Happy to be back!!
I am currently writing a mini dissertation on the 'spirituality and philosophy' in Mahler's late works (5th symphony onwards). Would really love to hear and quote some opinions from people here if you want to share.
By spirituality in this instance, I mean the deeper meaning of the music, what you think his music could represent on a spiritual level, based on the context of his life or the impact it has had on the world. For example, what do you believe the last movement of the 9th could be saying, or the hammer blows in the 6th?
Hope you are well!
Glad to see you around!!!
It's a complicated topic. I'll get back to you on it (though I am sure others will chime in), but I wanted to be sure to give you a happy welcome back.
Quite complex, but interesting matter! :)
The final movement of Mahler's 9th Symphony is absolutely a masterpiece, one of my favourite mahlerian parts; brilliant, expressive massive orchestration; hauntingly beautiful music, very deep, intense and dramatic, with veiled melancholy, but at the same time also passionate, powerful and overwhelming.
It's difficult to say what Mahler wanted to describe with this music, but those particular atmospheres strongly suggest me a tragic fate, that one of a man who clearly perceives the shadow of death over him (for example, the obscure, mysterious solos of brass or when the lyrical crescendos of violin contrast with the lower strings that almost sound to ruin their light), but in spite of this, he tries to struggle to reach his aims before accepting and dying (the breathtaking climaxes). The development of the movement just seems to symbolically depict a life at the end: the melody goes quietly like the course of time, sometimes with so impassed, vivid moments, before it exhausts into the final pianissimo evoking a farewell to the world.
Thanks Neal! Look forward to hearing what you have to say!
Wonderful paragraph, Ilaria. I agree, so haunting yet so spiritually comforting. It should make us cherish the life we have, but also allow us to imagine what comes beyond..
I was watching a very fascinating documentary today in which Michael Kennedy said he thought the finale of the 9th was in a way a requiem to Mahler's deceased child, he used how a quote from Kindertotenlieder is heard in the closing bars.. it was the first time I had heard this suggestion but I think it makes a lot of sense. As if Mahler was saying his own farewell to life and love, but was hoping in his resolution that where he was going next was where his daughter was.
All very moving....
I agree, the whole movement almost sounds like a giant elegy, Kennedy's suggestion makes much sense; I've read about another interpretation of the Adagio, by the great mahlerian conductor Leonard Bernstein; he thought that the entire movement is symbolically prophesying three kinds of death: Mahler's own impending death, the death of tonality, and the death of "Faustian" culture in all the arts. The first one is also mine. The second one is fascinating and could make sense too, because it was just in that period that atonality started spreading; Mahler never broke tonality, though he took it to extremes, but in that same vital viennese artistic atmosphere Schoenberg was developing dissonance and a new tonal structure.
Quote from: Lisztianwagner on September 21, 2014, 01:12:08 PM
I agree, the whole movement almost sounds like a giant elegy, Kennedy's suggestion makes much sense; I've read about another interpretation of the Adagio, by the great mahlerian conductor Leonard Bernstein; he thought that the entire movement is symbolically prophesying three kinds of death: Mahler's own impending death, the death of tonality, and the death of "Faustian" culture in all the arts. The first one is also mine. The second one is fascinating and could make sense too, because it was just in that period that atonality started spreading; Mahler never broke tonality, though he took it to extremes, but in that same vital viennese artistic atmosphere Schoenberg was developing dissonance and a new tonal structure.
Yes, all of this is very interesting. It is like an unwanted, but accepted fate. I think that the opposite extreme might be something like Ravel's
La Valse. That piece really does seem to fight the changing times, only to lose in the end. Not to change the subject, though, as I love the finale of M9. My favorite slow movement of Mahler.
I also find it interesting that he quotes the finale significantly in that wild third movement. It is like some sort of premonition.
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 21, 2014, 05:17:35 AM
For example, what do you believe the last movement of the 9th could be saying, or the hammer blows in the 6th?
Is there any documentation about what he himself says about it? To me, I get the same message that Ilaria depicts.
Quote from: EigenUser on September 21, 2014, 04:09:32 PM
Yes, all of this is very interesting. It is like an unwanted, but accepted fate. I think that the opposite extreme might be something like Ravel's La Valse. That piece really does seem to fight the changing times, only to lose in the end. Not to change the subject, though, as I love the finale of M9. My favorite slow movement of Mahler.
