Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[jlaurson]

Too bad Mahler's 4th is still under-appreciated by many who regard themselves as Mahler devotees.  It's a peach. 

Who was it said, "Tragedy's easy, comedy's hard?"

I see no evidence whatsoever for an alleged neglect of the Fourth... it is, after all, one of the three most popular and most often performed of his symphonies.
The reason for not being appreciated as much by the harder core of "Mahler devotees"---if we can make that conjecture at all---might be because it is not Mahlerian enough? Because it doesn't continue the wretched and glorious bombast? As Alma Mahler said when she, then still a wise-cracking tween with a Zemlinsky-fetish, first saw the score: "For that sort of thing I prefer Haydn".

[Marc]

The 4th is my most beloved Mahler symphony.
I consider it his most balanced work, of which I could not choose a favourite movement.
Although sopranos like Elly Ameling, Helen Donath and Lucia Popp sometimes do serious attempts to convince me that the Finale is the most beautiful one!

[Renfield]

For me, the Mahler 4th - especially on evidence of performances like Zinman's in the Edinburgh Festival last summer - is easily one of Mahler's most tragic works. It's not aggressive about it in any way, perhaps this being the issue with many listeners, but the emotional undercurrent, down to the sharp irony of the finale, is heart-wrenching. It's like singing a lullaby to a dying child.

Case in point, the slow movement of the 4th is the clearest precursor to the 9th I'm aware of, in Mahler's output; the 'obvious' last movement of the 3rd is only second for me, in that respect. Even more so, the fact that the 4th is so structurally balanced can make it even more poignant than the 9th, in sheer terms of crushing melancholy. The 9th accepts its fate.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The 4th is my favorite.

I see no evidence whatsoever for an alleged neglect of the Fourth

The 4th is my most beloved Mahler symphony.

I appear to be outnumbered. Maybe I should surrender?

[jlaurson]

... the finale, is heart-wrenching. It's like singing a lullaby to a dying child.

Wow... where's the dying child coming from? 
You don't think there is anything genuinely happy that Mahler ever wrote?

"This movement is about baby lambs  and little ducklings...
...
... ON THE WAY TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE!"


"This movement is about two children playing with their red rubber ball, laughing in the sunshine...
...
...TRYING TO COVER THEIR TEARS AS THEIR PARENTS ARE BEING BURIED.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

"This movement is about two children playing with their red rubber ball, laughing in the sunshine...

[Sergeant Rock]

Wow... where's the dying child coming from? 

Well, the last movement is about children in heaven. They're already dead! I like Renfield's interpretation. It is the kind of poem, and the kind of tune that might be used to soothe a very young, dying child, promising them a fairy tale heaven. But we adults know better--so yes, given its juxtaposition with the third movement it can be heard as a tragic finale. Maybe that's why I prefer the slower versions (e.g., Maazel and Chailly) that reinforce that view.

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

I appear to be outnumbered. Maybe I should surrender?

Maybe you should    I too love the Fourth. I spin it more than any other Mahler symphony which would, I guess,  make it my favorite if judged solely by the number of times heard.

Sarge

[PerfectWagnerite]

Well, the last movement is about children in heaven. They're already dead!
Sarge

No Sarge, the last movement is about a child's view or heaven. It is one of the most uplifting movements Mahler ever wrote. Children do not see lamb and cattle being slaughtered as anything cruel or inhumane.

[Sergeant Rock]

No Sarge, the last movement is about a child's view or heaven.

No, the song is not about a view of heaven--it's about children already in heaven. It says Wir genießen die himmlishen Freuden not Wir werden die himmlishen Freuden genießen. The only way you get to be in heaven is if you're dead. So yes, the song is about dead children and I can't think of dead children in any way but tragically no matter how cute the poetic images make it seem.

Sarge

[PerfectWagnerite]

No, the song is not about a view of heaven--it's about children already in heaven. It says Wir genießen die himmlishen Freuden not Wir werden die himmlishen Freuden genießen. The only way you get to be in heaven is if you're dead. So yes, the song is about dead children and I can't think of dead children in any way but tragically no matter how cute the poetic images make it seem.

Sarge

My German is a bit rusty. The difference is "We enjoy the heavenly pleasures" instead of "We will enjoy the heavenly pleasures". Is the original poem about dead children?

