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General Category => Gustav Mahler and Related Discussions => Topic started by: Karafan on September 10, 2009, 02:36:21 PM
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I have just ordered this from Amazon.de as it looks as if it should be interesting viewing (I have enjoyed the SACDs).
Anyone seen it and have an opinion?
Thanks
Karafan
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Ooops - sorry just seen John and Barry's ruminations on Amazon.com (I am in the UK). Anyone else have views though?
K.
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I have seen this film and found it interesting for one view. I will prefer more music from rehearsals and backstage moments and not so much talking.
Mind that the audio record is in cd only format, and not sacd. This is a pity so I bought the sacd.
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It's definitnely worth the price, since it comes with a CD of the full performance too. I wish it was a full performance DVD instead of just CD, but the overall package and DVD was interesting. Also, in this age of peripatetic, jet-set conductors, its nice to see a conductor work so doggedly with one orchestra for so long, and achieving such wonderful results. I do think Zinman relies too much in his interpretation in the DVD interviews on the alleged biographical links with Mahler's life pushed by Alma in her later years, many of which are doubtful, and frankly of no real use or concern to anyone trying to understand the symphony on its own terms. Looking to the biography to explain the symphonies can be helpful at times, but it can also be pushed to extremes that obscure the music, and I think its usefullness is limited.
For example, take the so-called "Alma Theme" in the first movement. If he said what Alma claims he did about that part of the movement, my guess is that it was an offhand comment, perhaps meant to placate Alma after an argument or some such thing - "Oh, look Dear, I've depicted you in such lovely music!" - and that he never intended it to be some genuine interpretation of the music for others. I've always thought Mahler himself would be appalled at the thought that 100 years later people would, relying on Alma's uncorroborated testimony written decades after the fact, call this part of the first movement the "Alma Theme," and treat it as if it were simple program music, as if listeners should say, "Oh, isn't that lovely...he's set Alma to music. He must have loved her greatly," every time they hear it. I think this is one of those cases where the alleged biographical links obscure, debase, and unnecessarily limit thoughts about the music on its own terms. Again and again in the DVD, Zinman seems to come back to Alma, as if she and their relationship were the key to the symphony.
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While I agree with your argument in principle, I do think that the second subject of M6/I may have, indeed, been intended as an "Alma" theme. I say that because there actually is some musical resemblance between the fifth symphony's Adagietto movement, and the so-called "Alma" theme. Obviously, the music in question is much quicker in M6. That said, you are correct in pointing out that it still functions as a contrasting theme, regardless of whether it has any kind of programmatic attachment or not. That much I'll certainly grant you. While the opening march section is in minor, and is generally "marshal" like in character, the second subject is in Major, and is quite legato in terms of phrasing. Pure contrast, through and through.
I've always thought of the "Alma theme" business as being rather benign in comparison to what Alma said about the finale of M6. I'm truly bothered by - and doubtful of - the hammerstrokes of fate supposedly having to do with Mahler's own insecurities and problems. To me, the finale has to be about catastrophe and tragedy on a truly global scale. The real fly in the ointment is the deletion of the third hammer stroke in the revised version. I say that because I'm quite convinced that Mahler deleted it for purely musical reasons, and not because of the supposed, "three strikes, you're out!"; boogy-man of fate nonsense. I'm far more bothered by that stuff.
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I've always thought that the "three strikes" business sounds like something a newspaper reporter would use to z
"flesh-out" a story for his column. I'm not aware (maybe someone else is?) of any references by Mahler about the hammer blows representing any biographical experiences in life. By M6, I believe he had distanced himself from verbal delineations that might make his works look like program music.
--John H
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"I'm not aware (maybe someone else is?) of any references by Mahler about the hammer blows representing any biographical experiences in life"
Correct. Alma was the one who, later on, connected the dots by saying that each hammer stroke represented something awful - in the form of premonitions - of specific awful events that happened to Mahler himself. Mahler himself talked about the falling of an imaginary hero, but was concerned about the sound of the hammer strokes being non-metallic. They were to sound somewhat wooden, like the sound of a tree being fallen in the forest - something like that.
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The amazing thing about the M6 finale, is in comparing it with the Beethoven 9 finale, you really hear music that is the total antithesis of the romantic style...perhaps taking romanticism to the utmost end.