I also find it interesting that he quotes the finale significantly in that wild third movement. It is like some sort of premonition.
Very interesting point about La Valse, which is indeed one of my most favourite pieces ever too!
And the moment of the third movement you point out is one of my favourite moments in the symphony. It's so haunting as a premonition. Bernstein believed this section was Mahler attempting to achieve spiritual resolution to the vast urban world, but he goes onto fail that this fails due to the music continuing to turn on itself in mockery, as if humanity within this urban world cannot find the truth of resolution.. which is saved for the final movement where Mahler finally allows peace and acceptance.
What a piece it is.. I can barely talk about it without getting emotional, which is going to bode well for the spoken presentation I have to give!
I find Bernstein's comments about the death of tonality very interesting, Ilaria. He also emphasises how reluctant Mahler was towards this, always having been, the endless appogiaturas etc..
Quote from: Greg on September 21, 2014, 06:56:52 PM
Is there any documentation about what he himself says about it? To me, I get the same message that Ilaria depicts.
Well I think the quote to Kindertotenlieder could be him saying something about it! As to any spoken documentation I am not too sure.. I will go and check my books of letters between Gustav and Alma and return to you about that..
Roger Norrington describes the insistent main theme of the 9th 1st movt (a simple 2 note falling cadence) as Mahler saying "good-bye ... good-bye ..." - but of course in German that doesn't quite work ... silly man, Woger ;)
Also like the infamous into-the-blue-distances repeated 'ewig' at the end of Das Lied, which is its own sort of farewell, of course.
But the German two-syllable 'Ade' is a common and suitably simple, intimate form of goodbye which does fit the M9 motive, so Norrington's theory doesn't fall down there, at least.
Yes, I was reminded of the "ewig" as well. But isn't the "two-tone motiv" (which gives rises to longer phrases, so I would be hesitant to give this particular two notes too much significance) stressed on the first note (syllable), so Ade or Adieu which ist usually stressed on the last syllable would not be a good fit.
And should really the FIRST movement of the 9th be already an "Abschied"?
I agree, but the stress-pattern matches Norrington's good-bye, so is consistent with him, even though he himself may be wrong (probably is, IMO). However, I presume he is speaking more generally, in any case.
To me (and to others) the first movement of the 9th is the real deal, and in some respects outweighs the other movements (though the last movement certainly balances it in most ways). It is complete in itself, even though the other movements complement it add expand upon it. I don't have a problem seeing it as a farewell - after all, it has all the markers of a death-haunted movement, including a funeral march and a kind of de-materialised transfiguration.
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 22, 2014, 01:32:27 PM
Very interesting point about La Valse, which is indeed one of my most favourite pieces ever too!
And the moment of the third movement you point out is one of my favourite moments in the symphony. It's so haunting as a premonition. Bernstein believed this section was Mahler attempting to achieve spiritual resolution to the vast urban world, but he goes onto fail that this fails due to the music continuing to turn on itself in mockery, as if humanity within this urban world cannot find the truth of resolution.. which is saved for the final movement where Mahler finally allows peace and acceptance.
What a piece it is.. I can barely talk about it without getting emotional, which is going to bode well for the spoken presentation I have to give!
Even though the quote is "backwards" (by this I mean that the 4th movement theme is played before the 4th movement as a premonition), it sounds like a quote even without knowing it is going to be elaborated upon in the finale, if that makes any sense.
I think that my favorite part of the 9th is the end of the 3rd movement. I mean, literally, the last fifteen notes (assuming I counted in my head correctly). It sounds so irreversible and fatal.
I admit, though, that I rarely listen to a Mahler symphony in full. It's not Mahler -- it's me. I don't have the attention span required. I occasionally will, but it is much more common that I play movements. The 1st is probably the only one I can generally manage in one sitting. Somehow I don't have as much trouble listening to Messiaen, though (also known for really, really long works).
I think Norrington is referring to the the German 'lebwohl' which means goodbye, and does fit that pattern. The motif is also a quotation from Beethoven's piano sonata les adieux, where it is also meant to suggest 'lebwohl'.