I suppose if you make the inference that in order to be in heaven then you are dead (which is quite logical BTW) then this movement is about dead children. But I take it as to simply a reflection of what a child would think if you ask him/her what heaven is like. This reminds of me of a song in Kindertotenlieder about a child starving to death because his mother didn't make bread in time (a terribly wrenching song, one that I cannot bear to listen to at all). I guess if you ask THAT child what heaven is like he/she would come up with things you see/hear in the 4th symphony. So maybe that movement is about dying children afterall...

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

This reminds of me of a song in Kindertotenlieder about a child starving to death because his mother didn't make bread in time (a terribly wrenching song, one that I cannot bear to listen to at all). I guess if you ask THAT child what heaven is like he/she would come up with things you see/hear in the 4th symphony. So maybe that movement is about dying children afterall...

That's "Das irdische Leben," which is actually from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, not Kindertotenlieder. But what this all shows is how closely connected the "dying child" motif is in Mahler's work - no doubt rooted in his own (growing up) experience (and foreshadowing his later, adult experience).

[Marc]

Maybe that's why I prefer the slower versions (e.g., Maazel and Chailly) that reinforce that view.

Somehow I feel we discussed about this before. But I'm too lazy to check it out.

Anyway, Mahler himself wrote about the time indication in a letter to Nathalie Bauer-Lechner: the entire symphony should take about three quarters of an hour!
In his own score Mahler added this division: 15-10-11()-8. Which makes 44 minutes in total.
No conductor manages to do that. However, Kubelik comes close.

[Marc]

No Sarge, the last movement is about a child's view or heaven. It is one of the most uplifting movements Mahler ever wrote. Children do not see lamb and cattle being slaughtered as anything cruel or inhumane.

Indeed.
The lyrics were adapted from a folk song called Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen, which has a place in the Wunderhorn collection.
In this song, there are no concerns of the (adult) earthly life anymore. It's a peaceful environment, where no judgements are being made. Even King Herod is welcome, even though he is a butcher (very creative childlike thinking! ). Food and drinks are free.

BTW: the original song is a religious song, written by a certain Peter Marcellus Sturm: Nach Kreuz und ausgestandenem Leiden. This song was sung in Bohemia (where Mahler was born) as a merry 'encore' after a Christmas play.

I think the main problem in interpreting 'old' texts is, that we tend to read them with our own 20th/21st eyes and/or spectacles. In earlier Christian days (not so long ago actually), death and the afterlife were considered as a Completion, and as a Redemption. Considering the roots of this particular text, I personally don't believe that Mahler saw this song as a deeply tragic one.

[Renfield]

Indeed.
The lyrics were adapted from a folk song called Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen, which has a place in the Wunderhorn collection.
In this song, there are no concerns of the (adult) earthly life anymore. It's a peaceful environment, where no judgements are being made. Even King Herod is welcome, even though he is a butcher (very creative childlike thinking! ). Food and drinks are free.

BTW: the original song is a religious song, written by a certain Peter Marcellus Sturm: Nach Kreuz und ausgestandenem Leiden. This song was sung in Bohemia (where Mahler was born) as a merry 'encore' after a Christmas play.

I think the main problem in interpreting 'old' texts is, that we tend to read them with our own 20th/21st eyes and/or spectacles. In earlier Christian days (not so long ago actually), death and the afterlife were considered as a Completion, and as a Redemption. Considering the roots of this particular text, I personally don't believe that Mahler saw this song as a deeply tragic one.

But surely, in interpreting a text, considerations must be made of context and intention.

Especially as, in this case, the text is not read out, but rather sung in the accompaniment of music, and within a greater musical context (the other three movements of the symphony; the previous three symphonies, and the following five-plus-one).

More so, the author, who was not a child, therefore the song's use was necessarily metaphorical in some fashion,  had preceded the 4th symphony with a number of works dealing with death, futility and hopelessness before the inevitable (look at the desperate cry, Bereite dich zu leben! in the 2nd symphony; or the roaring ending of the 1st symphony grinding to a halt; or the dead soldier coming to his fiancee in Des Knaben Wunderhorn). Death was not a new subject to Mahler, nor was tragedy.

And for a grown man leading a life with much turmoil to return to his childhood in a work (from the very sleigh-bells that introduce it), one need not be altogether Freudian to speculate a deeper cause for providing a prima facie happy ending.


