new- very confused thinking that in its pure form leaves only chaos. I may give the book another go eventually. Thanks for the advice.

Sean - I would disagree with this. I think that Joyce, and other modernists, did experiment with language and try to create something new, but in doing so, for the most part, they actually reverted back to earlier ideas and traditions. Some aspects that might be considered the most groundbreaking moments in Ulysses are not that dissimilar to Hamlet for instance - a play which Joyce makes lots of references to throughout the novel. In fact, in writing modernism is about trying to cope with the perceived chaos of the human experience by actually doing exactly the opposite. Instead of chaos, what is represented by modernist artists, certainly in writing, is actually a highly organised and structured piece of art. Ulysses for instance is highly organised around symbols and motifs taken particularly The Odyssey or even from Shakespeare. Think about T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which again relies heavily upon myth, and although it appears chaotic in parts, mostly subscribes to traditional metre and organising principles. Even in Mahler, who I consider to operate between romanticism and modernism, certainly in his later works, the music seeks to do something new, to create a new interaction between form and content, yet Mahler also manages to become more and more structured. Take the 7th Symphony - you are right to call it a masterpiece - it is surely an adumbration of modernism. You mention the lack of control and its controversial nature - ironic that the whole is organised very tightly and symmetrically, yet the content pushes the form all of the way (for want of a better way of putting it). This can be seen in the rondo especially.
To me, modernism is an intense form of romanticism, whereby the artist seeks to do something new and innovative, to represent the modern experience like never before, but often comes back to traditional techniques and is nearly always highly organised in his or her approach. I would associate lack of form and chaos with postmodern creations - but that is a discussion for another time.

You mention Bernstein's 7th symphony - I have not had the pleasure of listening to this one. I have made it a point of listening to at least three different recordings of each symphony, usually having a 'favourite' baseline recording of each work. I get to know my baseline work and then listen to other versions to see if they offer anything different. For the 8th symphony, I had recordings by Abbado, Solti and Rattle - the latter two were my preferred versions on this occasion. Indeed, I have found the Rattle versions of Mahler's symphonies to be excellent for the most part and this resulted in my purchasing of his complete symphonies box set.
I have listened to lots of different recordings of all of the symphonies, mostly what I have been able to borrow from the library or acquire cheaply - I believe my favourite conductors for each symphony so far are something like this:
1st Bernstein, 2nd Klemperer, 3rd Rattle, 4th Szell, 5th Barbirolli, 6th Boulez, 7th Rattle - with the 8th, Das Lied Von Der Erde, 9th and 10th to go (of course, I have the details of the specific recording, if any one is curious).
I also intend to listen to the songs after finishing the symphonies - I've probably done it the wrong way around as I am told that the songs inform the symphonies to an extent. Having listened to some of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, I certainly see the links to the first 4 symphonies!

[Sean]

Daedalus

Thanks for that. The problem with modernist foregrounding of assumed arbitrary presuppositions in artistic media, in order to revise them for alleged new expressive realms, is that they're not arbitrary but necessary for anything meaningful or sensible to be said in them in the first place: if you try to say anything outside of English syntax and grammar for instance you're really saying nothing, and failing in trying to be clever- all as with trying to write post-tonal music. The limitations are in fact with art itself, being a reflection of life: what's needed is life, not art- artistic formulae aren't to blame when they're fundamental to the medium.

I know there is order of course, but it's a contrived, manufactured order that tries to replace an order that never had anything wrong with it. We're using English now- it's just ridiculous to try to replace that with some other system and expect us to continue to communicate: even if this was successfully done, we'd then have the same internalized system for us to use, and it'd have been a waste of time.

Mahler may be forward looking, but he's still tonal and comprehensible.

...to represent the modern experience like never before

No, modernism fails to represent anything except chaos, lunacy and, in essence, barbaric insensitivity and complete cluelessness towards art. Of course there's a wondrous new system invented by the abstracted intellect, so very clever, but the brain does not work like this. Language is hard wired and tonality is hard wired- for very good reasons, namely that there have to be fundamentals in the world or it'd collapse. You're trying to revise the basics, and you can't do this- understand what I'm saying? The world has a foundation, but transcendentally not intellectually referenced: truth doesn't move, only everything else around it.