The reason I compare the M6 to Beethoven 9 is that it appears Beethoven set the model Mahler would build on again and again, it different forms throughout his own work...same with Bruckner if not more so! But Bruckner has a totally different conversation with the Beethoven 9 then Mahler. Very interesting to compare the different reactions to Beethoven.
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To me, the finale has to be about catastrophe and tragedy on a truly global scale
Amen! I think to see the finale as some kind of premonition of merely Mahler's personal fate is too limiting (especially since he wrote it at what seemed to be one of the happiest periods of his personal life; same with the Kindertotenlieder). I read somewhere that Camus once said that in listening to Mahler's 6th he heard the history of the 20th century in music. Whether Mahler consciously percieved it or not (an artist's work often contains meanings obscured from the creator's own consciousness), I think he tapped into some general sense of dread and foreboding about the course of history (could not the march theme in the opening be Europe marching resolutely to it's own death in the trenches in 1914?), rather than simply pondering his personal fate or accurately predicting the "three hammer blows" that would befall him in 1907.
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Yes, and isn't it a bizarre coincidence that M6 had its premiere in Essen, of all places - the home of the Krupp armaments factory. At that time, the Krupp's spread was THE largest industrial complex in the entire world. Krupp truly powered the Germans through both world wars. On top of that, Alfried Krupp was such a supporter of Hitler, that he truly was a, "power behind the throne" type of person. Of ALL the Ruhr Valley industrialists, Krupp was by far the most radical supporter of the Third Reich's agenda. Perhaps Mahler instinctively felt the evil behind the agenda in Essen in the early years of the 20th century (?). I've always felt that the 6th is simultaneously Mahler's most German symphony and - at the same time - most anti-German symphony. It seems to both a premonition AND a warning. That wasn't that unusual, because many artists and intellectuals saw the coming catastrophes coming from a million miles away. There was, in fact, plenty of warning. That's a whole 'nother topic. Regardless, much of the audience in Essen must have been made up of Krupp upper management, family, etc. By all accounts, Mahler was a complete basket case during his time in Essen. He was far more relaxed when he performed the 6th again in Munchen.
Perhaps, in Munich, the hammerstrokes simply symbolized locals who liked to get a bit too drunk on beer, and schlag each other over the head with their Masses (one liter steins).
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That wasn't that unusual, because many artists and intellectuals saw the coming catastrophes coming from a million miles away. There was, in fact, plenty of warning. That's a whole 'nother topic.
While I understand that some people "see" things earlier than others (or, is it rather so, that "Prophecy is a guess that comes true. When it doesn't, it's a metaphor", as someone more wiser than I once said?) and without widening the discussion into speculations of what could or couldn't be in Mahler's mind, I haven't heard of a letter Mahler wrote or a quote about him by his closest friends, that would allow me to consider a conclusion that would say: "M6 is about "the" catastrophy" (rather than "a" hypothetical catastrophy which M6 without a doubt is). Could somebody point me in such a direction?
Perhaps, in Munich, the hammerstrokes simply symbolized locals who liked to get a bit too drunk on beer, and schlag each other over the head with their Masses (one liter steins).
:D
I thought it might have been at the time of the 1906 Oktoberfest but it was apparently on November 8th. ;)
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Yes, of course you're right, Zoltan. But people often times don't run around talking about the premonitions or "bad feelings" that they may be experiencing, assuming that that was even the case with Mahler. More to the point, after the 3rd symphony, Mahler greatly curtailed speaking about the subjective side of his symphonies. When asked about the very meaning of the sixth symphony, Mahler gave rather vague answers. He said something, to somebody, about it representing all of the suffering that he had had to endure in life. Surely we can deduce that it's about something far greater than just his own personal problems and insecurities. At Essen, he basically refused to talk to anybody about it! That's why Alma had to create her own explanations - to try to make sense of it for herself. Richard Strauss was left completely perplexed and baffled.
For me, it all comes back to a point I've tried to raise numerous times. It was always said that Mahler was totally uninterested in politics. But that doesn't mean that he wasn't fully aware of the geo-political situation in Europe. How could Mahler have possibly not been fully aware, given that his entire subsistence had been totally dependent upon Austro/German royalty (up until the point he left Europe for N.Y., that is)? Further more, Mahler made one of the most politically astute comments of anybody ever: his "thrice homeless" comment.
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I haven't heard of a letter Mahler wrote or a quote about him by his closest friends, that would allow me to consider a conclusion that would say: "M6 is about "the" catastrophy" (rather than "a" hypothetical catastrophy which M6 without a doubt is). Could somebody point me in such a direction?
