General Category > Gustav Mahler and Related Discussions

Marching Mahler

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barry guerrero:
I do find the finale to be fun and cathartic. But then again, I grew up in the back row of bands and orchestras, playing low brass and percussion. It just feels like home to me   8)

Vatz Relham:

--- Quote from: Leo K on January 07, 2007, 09:36:07 PM ---Mahler's family lived near military barracks when he was child, but perhaps there are deeper reasons in his psyche that moved him to use 'popular' tunes and such.  Read this quote:

(excerpt from Aestheticism and the city: Gustav Mahler and musical politics in Fin-De-Siecle Vienna)

After a severe crisis in their marriage the same year, and in a desperate move, Mahler agreed to consult with Freud. During their famous meeting on 27 August 1910 in Leyden, Holland, Mahler must have experienced some solace and hastened to recapture the passion in his relationship with Alma. Freud also agreed with Mahler's explanation of the simultaneous presence of "high tragedy" and "light amusement" in his music. According to his brief notes, when Mahler as a child witnessed a particularly ugly argument between his parents, he ran away from home. At that moment, however, "the well-known Viennese song Ach du lieber Augustin ("Oh, you dearest Augustin") rang out from a hurdy-gurdy. Mahler thought that, from that moment on, deep tragedy and superficial entertainment were tied together indissolubly in his soul and that one mood was inevitably tied to the other.
--Effie Papanikolaou, 2002

--- End quote ---

The above quote is I believe very clearly demonstrated not in the 6th sym. but in the 2nd, in the last mvmt. after the march of the dead and the colapse of everything, we hear the "O Glaube" theme and a distant marching band coming closer. This is the "deep tragedy and superficial entertainment" illustrated together, the marching band mocking a situation of deep dispair, ie; the lose of belief in the traditional christian faith.

Vatz
   

barry guerrero:
Yes; so it was only natural that Mahler had to be the one to compose the world's first, quote (Furtwaengler), "nihlistic" symphony. He was talking about the 6th. Alban Berg called it, "the only sixth, in spite of the Pastoral".

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