Humor in Mahler's music?

[john haueisen]

Can anyone explain what is meant when references are made to the humor in Mahler's music?

I can recognize humor in, for example, Richard Strauss's TIL EULENSPIEGEL, where you can seem to hear some of Til's pranks, and certainly his pleading for his life, when he is finally caught.

But how do you explain to someone the humor or wit in Mahler's music?

I hope someone can provide an explanation, because I find myself in the position of a young co-worker years ago, who asked me admiringly (I'd like to think):  "Where can I go to find guys like you?"  Professorially, I told her to just go to places where she would find people with  interests similar to hers.  Unfortunately, she replied very disarmingly, "Where do I get interests?"

So now I'm in her position, asking you readers how I can find, and start to understand the humor and wit in Mahler's music.  I know this is a tough task, but can anyone (Please be kind!) point me in the right direction to start appreciating the humor in some of Mahler's works?   

[Leo K]

John H,

In my experience, the sound of humor is actually a subjective phenomenon, rather than an obvious feature of Mahler's sound world.  If I had to use a word to describe the marches in the M3 (for an example), I think of the word "irony" rather than humor, but nowadays I don't listen for this trait in Mahler's music...I listen more at the sound itself, without qualifying it, as well as the form, and the phrases...if a subjective interpetation arises, I take it as it comes without getting too serious about it, as everyone will hear something different!

--Todd

[chris]

I'm not sure if the "humor" in Mahler is what I'd call "funny." 

The three that jump out at me include:

All the extreme changes of tempo and dynamics in the last movement of the seventh is funny just because things happen so suddenly.

The third movement of the first - where the funeral march is going and the winds (I think) cackle almost like laughter and oompa band keeps interrupting - is perhaps morbidly funny.

"Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" in Des Knaben or the second symphony (instrumental though) - somewhat self explanatory with the words, not quite as funny if you don't know the song.

[Amphissa]

Well, I find it humorous that he stuck a big ol' hairy overblown MARCH in so many of his symphonies, and had one symphony that was mostly marching and marching and marching and marching ....

And how about the very notion of building a movement around that silly childhood round Frère Jacques, but then taking the happy tune and putting it into a minor key, thus making it depressing, and then making it even more dreadful by turning it into a funeral march? It is terribly, sadly hilarious! Of course, those who condemn Mahler often do so because of his use of sappy (sometimes bawdy) tunes, oompha band music, etc, which they consider vulgar and inappropriate in classical music, but it was just that kind of incongruity that interjects some humor in his music.

I suppose that is the way I see most "humor" in Mahler -- the juxtaposition of the ugly, the beautiful, and the whimsical, all in a mashpit, all slapping and bashing together.

As to where to turn, I seem to remember that Bernstein discussed humor in classical music in one of his Young People's Concerts lectures, and mentioned Mahler as an example. And I seem to remember David Hurwitz mentioning something about Mahler humor. Maybe he can jump in here, as he is surely more knowledgeable than I about such things.

[Dave H]

There is so much humor in Mahler, of all sorts--genuinely funny, grotesque, witty, you name it. Let me point to just two very small examples that had me laughing out loud and that, all questions of subjectivity aside, I think most people will hear.

[Dave H]

Sorry folks-I hit some button or something and posted before I finished. Here is my actual reply:

There is so much humor in Mahler, of all sorts--genuinely funny, grotesque, witty, you name it. Let me point to just two very small examples that had me laughing out loud and that, all questions of subjectivity aside, I think most people will hear and agree with.

1. The final bars of the First Symphony's first movement, there the timpani get so carried away that they pound along solo until stopping dead, as if embarrassed. Then they and the rest of the orchestra can't seem to get in sync with one another, before finally, after two attempts, they finally manage to finish at the same time. That, to me, is genuinely funny.

2. The last bar of the Ninth's first scherzo--piccolo and contrabasson, and nothing in the middle. This is almost exactly the same sound that Verdi used in Falstaff's monolog in which he considers with horror the prospect of starving and becoming thin.

The problem with humor in music is twofold: it depends on timing above all else, and we are so conditioned to take the music seriously that we don't LET ourselves laugh, and take the music that makes us want to laugh at face value. We feel there must be something wrong with us. I remember very vividly that I was once on a date in high school with a girl who had never been to a symphony concert. We were listening to the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony (not exactly a laugh riot of a piece, let's face it). At one point, the main them comes in accompanied by running pizzicatos in the violins, and she started laughing. She simply found the sound deliciously witty. And it was, but I, who knew it very well, had to think about it and say to myself, "Wait a minute. Maybe it really IS as witty as it sounds and familiarity has bread a certain degree of contempt." The lesson is to try to keep the experience of listening fresh and have the confidence to let yourself feel spontaneously, because if humor isn't spontaneous then it certainly isn't funny.

Dave H

[john haueisen]

Amphissa, Dave H, and the others have just made excellent and helpful points about how much humor varies and how we have to try to remain open and spontaneous, with fresh ears to notice some of the wittiness, irony, and funny bits.