Quote from: Greg on September 21, 2014, 06:56:52 PM
Is there any documentation about what he himself says about it? To me, I get the same message that Ilaria depicts.
La Grange (in his four volume biography) dismisses the idea that the Ninth is about death, or a goodbye to life. He thinks the farewell is to Mahler's youth, and a farewell to love. He quotes verses Mahler inscribed in his draft. The first movement:
O Jugenseit! Entschwundene!
O Liebe! Verwehte!(O youth! Vanished!
O Love! Gone with the wind!)
Mahler was feeling his age at the time the Symphony was composed and the crisis with Alma was looming.
And in the last movement he wrote:
O Schonheit! Liebe!
Leb' wol! Leb' wol!(O Beauty! Love!
Farewell! Farewell!)
Welt! Lebe Wohl!(World! Farewell!)
La Grange thinks the goodbye to the World has to do with Mahler being told to cut back on his hiking after his non-fatal heart condition was discovered. Being denied nature (in the way he'd always experienced it) was in a sense saying goodbye to the world. There is a letter he wrote while composing the Ninth that describes how traumatic it was for him: "
You can imagine how hard it is for me. For years I have been used to constant, vigorous exercise, roaming about through forests and mountains... "
La Grange also points out the song
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen as a possible clue to the meaning of farewell to the world in the Ninth: not a reference to death but rather not fitting in, not being part of daily life. As proof he offers the two middle movements, the "negative image of the
Lebenstrudel"...the horror of the banal and quotidian whirlpool of life.
The fundamental argument against the "Ninth as a Death Symphony" is the fact that Mahler was actually doing well at the time of composition. His fatal diagnosis would be 18 months in the future. Mahler wasn't ready to die and was still fully engaged with the meaning of life.
Sarge
Thanks for the color, Sarge.
Quote from: Luke on September 23, 2014, 02:01:58 PM
To me (and to others) the first movement of the 9th is the real deal, and in some respects outweighs the other movements (though the last movement certainly balances it in most ways). It is complete in itself, even though the other movements complement it add expand upon it. I don't have a problem seeing it as a farewell - after all, it has all the markers of a death-haunted movement, including a funeral march and a kind of de-materialised transfiguration.
Very interesting. Although each of Mahler's symphonies have a funeral march (or at least a death obsessed) movement, so all have contemplation of death present, 9 to me is certainly the symphony in which it is most present in terms of the sense of resignation and acceptance by the end. The other symphonies with the strong theme of fatality running throughout (2, 3, 5 especially), all end gloriously, and 6 ends pessimistically, yet 9 reaches just pure solitude and dignified euphoria by the end, it must mean something different to say 2 or 3.. so I think the death of love is certainly very likely.
Great post, Sarge. If the 9th is a farewell to love, what do you think the 10th is?
Hi, Dan! Great to see you back, and crazy as ever about Mahler! :)
Quote from: karlhenning on September 24, 2014, 07:03:37 AM
Hi, Dan! Great to see you back, and crazy as ever about Mahler! :)
Thanks Karl! Good to be back! :)
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on September 24, 2014, 05:44:51 AM
La Grange (in his four volume biography) dismisses the idea that the Ninth is about death, or a goodbye to life. He thinks the farewell is to Mahler's youth, and a farewell to love. He quotes verses Mahler inscribed in his draft. The first movement:
O Jugenseit! Entschwundene!
O Liebe! Verwehte!
(O youth! Vanished!
O Love! Gone with the wind!)
Mahler was feeling his age at the time the Symphony was composed and the crisis with Alma was looming.
And in the last movement he wrote:
O Schonheit! Liebe!
Leb' wol! Leb' wol!
(O Beauty! Love!
Farewell! Farewell!)
Welt! Lebe Wohl!
(World! Farewell!)
La Grange thinks the goodbye to the World has to do with Mahler being told to cut back on his hiking after his non-fatal heart condition was discovered. Being denied nature (in the way he'd always experienced it) was in a sense saying goodbye to the world. There is a letter he wrote while composing the Ninth that describes how traumatic it was for him: "You can imagine how hard it is for me. For years I have been used to constant, vigorous exercise, roaming about through forests and mountains... "
La Grange also points out the song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen as a possible clue to the meaning of farewell to the world in the Ninth: not a reference to death but rather not fitting in, not being part of daily life. As proof he offers the two middle movements, the "negative image of the Lebenstrudel"...the horror of the banal and quotidian whirlpool of life.
