Better than usual nonsense about the sixth symphony. The business about the third stroke being deleted for the 'three strikes, you're out!', 'boogy man of fate' idea is probably pure nonsense since Mahler originally designed the movement with five hammer strokes in mind. And while it's true that the symphony has a "cathartic" quality - and thus, works as a classic Greek tragedy - it's also true that the finale is musically describing something far more than personal tragedy: it's a cataclysmic disaster on a global scale. With its added fourth trombone and tons of percussion, play just the finale to newsreel footage of the western front (WWI) and you'll see that it fits perfectly. Even though Mahler didn't realize it at the time - and couldn't realize it since he died in 1911 - he wrote a movie soundtrack to the first world war. This brings us to an even bigger topic I've wanted to discuss for a long time.
The entire middle period of Mahler has been, and continues to be, incorrectly analyzed and thus, completely misunderstood. The usual explanation is that Mahler wrote a trilogy of purely instrumental symphonies (5-7) based upon thematic material from the two Ruckert based song cycles, then composed this 'white elephant' of an anomaly know as the eighth symphony. The eighth symphony is not an anomaly at all; we've simply been viewing Mahler's middle period incorrectly for decades. Mahler's turbulent middle period is actually his most 'public' group of works.
While there are always some private - and thus, 'autobiographical' - elements to all of Mahler's works, Mahler's middle period is about the human traversal from darkness to light. The real trilogy in this set are symphonies six through eight (M6 - M8); they form a 'darkness to light' trilogy with symphony five acting as a 'darkness to light' model for the proceeding trilogy of works. In M5, the switch from darkness to light happens pretty much at the second solo horn passage - almost a cadenza, really - in the middle movement Scherzo. The scherzo ends in major, the first movement in M5 to do so.
In symphonies M6 through M8, the switch from darkness to light happens at the brief passage of carnival-like music that's positioned towards the end of the middle movement Scherzo in M7. From that moment on, the basic overall tone of M7 changes until the very end. It makes no difference that the fourth movement is a Nocturne, as it also works as an Italian serenade (and in my opinion, works better at the quicker tempo most conductors are using these days). The end of the seventh symphony dumps you right at the doorstep for the beginning "Veni Creator Spiritus" of M8. Not realizing this connection (continued narrative) greatly explains why the finale to M7 has seemed like such a weird anomaly to so many folks. It works perfectly if one considers symphonies six through eight as something of a continuing narrative (almost like episodes of TV shows).
Yes, it's true that what I'm saying appears overly simplistic: there are always brief moments of darkness within Mahler's more 'enlightened' movements, and moments of bright light within Mahler's darker, predominately minor-mode movements. In fact, one of the hallmarks of Mahler symphonies is the constant interchange between major and minor modes (with the use of Phrygian being one of the minor modes implied in various places). But my overall point remains the same.
Symphonies six though eight are not private, autobiographical works, but are, in fact, his most public utterances. In symphony six - whether Mahler knew it or not (which is almost irrelevant) - he pointed the finger at what was wrong with an increasingly bellicose Austro-German society. The overt militarism of this symphony is its dead giveaway. Thus, Mahler 6 is simultaneously his most German and anti-German symphony. In a sense, it is a protest work.
On the one hand, Mahler gives more than just a nod to the standard Sonata-Allegro form of Austro-German symphonies as exemplified by Haydn through Bruckner (and it's completely immaterial which inner movement comes first). Yet, the finale is a symphony within a symphony; a common feature of many Mahler symphonies.
The first movement of Mahler 7 is basically a Reader's Digest (or Cliff Notes) condensation of all that happens in M6, only with a tighter narrative, vastly more modern harmony, and less reliance on a huge battery of percussion (and more efficient use of a smaller brass section). For me, aside from its more progressive harmonic structure, the only truly redeeming feature of the first movement (M7/1) is the gorgeous, 'other wordly' middle passage. I find it to be an extremely intense movement (and yes, it's 'progressive', whatever that's worth).
Mahler 8, of course, is the polar opposite to the finale of M6. While Mahler 6 gives us all the warning signs of where Europe was heading in the early 1900's (particularly Austria and Germany), Mahler 8 offers what he felt to be the only real solution. This brings us to Beethoven.
In Beethoven 9, the message is to stop what you're doing and begin loving your brother - a nice message if also a tad naive and unrealistic ("Hell is other people"). In Mahler 8 - the Art Nouveau equivalent of Beethoven's 9th - Mahler tells us to change the world by first changing ourselves. In M8, Mahler is giving a somewhat private message in the most public way imaginable (hence, the enigmatic character of Mahler symphonies in general). That makes sense when you consider that Mahler had envisioned future performances of the 8th symphony being given to tens of thousands of people (a performance of M8 at Rio de Janiero's Impanema Beach was allegedly attended by a quarter of a million people). Even though Mahler backed away from the "Barnum & Bailey" aspects of the preparations to its premiere in Munich (including cringing at the "Symphony of a Thousand" moniker), he fully embraced the 8th as being a symphony for the multitudes. The evidence to that fact is very clear. Faust's redemption is everyone's redemption - if we want it.
As we approach the 100 year mark to the first day of World War I, it becomes increasingly important to know what Mahler proposed (whether HE knew it or not) was simply too little, too late. It's my opinion that Mahler himself didn't fully understand what it was that he had composed, and was thus not very helpful in explaining his works to those who were curious, as well as not being able to assuage his critics. His strange, tortured behavior at the premiere of M6 in Essen - along with his enigmatic utterances on the symphony - give witness to this fact. The usual 'autobiographical' explanations of Mahler's works persist because many people are simply not willing to take the next step: understanding that when Mahler speaks of himself, he is speaking for everyone. His song cycles and symphonies are works for the 'every man', even if it takes a somewhat erudite person to absorb them.
Isn't it interesting, then, that symphonies six through eight all got premiered in cities that were highly appropriate to their context? Think about it. M6 was premiered in Essen, where, undoubtedly, people from the Krupp enterprise must have attended (Krupp was not only world's largest producer of munitions, it was the largest industrial complex in the entire world at that time). Obviously, the message behind symphony fell on deaf ears. Even Richard Strauss was somewhat clueless (and Mahler didn't help his own cause at all).
Mahler 7 gets premiered in Prague, which is interesting because in some respects the 7th is Mahler's most 'Czech' (Bohemian? . . . Moravian?) symphony. We don't hear so much mountain peaks in M7, but more the descriptions and rumblings of forests and meadows. The first Nocturne in M7 (Nachtmusik) was described as possibly being a night walk through such a landscape, possibly moonlit. To this day, M7 remains a signature work for the Czech Phil. (the recent Inbal recording from Prague is outstanding).
Mahler 8 gets premiered in Munich, which was, and remains, Germany's premiere party-town. It's interesting to note that Mahler was also far more relaxed for a performance he gave of M6 in Munich, along with expressing a desire to possibly settle in Munich (someday) to his wife Alma. And to this day, good performances of M8 continue to happen in Munich, even though the original venue is not available for use (but still stands).
My message is clear and emphatic: stop thinking of Mahler's middle period as being one of purely instrumental symphonies (5-7), it's immaterial whether they're purely instrumental or not. What's important is the context and the message behind these works. Think of M5 as being a 'darkness to light' prototype for the trilogy of symphonies six through eight. If nothing else, Mahler 8 will make a lot more sense in that context. These are Mahler's most public works, expressed, at times, in private utterances.
Topic: Symphony guide: Mahler's 6th (Read 7897 times)