Physical reactions to Mahler's music

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

 Emotional reactions while listening to Mahler's music can be intense and varied. One of the most stranges for me was while listening to M4. I was very concentrated, eyes shut, and suddenly at the very end of 3rd movement,during the successive modulations (number 13 in the score) ,I felt myself really leaving my chair and floating in the air ,like in levitation. A very strange and rather frightening sensation that happend only once. I tried to find it again but it did not came again. But I dont' lose hope.
What about your experiences about intense emotional reactions, and in what moment in the pieces?

[john haueisen]

I know what you mean.  Sometimes, particular points in almost every Mahler symphony can move me to tears.  (It can be a bit embarrassing in public.)  But other times, even hearing the same recording, it doesn't cause the same reaction.  That may be one of the "magical" things about music.  Certain parts of Wagner's Ring or of several Strauss operas can do the same thing.

I'm sure this has happened to others at the Mahler Board, but many will be too shy to admit it.

[Roffe]

I've not experienced levitation yet, but have been moved to tears, have gotten goose-bumps all over my body, and like John said, it doesn't happen every time I listen to the same recording. I can get the same sort of reaction from, for example, Beethoven's ninth.

Roffe

[waderice]

When Slatkin's M2 SLSO recording was in the process of being recorded, I read in an article years ago either accompanying the LP edition or elsewhere that the chorus members during its recording were overtaken emotionally by the music.  An appropriate reaction to this music being as good a recording that it is.  I can remember the time when I participated in performances of it almost 40 years ago that it was an emotional event for me.

There are many pieces of non-Mahler music that can give one the feeling of levitation as mentioned earlier, or that can produce an emotional reaction.  One piece that comes immediately to mind that can produce an emotional reaction is the Intermezzo to Franz Schmidt's opera, "Notre Dame".  This piece often appears in recordings of orchestral bon-bons from the operatic repertoire.  Von Karajan's old DG recording of the piece really comes across as such.

Wade

[mahler09]

Mahler's music absolutely brings me to tears at times!  When you have something so raw and personal there are times when it's impossible not to!

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

Several times Mahler spoke about tears people would shed while listening to his music. He was right. It's the case for me of course. And sometimes at unexpected moments.And sometimes only THINKING about his music brings me to tears. If my memory is good, he said about Das Abschied something like :"How people could listen to that without being tempted to commit suicide." (Or was it about Kindertotenlieder, I don't rememeber. No time to check) . Das Abschied is so moving for me that generally I stop just before when I'm  listening to DLVDE.
other emotional reactions  : tachycardia, loss of time and space notion. feeling without strength anymore. (in french we say "to be picked up whith a little spoon"). No other composer brings that to me.
That's for emotion. But Mahler brings me immense intellectual satisfaction and his technique in composition is absolutely fascinating .

[Roffe]

In a letter to Henry Boys (postmarked 29 june 1937), Benjamin Britten wrote about "Das Abschied":


My dear Henry,

it is now well past midnight & society dictates that I should stop playing the 'Abschied'. Otherwise I might possibly have gone on playing the last record indefinately - for 'ewig'-keit of course.
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness & of pain: of strength & freedom. The beauty of disappointment & never satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.
And the esentially 'pretty' colours of the normal orchestral palette are used to paint this extraordinary picture of loneliness. And there is nothing morbid about it. The same harmonic progressions that Wagner used to colour his esentially morbid lovescenes (his ‘Liebes’ is naturally followed by ‘Tod’) are used here to paint a serenity literally supernatural. I cannot understand it – it passes over me like a tidal wave – and that matters not a jot either, because it goes on for ever, even if it is never performed again – that final chord is printed on the atmosphere. Perhaps if I could understand some of the Indian philosophies I might approach it a little. At the moment, I can do no more than bask in its Heavenly light - & it is worth having lived to do that.
- Do come & hear it again soon. I’ll be back on Saturday – hear it then & we’ll talk about it all Sunday at the Bridges.

Love,
Benjamin

PS. Can you catch the 10.45 on Sunday?


Roffe

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

Very beautiful letter indeed. I did'nt know it. Thank's for posting .
It reminds me of a letter from Webern to Berg after the premiere of Das Lied . He admits that during the rehearsal ,while listening to a certain passage "he wished to die right away, so much moved he was". He came to wonder "if it was allowed to hear that".

[Roffe]

Is that Webern/Berg letter available on the net, so we could access and read it in its entirety ?

Thanks
Roffe

PS In my previous posting, I wrote "Das Abschied"; it should of course be "Der Abschied" (my German grammar is not so good).

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

I don't know if it's available on the net. Some extracts are quoted by HDLG in his biography of M. Here is the continuation (please be extremely indulgent with my English) :

Though, from now on they have a duty, to be worthy of this work "while fighting, diping into their heart ,to remove from it everything being not pure". "Always higher! Sursum corda as says christian religion. that's how lived Mahler,as well as Schoenberg does."

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

The same day Webern wrote to his friend Königer : 

"Das Lied (...)  is the most marvellous composition it may be. It's said that when you are dying pictures of your past life unfold in front of your eyes and soul .So is whith this work : It cannot be described with words. What a power it contains ! "

[Roffe]

Thank you for the quotes.

Roffe

[mahler09]

That was a cool letter...it's fascinating to think of how different composers influence each other