From a slightly different perspective, if this helps:

The loneliness of the slow movement is grown up. There is no child there, and I see no reason for perspective to be that of a 'child' for the last movement, if not to indicate something very particular. I also see no way in which a man of Mahler's intelligence would not perceive how otherwise inappropriately naive the song of the finale is, compared to the bipolar tone of the rest of the work.

The text aside, note the transitions between the verses, the idle little tune that doesn't seem to ever evolve like Mahler's material generally does. Then the ending of the movement (and the symphony), which could have been like the first movement's playfully upbeat 'pam POM', but it's not: the melody fades away. From his previous work, Mahler emerges as a songwriter particularly alert to how his songs end, so this cannot have been random. And a child's perfect heaven does not fade away.


And there you have why I generally stay out of discussions on the semantics of Romantic music. Sometimes it feels different ways of approaching these works are so disparate - and often so personal - as to be barely worth comparing or discussing.

However, on the topic of Mahler's deliberate use of existential irony and self-contradicting metaphor, I think the rest of his oeuvre, least of all the textually explicit Das Lied von der Erde, or the 9th symphony, supports me.


...


Or: either way, in the 4th symphony, the Mahler in my head considers the thing he needs the most in his life, the thing he can never retain, innocence, yearns for it, then lets it fade away, because it's already gone.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I don't like that movement 

I feel like I got cheated. If I wanted a slow movement to end a symphony it better be something like the ending of the 3rd symphony with timpani, and half a dozen each of trombones, trumpets, and horns.

[jlaurson]

However, on the topic of Mahler's deliberate use of existential irony and self-contradicting metaphor, I think the rest of his oeuvre, least of all the textually explicit Das Lied von der Erde, or the 9th symphony, supports me...

Maybe. The problem is... Mahler doesn't. 

[Renfield]

Maybe. The problem is... Mahler doesn't. 

How so? I hope for a note scribbled in the margin saying "I, Gustav Mahler, wrote this movement with a direct and un-metaphorical intention to express happiness and completeness as a perfect vision untarnished by adult concerns, and only that".


More seriously, I would certainly be interested in his personal comments on the 4th symphony, if any; particularly on the slow movement. Or an explanation as to how Mahler suddenly exploded with irony and self-conscious allusion, after making it disappear between Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the 5th symphony. Was it failed anger management?


(The author of this post would like to explicitly indicate the presence of irony in the last two sentences. )


Edit: But let me put it beyond doubt that I am genuinely interested in what Mahler might have explicitly said about the 4th symphony.

[DavidRoss]

Mahler inserted a note in the first edition directing that "The Heavenly Life" should be sung "with a childlike, cheerful expression, entirely without parody."  Make of that what you will.  The text itself is clear, as is this work and this movement as the summary statement of the Wonderhorn symphonies.  To me Mahler's great love and respect for the natural world and the spiritual certainty he sought as an antidote to the tragic ironies of the man-made world receives its tenderest expression here, sweeter than but perfectly consistent with the joyful power of, say, the Resurrection symphony and the deep serenity of the 9th...and where he was going with the 10th!

Of course, it's fundamentally nothing but music, just organized sounds with no intrinsic "meaning," only that which we bring to it.

[Marc]

But let me put it beyond doubt that I am genuinely interested in what Mahler might have explicitly said about the 4th symphony.

At least that it should be played much faster.

For the rest: sure, it's tricky discussing the one and only and true explanation of the composer's meanings. And I also belong to those music lovers who tend to think in many cases it's 'just' music. Hence my little problem with 19th century romanticism.

But to me, the final song of the 4th is not a lament or a tragedy. There are too many quotations of Es sungen drei Engel for instance.
But maybe there are interprets who might suggest that this 5th part of Mahler 3 should be considered as very ironic or even depressive, too?

I can only say this: this almost continuously depressive and gloomy vision on Mahler, who apparently can only fake optimism with the help of irony or sarcasm, is certainly not mine. Sure, the 4th is another tense composition with irony and shadows, but the general idea is (IMHO) not pessimistic, and the final chords are heavenly to me.

But hey, I'm also one of those clowns who even consider Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen as a song of relief and redemption (has been discussed before in some Mahler thread, dunno where).
So pleaze, do not let my optimistic characterizations spoil any other's fun!