new theory on possible meaning of Mahler 9

[barry guerrero]

I was poking my nose into a copy of Classic FM magazine (it comes from England) at a local Borders store. They had published a letter (or e-mail) from a reader who thinks that the 9th may have been a Requiem - of sorts - for Mahler's youngest daughter; the one that died briefly after the premiere of the 6th symphony in Essen. The more I think about this, the more it makes sense to me. It would explain the anger and frustration that's so obviously bottled up in the Rondo-Burlesque. It would explain why the finale seems so emotionally detached - almost written "in the third person" - as well as the "last breaths of life" that are so literally drawn in the final few minutes.

More important, it might explain something that still remains a source of frustration for me. That is, it would explain why Mahler chose to fully orchestrate the 9th (I believe he even revised it a bit), in lieu of finishing up what he had for the 10th (which I feel had the potential to be his very greatest work, musically speaking). For my own selfish interests, it would explain why I simply can not include the 9th among those Mahler symphonies that I can listen to on an almost daily basis. The 9th remains, for me, very much a special occasion kind of work. That's why I can't do comparative listening of M9 recordings with nearly the efficiency that I can with the others. Especially in the last two movements, there's something almost "extra musical" about the 9th. The Requiem theory would explain this for me.

Barry

[Jot N. Tittle]

Thanks, Barry, for calling this to our attention. One wonders why Henry-Louis de La Grange did not suggest this in his 68-page analysis of the Ninth in his Appendix 1Bb to his fourth volume, the burden of which is that Mahler did not write the Ninth as his farewell to life (or four farewells, as Bernstein would have it). It is interesting that de La Grange concludes his essay by quoting Stuart Feder:

"The ending of the Ninth incorporates a remarkable act of consolation. . . . Here again is a revisiting and furthering of the consolation sought in the ending of Das Lied von der Erde, that ultimate and ideal 'place' free of loss and mourning, representing in music 'the dominant wish of the bereaved'—reunion with the lost object." [De La Grange, Gustav Mahler: Volume 4, A New Life Cut Short (1907–1911), p. 1452.]

Incidentally, it was Maria Anna ("Putzi"), the older daughter, who died in 1907; the younger, Anna Justine ("Gucki") lived to 1988.

     . & '

[mahlerei]

Not sure I feel comfortable with such precise 'meanings' in this - or any other - symphony. Why tie the work to his daughter's death when Mahler's own mortality must have been uppermost in his mind? Surely M9 is just as much - if not more so - a farewell to traditional harmony and tonality? The final movements always remind me of that Yeats poem, where 'things fall apart ... the centre cannot hold'; it's as if the music is breaking loose from its traditional bonds.

I, too, can't listen to this symphony more than once or twice a year (if that). Never quite understood why.

[Amphissa]

 
There is no reason this symphony needs to be associated with one specific event or person. By this point in his life, Mahler was faced with loss on many fronts. Other than the loss of his daughter, he had experienced the loss of professional achievement (having departed the Vienna Opera and Europe, only to be replaced in his position at Metropolitan Opera by Toscanini), he had lost his dignity as his wife engaged in her affair with Gropius, he had lost his physical health (diagnosed with heart disease). In other words, by this point in his life, he was confronting mortality and loss and decline in the most important aspects of his life. This was sure to have been very demoralizing and depressing for him.

I believe that this symphony became his vehicle of catharsis, his way of releasing the emotions that dominated his life at that time, his "diary" of this passage through mortality. As such, I believe this symphony expresses the struggle every human eventually goes through when confronted with the realities of loss and death. Kubler-Ross identified five stages -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally the acceptance of "fate". I believe Mahler was passing through those stages and that this symphony provides a "diary" of his experience. It was, in my mind, a farewell, but not in the way Bernstein described it. It was more personal than that.

Of course, years ago, when I first learned of the Kubler-Ross stages, they were just like any other theory. They had no personal meaning to me. As I have gotten older and begun losing friends and relatives and parents to death, this is no longer theory for me. Working in health care, I see this every day. The passages of life. All who live into adulthood eventually go through these passages of life.

As the great medical doctor and prolific author Isaac Asimov wrote: "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." I believe that Mahler documented that transition in his 9th.
 

[Jot N. Tittle]

You may indeed be right. Yet de La Grange's extended analysis of the Ninth in his Volume 4 should, I think, be consulted.     
     
     . & '

[barry guerrero]

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." I believe that Mahler documented that transition in his 9th.

Hey, I like that. I'm switching theories now.

[barry guerrero]

Nope, I'm back to the Requiem theory. Mahler must have realized - at my insistence - that his 10th had the potential to be a far greater symphony. Also, as De La Grange has pointed out, Mahler was somewhat looking forward to a new future - one that didn't materialize, obviously. But all the same, look at how potentially interesting the two scherzos from the 10th could have been (and still could be, if the right people ever tackle revising and re-orchestrating them). They would have been truly "modern" and forward looking - a position that Mahler always took, but in a mostly "tonal" context. In a sense, I think that Mahler sacrificed his own happiness - and a better understanding of who and what he was all about - by choosing to polish the 9th in lieu of working further on the 10th. Musically speaking, I think that things would have been better - much more "fulfilled", perhaps - if Mahler had chosen to complete the 10th, and perhaps just leave the first movement of the 9th completely finished. That's just one person's music-oriented opinion. I realize that I'm going waaaaay out on limb here.

[Karafan]

Not directly theorising on the meaning, but I don't know about you but I rarely "see" music in visual terms - by that I mean I don't usually visualise anything in particular when quietly listening to music.

I have heard Lenny's postulations on Mahler's erratic heartbeat chiming with the opening of M9 and I don't think I can agree with it myself.  Oddly enough though, I have a recording of British writer and comedian Armando Iannucci called "Living with Mahler" in which he talks of his love of Mahler's music and how it came to play such a large part in his life. 

In the programme he spoke of getting to know Mahler as a youngster when all around him were only interested in pop and rock music.  Being a canny lad who borrowed LPs from his local library, he realised that Mahler represented better value for money than others given that no matter how many album sides a symphony spilled over, they charged him for just one LP!  I suppose there are worse reasons for falling in love with Mahler!

Anyway, getting back to the point of this posting, he said that the opening of the 9th suggested to him in strongly visual terms a small, but heavily-laden boat, labouring to leave the quayside.  This image communicated itself directly to me and now I cannot hear the 9th begin without visualising this....

Anyone else visualise when listening to Mahler?

Karafan

[nickmolland]

Err...not usually, but the Ninth does put me in mind of two things, neither of which are at all defensible. The opening always reminds me of the foghorns sounding across Mount's Bay in Cornwall when I was small, whereas later, the bass woodwinds recall Miles Davis's 'Bitches Brew'. All a long way from the usual, more elevated, associations, I'm afraid!

Nick

[mahlerei]

This question of 'visualising' music always intrigues me. It's not something I do, even in the most programmatic works, although I do think of the music in three dimensions (as we all do). We tried an experiment in my university days, where we played Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima to two groups of students. one was told the progamme behind the music - which the composer only added later - and the other was left to listen 'blind', as it were. We then asked for their thoughts. Not surprisingly those who knew the programme heard/visulaised all the usual things - aircraft engines, sirens etc - while the other group responded quite differently.