Marching Mahler

[Amphissa]

Mahler loved marches. This question regards the historical derivations of that.

If you listen to the music of Mahler's predecessors and peers in Europe, you just don't hear marches used as prominently as in Mahler. So where did this come from?

Much is made of Mahler's penchant to draw from the romantic tradition and push it to its extreme. His use of Baroque and Classical style as well. But other than Berlioz, there just wasn't much march music in the classical music of the romantic period. I mean you weren't hearing Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Sibelius, Bruckner, Wagner, et al, marching, marching, marching in all their symphonies. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find marches in much classical music at all before Mahler. Even the Russians didn't really begin marching much before the Soviet era.

So, was this one of the "vulgarities" that Mahler introduced? Were the motivations entirely political, based on the militaristic circumstances of Europe at that time? Or was there some seminal influence that prompted him to use marches so extensively?

Any why did he march so much and so often? It's not like he just inserted a march occasionally to make a statement. It's like it was a necessity for him to march, and became a core component of his musical language.

I could probably find answers to my questions by reading a bunch of books or something, but I'm hoping someone here can enlighten me.

[Leo K]

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


When I first heard about this (in a book by Donald Mitchell) it was a revelation...and went a long way in helping me grasp what was so different about Mahler's music in contrast to Brahms and etc.

[david johnson]

i recall that brahms composed several marches...under a pseudonym.

dj

[barry guerrero]

A-ha! Basta! Amphissa, you took this discussion right exactly where I hoped you were going to go. You see, one reason I feel that the sixth Mahler is something of a protest work, is because of the association of that march music. It's interesting how people bring up "Revelge" in discussing the third symphony - and other ones - yet it never comes up in discussions on the sixth symphony. As we all know, much of the march music in "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" corresponds to poetry about soldiering - often associated with fate, loneliness; being economically powerless, etc. I feel that the first movement is very much in the spirit of "Revelge", only a lot more serious. The so-called "Alma theme" can also be viewed, somewhat, with a "DKW" type subtext as well.

I don't know if I can really "enlighten" you - who knows why he did what he did? But it's also my, "who knows?" answer that convinces me that we know far less about Mahler's motives for the sixth symphony, than we could possibly imagine. I'm of the belief that the entire European experience for the years 1914 - 1918 are caught up in the work, especially in the finale. Some people, including Klaus Tennstedt, believed that he forecasted Nazi storm troopers marching down the streets. I won't go that far, but Mahler's  "thrice homeless" statement  - in regards to his being Jewish and never welcomed - was certainly as much political as it was personal; whether he realized it or not. Of course, the counter-argument is that it's far easier to say such things after the fact, since the work was composed less than ten years before the outbreak of WWI ("before", being the important word).

I think that one of the biggest facets about the sixth symphony, as Dave Hurwitz points out -  regardless of what it may or may not be about - is:  how is it that a symphony which is truly "tragic", and so predominantly in minor, also be so much fun and exhilarating to listen to? That's why, for D.H., the Mahler sixth is very much a classic Greek tragedy - one in which you're not left feeling morose.

[Amphissa]

how is it that a symphony which is truly "tragic", and so predominantly in minor, also be so much fun and exhilarating to listen to? That's why, for D.H., the Mahler sixth is very much a classic Greek tragedy - one in which you're not left feeling morose.

Unfortunately, I don't find the 6th fun or exhilarating or cathartic or any of the other terms commonly used by those who like the 6th. For me, it is mostly just intensely irritating.

A little march goes a long way.

[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   

[Vatz Relham]

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

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".