The fundamental argument against the "Ninth as a Death Symphony" is the fact that Mahler was actually doing well at the time of composition. His fatal diagnosis would be 18 months in the future. Mahler wasn't ready to die and was still fully engaged with the meaning of life.
Sarge
Thanks, Sarge. I don't have the LaGrange books, so I appreciate the info. So it's more of a farewell to love, nature, and youth? Interesting.
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 24, 2014, 06:59:27 AM
Great post, Sarge. If the 9th is a farewell to love, what do you think the 10th is?
And here's the next great question!
Quote from: calyptorhynchus on September 24, 2014, 12:06:16 AM
I think Norrington is referring to the the German 'lebwohl' which means goodbye, and does fit that pattern. The motif is also a quotation from Beethoven's piano sonata les adieux, where it is also meant to suggest 'lebwohl'.
But in the Beethoven it's three syllables, lebewohl, fitting the three note 'horncall' motive that saturates the movement from the first:
Quote from: Greg on September 24, 2014, 07:07:34 AM
Thanks, Sarge. I don't have the LaGrange books, so I appreciate the info. So it's more of a farewell to love, nature, and youth?
Possibly. La Grange tends to convince
me in these "the meaning of Mahler's music" debates. He does quote extensively from a wide range of sources so one gets a number of opinions, giving us plenty of counter-arguments to his own views. Very fair.
The four volumes are a good if exhausting read (practically a day by day account of his life) You'll have to acquire the books eventually.
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 24, 2014, 06:59:27 AM
Great post, Sarge. If the 9th is a farewell to love, what do you think the 10th is?
An attempt to get love back! ;D Seriously, those final pages are a heart-felt cry of love, directed at Alma.
Sarge
Almschi!
I've always thought that the last movement of the 9th was too warm for death.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on September 24, 2014, 07:52:08 AM
Possibly. La Grange tends to convince me in these "the meaning of Mahler's music" debates. He does quote extensively from a wide range of sources so one gets a number of opinions, giving us plenty of counter-arguments to his own views. Very fair.
The four volumes are a good if exhausting read (practically a day by day account of his life) You'll have to acquire the books eventually.
An attempt to get love back! ;D Seriously, those final pages are a heart-felt cry of love, directed at Alma.
Sarge
MadAboutMahler: do you mean spiritualism or
spirituality? The topic threw me until I began reading the comments.
Yes, depending on what one
wants to hear vs. what
Mahler might have (secretly) been hearing in that "4-note motif," one could say that the four notes represent "Alma! Alma!" or "Alma, Gustav" or any other combination.
What a huge topic: a few quick comments from a 50+ year
Mahlerian. I will meditate further upon the topic later.
Certainly
Mahler was spiritual in his own way, with or without Catholicism and Judaism. One does not brew an
Eighth Symphony using the
Veni Creator Spiritus with the last scenes of
Faust without an idiosyncratic sense of spirituality.
One can also hear in the "first Mahlerian" work,
Das Klagende Lied that same kind of sighing motif on the words "Raben" (F to C) and "begraben" (Db - C) and "erschlagen" (G-F#) in
Der Spielmann. "Raben" is raven, here a bird of carrion. "Begraben" means "buried" and refers to the body of a young knight killed by his own brother. The soul of the brother of course comes through the bone-flute's music which offers similar sighing notes on "erschlagen" i.e. "murdered."
The
Ninth Symphony on the first page is full of similar sighs in the harp (B-A) and in the repeated F#-E in the violins' opening melody. What they might
mean - resignation, wistful happiness, memories of the lost child, etc. etc. etc. - is (perhaps!) best answered by the non-answer: "They mean everything and nothing. They mean whatever you might need them to mean at a specific point in your life."
For
Mahler they meant something for him, whether both musical and something extra-musical, at specific points in his life, or perhaps they were devoid of extra-musical meaning completely or had only such meanings!
An example: one late winter day many years ago I decided to listen to
Mahler's Tenth Symphony, a work I have known very well (I bought the Deryck Cooke score in the late 1960's for $5.00, which had to have been a misprint!) since its first recording with Cooke's first version of the score. The music and score are in my brain, probably forever: the point is that I did not need to hear the CD in reality, because I have every note in my imagination.
