On Bartok, how can you not examine central Europe from 1910 to 1945, dark forces political and personal, Bartok's refugee status, and his fatal illness.
Bluebeard's Castle and the Miraculous Mandarin certainly raise deep psychological issues. And why are the night music movements not connected to both history and Bartok's psyche?
When Mahler asked Bruno Walter how one could live after DLvdE, or when he was in tears after conducting a performance of the 6th, or when he scrawled the heart wrenching cries to Alma in the manuscript of the 10th symphony: how could that be "absolute music" with no connection to his personal emotions and psyche?
The claim that Mahler's music is "absolute music"-whatever that might be --seems to ignore far too much.
One can have whatever view one wants, but it seems very strange to think that art is a disembodied thing.
Best to all,
Tom in Vermont
...moreover, Bluebard's Castle was a wedding gift for Bartok's first wife, whom he treated like a child.
Mahler did not stop writing program music, he simply withheld programs because people, especially critics, kept misunderstanding them or, worse, they thought the program came before the actual writing of the music.
What is really intriguing in music that tells a story is the way a the story is told through musical processes. If you have time for some stimulating read, you should try:
Mahler's Symphonic Sonatas (Oxford Studies in Music Theory) by Seth Monahan
Monahan's essays that can be downloaded for free:
http://www.sethmonahan.com/research.htmlRichard Strauss's Orchestral Music and the German Intellectual Tradition: The Philosophical Roots of Musical Modernism (Indiana University Press) by Charles Youmans
and: Mahler and Strauss: In Dialogue (Indiana University Press) by Charles Youmans.
