I found a used copy of "The Little Drummer Boy". There's a lot good stuff in there. I like it that Bernstein emphasizes "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" as being the germinating seed for so much music in his symphonies, particularly the earlier ones. I also agree that Mahler symphonies are very much "opera for ochestra" (he makes this point when discussing Mahler's superior dramatic qualities).
And yes, it is interesting when Bernstein exposes the Jewish quality in much of the music. He also does a good job of defining what being "Jewish" means in purely musical terms. I think he stretches his point a tad too far when he states that Mahler was, quote, "ashamed of not being ashamed", when discussing not only his converting to Catholocism - purely for practical and career puposes, apparently - but lieing about the date in which he had supposedly begun being a practicing Catholic. Bernstein might be right but we don't have a lot of proof of how Mahler really felt, one way or the other. Anyway, Bernstein rounds out his musical essay by claiming that Mahler needed to resolve this idenity crisis (my labeling of it, not his) in some fashion. He then makes the claim that Mahler found peace and resolution in the "zen like" words and pentatonic scales of "DLvdE". I think that Bernstein should have made a footnote that Mahler putzed around with the words himself. In a sense, he's saying that the book of collected German medeival and romantic stories, known as "Des Knaben Wunderhorn", was finally replaced by the book of collected Chinese poetry. Perhaps.
While I can't disagree with Bernstein's conclusion, I find it baffling that he doesn't also see resolution in the 8th symphony. Mahler himself said that ALL of his previous symphonies had been merely preludes to the 8th, and that they were all too subjective. He also said that his 8th was, quote, "my gift to the nation"; and said to Alfred Roller, "there's your Mass". For me, Mahler was as much a political composer as he was personal. In Mahler's mind, the 8th pointed the way out of the petty squabling, rampid nationalism, and military overkill that was begining to define turn-of-the-century Germany (and along for the ride, Austria). It was a way of looking for "the light" in one's mind, and redemption in one's soul, without also turning to the same-old tired answers. In short, it was everything that all of his previous works had been building up to. In purely musical terms, it's the fin-de-siecle Beethoven's 9th. Because the 8th was also his most public work, he turned inward and personal with "DLvdE". After the 8th, there could be no further public works of such magnitude. It is perhaps the most dramatic shift in personal aesthetics in all of music. Imagine if Beethoven had composed his "Heliege Dankgesang" (buried in one of the late quartets) immediately after his "Ode To Joy". That's the kind of dramatic shift we're talking about. That would have fit perfectly into Bernstein's proclamation of Mahler's dramatic sensibilities.
Topic: more on "The Little Drummer Boy" (Read 7120 times)