By the time the last movement was over, I felt like I had been bulldozered! Because what I had not realized at first, but did as the music reached the last 2 movements, was that my brain, soul, psyche, unconscious, whatever you would like to call it, was connecting this extremely well-known work to the death of my father 2 months earlier. To be sure, I knew that the muffled drum toward the end was a reference to the funeral of a fireman which Mahler witnessed in New York City. But that knowledge had never affected me before in this way.
So
Mahler's Tenth Symphony at that moment absorbed a meaning for me that it never had earlier, and will never have again. A singular experience! So any "spirituality" in the polyphonic lines, in that ten-note chord in the First Movement, in
Purgatorio, or elsewhere in the work, can always be kindled by something in the listener, but it is not something that will necessarily happen to everyone at every time.
And yet, buried in those sounds is the latent possibility of a spiritual experience for those who are ready. Such is the mystery of music.
Quote from: calyptorhynchus on September 24, 2014, 01:35:49 PM
I've always thought that the last movement of the 9th was too warm for death.
What about death in a forest during the summer? ;D
Gollum thinks that's too cool a death.
I agree with what Sarge (and Cato) so succinctly put. I don't agree with the utterly morbid interpretations. In my mind, the final movement of the Ninth can be seen in conjunction with the Tenth's Adagio in a similar way that the Todtenfeier movement of the Second can be seen as a continuation of the "Titan"'s finale.
Quote from: Cato on September 24, 2014, 03:15:06 PM
MadAboutMahler: do you mean spiritualism or spirituality? The topic threw me until I began reading the comments.
Yes, depending on what one wants to hear vs. what Mahler might have (secretly) been hearing in that "4-note motif," one could say that the four notes represent "Alma! Alma!" or "Alma, Gustav" or any other combination.
What a huge topic: a few quick comments from a 50+ year Mahlerian. I will meditate further upon the topic later.
Certainly Mahler was spiritual in his own way, with or without Catholicism and Judaism. One does not brew an Eighth Symphony using the Veni Creator Spiritus with the last scenes of Faust without an idiosyncratic sense of spirituality.
One can also hear in the "first Mahlerian" work, Das Klagende Lied that same kind of sighing motif on the words "Raben" (F to C) and "begraben" (Db - C) and "erschlagen" (G-F#) in Der Spielmann. "Raben" is raven, here a bird of carrion. "Begraben" means "buried" and refers to the body of a young knight killed by his own brother. The soul of the brother of course comes through the bone-flute's music which offers similar sighing notes on "erschlagen" i.e. "murdered."
The Ninth Symphony on the first page is full of similar sighs in the harp (B-A) and in the repeated F#-E in the violins' opening melody. What they might mean - resignation, wistful happiness, memories of the lost child, etc. etc. etc. - is (perhaps!) best answered by the non-answer: "They mean everything and nothing. They mean whatever you might need them to mean at a specific point in your life."
For Mahler they meant something for him, whether both musical and something extra-musical, at specific points in his life, or perhaps they were devoid of extra-musical meaning completely or had only such meanings!
An example: one late winter day many years ago I decided to listen to Mahler's Tenth Symphony, a work I have known very well (I bought the Deryck Cooke score in the late 1960's for $5.00, which had to have been a misprint!) since its first recording with Cooke's first version of the score. The music and score are in my brain, probably forever: the point is that I did not need to hear the CD in reality, because I have every note in my imagination.
By the time the last movement was over, I felt like I had been bulldozered! Because what I had not realized at first, but did as the music reached the last 2 movements, was that my brain, soul, psyche, unconscious, whatever you would like to call it, was connecting this extremely well-known work to the death of my father 2 months earlier. To be sure, I knew that the muffled drum toward the end was a reference to the funeral of a fireman which Mahler witnessed in New York City. But that knowledge had never affected me before in this way.
So Mahler's Tenth Symphony at that moment absorbed a meaning for me that it never had earlier, and will never have again. A singular experience! So any "spirituality" in the polyphonic lines, in that ten-note chord in the First Movement, in Purgatorio, or elsewhere in the work, can always be kindled by something in the listener, but it is not something that will necessarily happen to everyone at every time.