I don't think it's so much about Mahler "predicting" anything in a specific sense, as it is simply embodying and expressing through art a general foreboding about a coming civilisational catastrophe.
Many other artists and thinkers, for decades before WWI had had similar forebodings, even though none could have "predicted" the precise form the catastrophe took in 1914 and beyond. Think of Dostoevsky in the 1870s writing about visions of tens of millions slaughtered in wars (a level of casualties unheard of in warfare up to his time). Or think about Nietzsche writing 1887, "What I relate is the history of the next two centuries...the advent of nihilism...for some time now, our whole European culture has been moving toward a catastrophe..." (Will to Power, Preface, Para.#2).
As a keen reader and admirer of both Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, Mahler would have been familiar with such apocalpytic thoughts and forebodings (which was also quite a common feeling in the fin-de-siecle Vienna of his time). Hermann Broch once described the atmosphere in Vienna as the "Gay Apocalypse," an air of frivolity and kitsch that was simulktaneously weighed down by an intense feeling that it would all come crashing down soon - "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die". It's also interesting that Vienna had one of the highest suicide rates of the time - once described as the city in which suicide was an art form - and that Mahler's own brother, despite apparently great promise as a musician, also chose to commit suicide, declaring he simply "no longer wished to live...I'm returning my ticket" (the latter line itself a quote from Dostoevsky.)
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Very well put. Thank you.
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Very well put. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Guerrero.
I appreciate, it. I'm no musical expert in any technical sense, but I've been a Mahler afficianado for many years now, and I'm glad to be able to share my thoughts and feelings on a site like this with people who feel as I do about Mahler, and who can often help expand my own appreciation of Mahler's music.
Anyway,
Thanks again..
Dennis Wheeler
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I don't think it's so much about Mahler "predicting" anything in a specific sense, as it is simply embodying and expressing through art a general foreboding about a coming civilizational catastrophe.
My trouble with this kind of explanation is: somebody is always running around declaring the apocalypse. It's like the broken-down clock that is accurate twice a day. I can imagine that Mahler was perhaps describing what he saw happening around him in fin-de-siecle Vienna and extrapolate that to create intense drama in his music, nonetheless I have a hard time accepting that he saw the coming of a "civilizational catastrophe"; it's rather us trying to make sense of it all looking back.
I have noted it and will try to read more about the Essen performance, and the "thrice homeless" is indeed a political comment quite unlike Mahler, though I wonder on that as well, since the source is Alma as far as I know.
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Again, while what you say is true at face value, Zoltan, you can not explain away Mahler 6 by simply saying that it's exclusively about Mahler's own insecurities. I would rather embrace the cathartic, Greek tragedy explanation. Also, in my opinion, you can not compare those times to today. It's true that we're ALWAYS living in times of uncertainty. But at that time, the world had entered its first, truly global economic period. Yet, the political systems were still tied to outdated and inflexible leadership from the aristocracy and monarchies. Furthermore, Europe was experiencing an arms buildup of huge proportions. Europe's answer to solving geo/political issues had ALWAYS been armed conflict. Even within the 19th century, two conflicts were huge in setting the stage for Germany's unification, and thus, ascension as a world power: the Franco-Prussian War, and the Austro-Prussian War. As I mentioned before, plenty of artists and intellectuals - probably anybody who took the time to add one and one together - saw that the old ways of dealing with big issues in Europe was headed for a dead end street. Probably few Europeans today would deny this. That's one big reason why today, Europeans are so hesitant to throw themselves into geo/political conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, they've become so "gun shy", that they are nearly incapable of dealing with geo/political problems in the Balkans - an ancient hot-spot of trouble for the rest of Europe.
Today, in spite of having to eradicate terrorist organizations, we have nothing to compare with that sort of situation. The prospect of the world blowing itself apart in nuclear conflict was pretty much stopped cold (no pun intended) during the Cuban Missile Crises, as well as Reagan's strategy out of out-spending the Soviet empire (if not stopped, at least greatly delayed). Can you imagine how people felt at the world exposition in Paris in 1900, when they saw great quantities of huge guns on display from Krupp, Skoda, Vickers, and whomever the main French gun makers might have been? Uneasy, to say the least.