I'm glad Amphissa mentioned the importance for humor of a juxtaposition of the expected and the unexpected:  the appearance of marches in the Mahler symphonies.  Here's a nice melodious symphony going along, and a march comes by.  I remember once that a famous comic explained that humor comes from pairing the "normal" with the unexpected.  "Go get the axe; there's a flea in Grandpa's ear!"

I like Dave H's anecdote about the girl who began laughing at the running pizzicatos in Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony.  It illustrates how we do not all "get" a joke in the same way.  I hope others will share their perspectives on humor, wit, irony, or the unexpected that they have noticed in Mahler's music.

--John H

[Polarius T]

I'm not sure if the "humor" in Mahler is what I'd call "funny." 
...
"Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" in Des Knaben or the second symphony (instrumental though) - somewhat self explanatory with the words, not quite as funny if you don't know the song.

Some of the Wunderhorn songs would qualify for me, too, with the same proviso that what for us is comical might not have been exactly that way conceived by Mahler. But the Wunderhorn texts at least are surely full of good clean fun, many of them, though again this, as said, may often be about a property of the texts themselves rather than the music -- but not always, and almost always scored with a suitably cheerful instrumental parts. Is there anyone who won't smile when listening to the "Lob des hohen Verstandes," as close to slapstick as you get in Mahler? Or "The Heavenly Life" that concludes the 4th symphony?

Of course, folk verse in this vein can be cheerful now, unthinkably grim next, as we already know from Mahler's samplings of this collection too.

PT

[Jot N. Tittle]

I'm surprised that David did not refer to the Seventh, which abounds with wit and humor. The most thorough treatment of humor in M7 (that I know of) is by Lew Smoley in the Fall/Winter 2005 issue of Wunderhorn: The Newsletter of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York. I'm sending you a copy, John.

     . & '

[john haueisen]

Jot N. Tittle sent me a copy of Lew Smoley's essay on M7.  Has anyone else read this?  Smoley makes some amazing statements about Mahler's parodistic elements in M7.  He suggests that the loud pizzicatos may be parodizing M6's hammer blows.

Smoley also suggests that Mahler may be "spoofing fashionable Viennese gemutlichkeit by contrasting familiar waltzes with sinister and goblinesque music." 

Looks like I've got a lot more closer listening to do with M7.  Has anyone else noticed these parodizing elements in M7?

[Jot N. Tittle]

If you too wish to read Lew Smoley's piece on M7, you may find the pdf of the Wunderhorn at http://www.gmsnyc.org/wunderhorn.php.

     . & '

[barry guerrero]

Well, I'll take the M7 issue a step further. For me, Mahler makes fun himself, as well as the entire overblown, late romantic idiom. The finale is completely unselfconscious, in the sense that one idea just flows into next; pretty much at a breakneck speed. But it's also totally self aware, in the sense that it makes fun of everything and everybody along the way. Mahler himself  referred to the finale as, "a ray of sunshine in C Major". It's very much a Marx Brothers-like, send-up.

For me, the first two movements aren't terribly funny. I view the 7th as another darkness to light adventure. It takes us from the back porch of the tragic 6th symphony, and drops us on the doorstep of the mighty 8th symphony. To me, the first movement is a very intense condensation of the entire 6th symphony, coupled with a rich and modern harmonic language, as well as busy and exacting counterpoint. Of course, the "moonlit" central episode behaves similarly to the quiet cowbell episodes in M6. The second movement, a true nocturne, borders on being funny at times; particularly the two times the cowbells make their appearance.

The middle movement is where the entire program steps out from the dark side, into to a brighter light. It begins fast and intense, albeit mysterious as well. But towards the end of the scherzo, where the low brass play a carnival tune for a few bars (accompanied by oom-pah-pah rhythms), the whole movement suddenly becomes far more light hearted and humorous. It ends humorously.

It's a terrific symphony. From a purely technical standpoint, it might be Mahler's best. Klaus Tennstedt claimed that the 7th was his favorite. Regardless, it works on two levels: A).  it's Mahler's Concerto For Orchestra; and B.) it's another darkness to light traversal; one with a lot of humor and self parody along the way.

[barry guerrero]

Yes, I can see that; with marching bands suddenly coming from different directions. Is that what you're thinking? Certainly the harmonic language is a bit on the modern side as well.

Barry

[stillivor]

Apart from what's already been mentioned, there's the one moment in Mahler when I heard a memeber of an audience laugh. It's about 5 minutes from the end of 7, where the music comes to another halt, this time on a trilling trumpet. It can sound quite end-of-the-pier-like.

Some conductors, like hero Horenstein, seem to relish the moment - but then the maestro was very down-to-earth.

The other is in the first movement of 3, where Mahler instructs the side-drum to re-enter at the original tempo; a little bit of an instrument going its own way like the end of 1:1.

Two other humour-related moods Mahler catches are grotesquerie (like 9:III0), and high spirits (parts of the finales of 1,5 and 7 particularly).

And I think the end of 7 is amusing, where the penultimate chord sounds like it's nearly coming off the rails before the last-chord thump. Bernstein did it in quite daredevil ride mode.


     Ivor

[john haueisen]

Thanks Ivor,  I had forgotten a couple of these until you mentioned them and where they lie, waiting for the unexpecting listener.
JH