And yet, buried in those sounds is the latent possibility of a spiritual experience for those who are ready. Such is the mystery of music.
A few minutes for additional thoughts:
We know that
Mahler was very much involved in considering the various philosophical schools in the 19th-century ether, from Brentano and other Romantics to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. This interest in philosophy may be the basis for part of the "searching feeling" one hears in the symphonies, especially the later ones. The major ninth jump in the trumpets in the last page of the
Eighth Symphony may not be particularly triumphant so much as a symbol of leaping directly into the other world of spirituality, after suffering the trials and trivialities and troglodytes of earthly existence.
Bruckner showed
Mahler that symphonies were still possible
despite Wagner. I sense from my reading of
Mahler biographies and his writings that the young
Schoenberg may have also verified
Mahler's compositional life simply by displaying the same searching, questing nature in e.g. the
Chamber Symphony #1. While the
Ninth and
Tenth are hardly "Kammersinfonien," certainly there are a good number of chamber-like sections of great interest. (In the
Tenth, of course, these sections may reflect the unfinished nature of the work, although that is a subject of debate.)
Alma Mahler claims that her husband admitted not being able "to follow"
Schoenberg's music all the time, but that the younger composer "may be right."
Schoenberg's burning spiritual frustration (rf.
Die Jakobsleiter, Moses und Aron) has roots in
Mahler's similar art.
Quote from: Cato on September 24, 2014, 03:15:06 PM
MadAboutMahler: do you mean spiritualism or spirituality? The topic threw me until I began reading the comments.
Yes, depending on what one wants to hear vs. what Mahler might have (secretly) been hearing in that "4-note motif," one could say that the four notes represent "Alma! Alma!" or "Alma, Gustav" or any other combination.
What a huge topic: a few quick comments from a 50+ year Mahlerian. I will meditate further upon the topic later.
Certainly Mahler was spiritual in his own way, with or without Catholicism and Judaism. One does not brew an Eighth Symphony using the Veni Creator Spiritus with the last scenes of Faust without an idiosyncratic sense of spirituality.
One can also hear in the "first Mahlerian" work, Das Klagende Lied that same kind of sighing motif on the words "Raben" (F to C) and "begraben" (Db - C) and "erschlagen" (G-F#) in Der Spielmann. "Raben" is raven, here a bird of carrion. "Begraben" means "buried" and refers to the body of a young knight killed by his own brother. The soul of the brother of course comes through the bone-flute's music which offers similar sighing notes on "erschlagen" i.e. "murdered."
The Ninth Symphony on the first page is full of similar sighs in the harp (B-A) and in the repeated F#-E in the violins' opening melody. What they might mean - resignation, wistful happiness, memories of the lost child, etc. etc. etc. - is (perhaps!) best answered by the non-answer: "They mean everything and nothing. They mean whatever you might need them to mean at a specific point in your life."
For Mahler they meant something for him, whether both musical and something extra-musical, at specific points in his life, or perhaps they were devoid of extra-musical meaning completely or had only such meanings!
An example: one late winter day many years ago I decided to listen to Mahler's Tenth Symphony, a work I have known very well (I bought the Deryck Cooke score in the late 1960's for $5.00, which had to have been a misprint!) since its first recording with Cooke's first version of the score. The music and score are in my brain, probably forever: the point is that I did not need to hear the CD in reality, because I have every note in my imagination.
By the time the last movement was over, I felt like I had been bulldozered! Because what I had not realized at first, but did as the music reached the last 2 movements, was that my brain, soul, psyche, unconscious, whatever you would like to call it, was connecting this extremely well-known work to the death of my father 2 months earlier. To be sure, I knew that the muffled drum toward the end was a reference to the funeral of a fireman which Mahler witnessed in New York City. But that knowledge had never affected me before in this way.
So Mahler's Tenth Symphony at that moment absorbed a meaning for me that it never had earlier, and will never have again. A singular experience! So any "spirituality" in the polyphonic lines, in that ten-note chord in the First Movement, in Purgatorio, or elsewhere in the work, can always be kindled by something in the listener, but it is not something that will necessarily happen to everyone at every time.