1st Bernstein, 2nd Klemperer, 3rd Rattle, 4th Szell, 5th Barbirolli, 6th Boulez, 7th Rattle - with the 8th, Das Lied Von Der Erde, 9th and 10th to go (of course, I have the details of the specific recording, if any one is curious).

Sure, you can discuss this on a number of Mahler threads and I expect you'll get plenty of feedback. I've heard several versions but for the record I got to know them by- 1 Solti, 2 Abbado, 3 Abbado, 4 Maazel, 5 Bernstein, 6 Karajan, 7 Abbado, 8 Solti, 9 Barbirolli, 10 Rattle, Das Lied Karajan

The symphonies are the important works here, needless to say.

[Daedalus]

Sean - I'm really enjoying the debate! You make some good points - it looks like we may have to agree to disagree! I've got a couple of final comments though.

Daedalus
No, modernism fails to represent anything except chaos, lunacy and, in essence, barbaric insensitivity and complete cluelessness towards art. Of course there's a wondrous new system invented by the abstracted intellect, so very clever, but the brain does not work like this. Language is hard wired and tonality is hard wired- for very good reasons, namely that there have to be fundamentals in the world or it'd collapse. You're trying to revise the basics, and you can't do this- understand what I'm saying? The world has a foundation, but transcendentally not intellectually referenced: truth doesn't move, only everything else around it.

I am not an expert on all areas of modernism, and certainly not in music, but I think you'll find that the literary modernists never denied that the world has a foundation. In fact, modernism really represented an intense form of romanticism, i.e. that the foundation can be found, that there is a transcendental truth, but that experimentation and complexity are necessary to reach that point. And I completely repudiate the idea that modernism is barbaric or clueless towards art - the modernist writers believed fervently in art, in form and in content. What the modernist writers did was attempt to more accurately describe experience and emotion using new complex narrative techniques. They recognised the ambiguity in language and attempted to construct an internalised world with an internalised organising principle, feeling that Victorian narrative structures could not capture the myriad aspects of life. I feel that you are confusing modernism with post-modernism to an extent. Post-modernism denies fundamental principles and denies a truth. The modernists really ought to be thought of as intense romantics - they did not invent a new system, they were just highly conscious about their techniques and the relationship between form and content. They certainly did not deny the possibility of a truth, they celebrated it. The irony is that although you criticise the modernists for breaking with traditions and embracing chaos, they did exactly the opposite. 

I think that most of the philosophers of the 20th century would argue against your insistence on a transcendental truth and especially your final comment. Your argument about language and music falls down fundamentally. Language is always developing, always changing - indeed language is based on arbitary principles. Music is another case in point - for example, the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler (for want of better examples) - each one took a step forward and challenged the fundamental principles of the last. That's exactly what the modernists did - took a look at the past and tried to change in order to make use of new intellectual ideas.

I cannot speak about modernism in music as I know very little. I understand that Schoenburg and Stravinsky were the leading proponents of modernism, yet I have not listened to enough of their music to make a comment about their techniques. I plan, one day, to explore these two composers in particular, and other modernist composers. What are your thoughts about these composers Sean?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Joyce straddles modernism AND postmodernism. He is BOTH the proponent of a truth that can shine forth ('epiphany') AND the celebrator of uncertainty ('the world is built upon the void'). 'Ulysses' could stand for the first, 'Finnegans Wake' for the second. In modernism there is a 'rage for order' (Wallace Stevens) that BOTH wants to capture the chaos of reality AND wants to transcend it mythically.

But this is a huge and contentious issue, that only this century will probably see the end of.

And now I have to leave you...

Johan

[Daedalus]

Jezetha - Yes, of course you are absolutely right. I suppose that each of Joyce's works could be seen as a step towards postmodernism, with A Portrait as an adumbration of what was to come. Also, I couldn't have put it better than your 'rage for order' quote. This is exactly what I was trying to say.
What about modernism in classical music Jezetha?

I didn't mean for this introduction thread to get bogged down with a huge discussion about modernism, but it has been interesting none the less.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

What about modernism in classical music Jezetha

Read Donald Mitchell's 'The Language of Modern Music' as a good introduction, my dear Stephen... Or, perhaps, 'The Rest Is Noise', by Alex Ross, which I have read about and that's more recent than Mitchell's study.