Also, to my mind, the "Gay Vienna" explanation (Fin de siecle Vienna) isn't entirely adequate either. By this point, from a purely military standpoint, Austria-Hungary was already in the basket of a unified Germany. The Kaiser was already meddling heavily in Hapsburg politics, particularly in matters dealing with their Eastern neighbors (and Balkans). I do not see Mahler as someone who spent lots of time and energy paying attention to Arthur Schnitzler, Karl Krauss, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, Gustav Klimt, Kolo Moser, Josef Hoffmann, or any of the other key members of a self conscious, indigenous art nouveau moment, quaintly called "Jugenstil". Certainly he would have been aware of them, if not also on friendly terms. But he was also too self absorbed in pushing his own career, his own agenda, and his own artistic ideals, which - in my opinion - were far more universal in their scope and aim. Mahler was already thinking well beyond Vienna.
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Again, while what you say is true at face value, Zoltan, you can not explain away Mahler 6 by simply saying that it's exclusively about Mahler's own insecurities.
If what I wrote made that impression I wasn't choosing my words carefully enough! That explanation is *definitely* the one I think is close to the truth.
Barry, what you describe of the political situation around the turn of the century in Europe is right as far as my historical knowledge goes. What I would be interested in (but what needs research) is how people really felt said in their words. By that I don't only mean a few opinions but a more general overview (if there are any). Due to TV today, one can hear more about the world than 100 years ago, which is why I have trouble accepting, that a common man (someone outside of politics) would be able to grasp everything happening around him (from newspapers alone?), to see the whole picture. In hindsight we're able to look back and say: "aha, that was it (just like you described Europeans)". But would they be able to see a conflict which has never been seen before on European soil?
Which is why, coming back to Mahler, I see him not a messanger of times to come, but a describer of a "Greek tragedy" as you said (much less specific about the what?, more about the how?)
Edit: corrected a spelling mistake
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"but I describer of a "Greek tragedy" as you said (much less specific about the what?, more about the how?)"
I can buy that. It certainly makes far more sense to me than the three-strikes-you're-out, boogeman of fate theory.
B.
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Hmm, I don't find these conductor 'commentaries' very useful and usually avoid them like the plague. I prefer the music to 'speak for itself' rather than be coerced into all sorts of extra-musical speculation about what it 'means'. Music, in and of itself, 'means' nothing, and any meaning it does accrue is through our own personal response to it. And, by definition, such reactions are entirely personal, not universal. Which is why I can't get worked up about the hammer blows or any other musical devices.
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For the most part, I agree with what you say. On the other hand, the question will ALWAYS persist as to WHY Mahler composed what he did compose, WHEN he composed it. This was suppoed to have been the happiest period in his life. Furthermore, Mahler's behavoir in Essen was a complete puzzle to everyone around him. Clearly, Mahler himself was not being very objective.
While Mahler dropped the concept of written programs, he still went along with the idea that his works - or any big works from his period - had some kind of hidden program. But he also gave his listeners the freedom to at least somewhat determine the hidden programs for themselves.
Boulez says that Mahler symphonies are both epic and narrative in quality. That may be more precise than saying that they're programmatic, I suppose.
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Barry
That's my point exactly; Mahler's erratic and emotional behaviour in Essen seems to contradict what was going on elsewhere in his life, so any attempt to set the music in some kind of narrative aspic is always going to be fraught with problems. Few would deny that M6 is a work of considerable turmoil, but that is communicated withour necessarily being aware of Mahler's personal circumstances at the time. In that sense the medium really is the message, and anything else is ephemeral.
The same sort of issues arise with Shostakovich, where commentators have spent so much time trying to find 'hidden meanings' in the symphonies. Again, the impact of these works - certainly those without a programme or sung text - isn't diminished by not not knowing the circumstances surrounding their composition. The Fifth, for example, and its 'reply to just criticism' has been hugely overplayed, I believe, and trying to decode these works is simply a waste of time.
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I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on the Shostakovich part. What Volkov said just seems terribly obvious to me: that from the 4th on, the Shostakovich symphonies are tombstones for the Russian people. The 4th is so obviously exposing the horrors and desolation of trying to live under Stalin. At the same time, it's also a tribute to a Mahler. In comparison to the 4th, the 5th is - well, to me, anyway - quite obviously just exactly what eveyone has been saying about it: "A Soviet artist's reply to fair and just criticism" - not!! I don't think that the story behind S5 has been overplayed at all. I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this part of the debate.