And yet, buried in those sounds is the latent possibility of a spiritual experience for those who are ready. Such is the mystery of music.
Quote from: Cato on September 25, 2014, 07:06:41 AM
A few minutes for additional thoughts:
We know that Mahler was very much involved in considering the various philosophical schools in the 19th-century ether, from Brentano and other Romantics to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. This interest in philosophy may be the basis for part of the "searching feeling" one hears in the symphonies, especially the later ones. The major ninth jump in the trumpets in the last page of the Eighth Symphony may not be particularly triumphant so much as a symbol of leaping directly into the other world of spirituality, after suffering the trials and trivialities and troglodytes of earthly existence.
Bruckner showed Mahler that symphonies were still possible despite Wagner. I sense from my reading of Mahler biographies and his writings that the young Schoenberg may have also verified Mahler's compositional life simply by displaying the same searching, questing nature in e.g. the Chamber Symphony #1. While the Ninth and Tenth are hardly "Kammersinfonien," certainly there are a good number of chamber-like sections of great interest. (In the Tenth, of course, these sections may reflect the unfinished nature of the work, although that is a subject of debate.) Alma Mahler claims that her husband admitted not being able "to follow" Schoenberg's music all the time, but that the younger composer "may be right."
Schoenberg's burning spiritual frustration (rf. Die Jakobsleiter, Moses und Aron) has roots in Mahler's similar art.
"Bump" time!
Maybe we should say Mahler has the "bulldozer" effect from now on?
(at least to those that understand his music)...
Quote from: Greg on September 28, 2014, 12:06:42 PM
Maybe we should say Mahler has the "bulldozer" effect from now on?
(at least to those that understand his music)...
Heh-heh! I am reminded of a former student of mine after he had heard (while sitting in Row 1)
Mahler's First Symphony at a Cleveland Orchestra concert with
Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting:
"This is the greatest moment in my life!"
Bulldozered for life! 0:)
Thanks for the great post, Cato. I like the comment about the music being what you need it to be at a specific time. Mahler's music is certainly there for us loyally whenever we need it for spiritual revelation, or just to comfort us in our time of need. I think a great quote that links to this is from Lebrecht: 'the most we can expect from art is to help us live in peace with ourselves. This, at best, is Mahler's contribution to the modern world'. I personally consider Mahler a saviour and I feel like I need his music to, indeed, be at peace with myself.
And indeed, 'spirituality' is far better for what I intended to mean. Thanks!!
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 29, 2014, 02:20:55 PM
Thanks for the great post, Cato. I like the comment about the music being what you need it to be at a specific time. Mahler's music is certainly there for us loyally whenever we need it for spiritual revelation, or just to comfort us in our time of need. I think a great quote that links to this is from Lebrecht: 'the most we can expect from art is to help us live in peace with ourselves. This, at best, is Mahler's contribution to the modern world'. I personally consider Mahler a saviour and I feel like I need his music to, indeed, be at peace with myself.
That is a very nice sentiment from Mr. Lebrecht! 0:)
A great wonder, Music! The organization of sounds with no
apparent meaning* ....
.......until one listens!
* (e.g. What precisely does C #
mean?) ;)
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 29, 2014, 02:20:55 PM
I personally consider Mahler a saviour and I feel like I need his music to, indeed, be at peace with myself.
Although I consider Mahler a saviour as well, over time I realized it creates the opposite of peace for me. Mahler is the music of an honest man who is trying to live a great, wonderful life of his dreams while continuously getting put down by things out of his control and eventually having to accept it. I interpret his message as the most bitter message in music: how bad things and bad lives often happen to good people.
What does create peace within me is my favorite metal band I always talk about, Meshuggah. Listening to them, you feel like the God of the universe. Pick up mountains and throw them. Punch space and create black holes. Then go to your alien home planet to see your 20 beautiful wives and later take them to ride across terrains of distant, strange planets, all with exploding volcanos in the background. It is liberating and just makes me happy. Peace can only really be attained through escapism, rather than confronting reality, because reality doesn't give a shit about you or how nice you are.
But, of course, don't get the wrong idea: nothing will ever beat Mahler for me. 8)
Quote from: Greg on September 29, 2014, 07:22:29 PM
Although I consider Mahler a saviour as well, over time I realized it creates the opposite of peace for me. Mahler is the music of an honest man who is trying to live a great, wonderful life of his dreams while continuously getting put down by things out of his control and eventually having to accept it. I interpret his message as the most bitter message in music: how bad things and bad lives often happen to good people.
I like this interpretation. The last part/sentence is a little more negative than I look at it, but I pretty much have a similar feeling about Mahler.
Quote from: Cato on September 29, 2014, 02:31:02 PM
That is a very nice sentiment from Mr. Lebrecht! 0:)
A great wonder, Music! The organization of sounds with no apparent meaning* ....
.......until one listens!
* (e.g. What precisely does C # mean?) ;)
The leading note to what I consider to be Mahler's key of love! :p In my essay, I write about Mahler using D Major as a theme to represent new life, and the heroic feeling of love, using the last movement of 5 as an example (the release from the restraints of death, anger, forced jollity and finally the search for love after the love song Adagietto), but then how the first movement of 9, often considered the 'death of love' is also in D Major.... badly explained there (I'll post my essay at some point), but what do you think about this? Valid?! As I have a specific section in my detailed plan for my essay entitled 'my silly over the top points'!! ;)
Quote from: Greg on September 29, 2014, 07:22:29 PM
Although I consider Mahler a saviour as well, over time I realized it creates the opposite of peace for me. Mahler is the music of an honest man who is trying to live a great, wonderful life of his dreams while continuously getting put down by things out of his control and eventually having to accept it. I interpret his message as the most bitter message in music: how bad things and bad lives often happen to good people.
Absolutely FANTASTIC post, Greg. This is EXACTLY how I feel about the music of Schnittke. The brutal realism of it, but small escapes into beauty.. I find a bit more hope in Mahler's music. It definitely portrays the realism (funeral marches, hammer blows etc), but I can't see the finale of the 9th, for example, as anything less than hope for another, more idealistic world, where we are all treated with the same love we give to others..
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 30, 2014, 12:03:21 PM
The leading note to what I consider to be Mahler's key of love! :p In my essay, I write about Mahler using D Major as a theme to represent new life, and the heroic feeling of love, using the last movement of 5 as an example (the release from the restraints of death, anger, forced jollity and finally the search for love after the love song Adagietto), but then how the first movement of 9, often considered the 'death of love' is also in D Major.... badly explained there (I'll post my essay at some point), but what do you think about this? Valid?! As I have a specific section in my detailed plan for my essay entitled 'my silly over the top points'!! ;)
Well,
depending on your argumentation ;) it could be valid and valued! 0:)
Certainly the
Third Symphony, in "D minor," ends in D major, and could be used as evidence for your case. On the other hand,
Mahler's "ultimate love music," the
Alma - Movement in the
Sixth Symphony, does not use D major anywhere: Eb and E major are the main ones.
So, let's see that essay! ;)
Quote from: madaboutmahler on September 30, 2014, 12:03:21 PM
Absolutely FANTASTIC post, Greg. This is EXACTLY how I feel about the music of Schnittke. The brutal realism of it, but small escapes into beauty.. I find a bit more hope in Mahler's music. It definitely portrays the realism (funeral marches, hammer blows etc), but I can't see the finale of the 9th, for example, as anything less than hope for another, more idealistic world, where we are all treated with the same love we give to others..
I also believe there is hope in the 9th (actually, that it may be the music of hope itself), but I also believe that hope dies when the music fades to silence. And the ending bars are self conscious of itself soon to be fading away and struggling to live on (the clinging on to hope). So it confronted with being forced to accept its fate.
I may be contradicting myself here and not making sense, but oh well. ;D
And my last sentence really only applies to, say, the ending of 6, 9, and 10... you can't really say the same for 2, 3, 7, or 8, for example. Way too happy for that.
Quote from: Cato on September 30, 2014, 12:55:49 PM
Well, depending on your argumentation ;) it could be valid and valued! 0:)
Certainly the Third Symphony, in "D minor," ends in D major, and could be used as evidence for your case. On the other hand, Mahler's "ultimate love music," the Alma - Movement in the Sixth Symphony, does not use D major anywhere: Eb and E major are the main ones.
So, let's see that essay! ;)
And the melody in the first movement which I've heard was an "Alma theme" begins in F...