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More on marching Mahler

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barry guerrero:
I got to thinking a bit more on the topic that Amphissa brought up:  why was "the march" so important or central to Mahler?  As Amphissa pointed out, marches were not a part of symphonic life in those days. Well, I think that that was precisely the point Mahler was trying to make: taking "the march" from being an exclusively outdoors musical form, and bringing it into the concert hall - giving it some fancy window dressing in the process. You see, marches were very much a part of everyday Austrian and Prussian military life. If you folks will recall, Von Karajan recorded a two-disc set of Austrian and Prussian marches - all of which would have already been in use before WWI (I'm pretty certain of that). But more to the point, I think that "the march" - in major, not minor - sort of represented the emancipation of the working class people of Europe, in Mahler's mind. Again, I think that Mahler was a far more political animal than many care to realize.

There was a somewhat notorious and seldem mentioned incident involving Mahler, and the working class folk on the move:  Mahler joined a Mayday parade down the Ringstrasse in good, old Wien -  what a slice of history that must have been! Imagine; Mahler - someone who was on the payroll of the Imperial Opera, no less - walking the street with the red proletariat. Witnesses said that the workers looked upon Mahler as one of their brothers. I believe that Mahler even commented on that, to his friends. Perhaps the great march from the first movement of his third symphony (in major), was running through his mind as a sort cinematic accompaniment - it very much has that sort of, "proletariat man on the rise" kind of feel to it. Anyway, more fuel for thought. To my mind, it beats Brahms introducing lullabies into the concert hall (second symphony).

Barry

Leo K:
Great post there...an interesting consideration.

I was listening to Berg's Op.6 again recently (Levine/Berlin)...wow, Berg also used the March, by somehow connecting the march with his anxiety (as a soldier in WWI?).  Anyway, Berg seems to have inherited this from Mahler...bringing the March even closer (in spirit) to the chaos of the 20th Century.  Berg's Op.6 is a music breaking apart..stretched to it's limits.

Amphissa:
I think this is interesting on a couple of levels. I imagine this has been discussed a great deal by scholars, but I've not read about it.

This period immediately preceding WWI was a pivotal period in music, as it was socially. In Russia, of course, the avant garde in the arts (music, literature, art) were also moving toward workers rebellion. And music was moving with it. Scriabin, Wagner, etc, were well known and their influences were being felt. However, it is interesting that the avant garde in Russia were averse to the militaristic, entrenched government. So I don't think they used marches much at all. You certainly don't hear marches by the important Russian composers of that era, like Myaskovsky.

It's interesting that one of the first appearances of a full-blown march in Russian music, though, was Rachmaninoff's 1st Symphony, completed 1886. The premier was a failure, of course, and it had no influence on Mahler or anyone else until its resurrection (sorry) after his death. But Shostakovich, who was much enamored of the music of Mahler, used a lot of marches in his music, of course. And it was an important part of the Soviet-inspired musical idiom.

So, I wonder if Mahler's marching music really derived from some affinity with the proletariat, or whether it had some sort of deeper philosophical/spiritual/religious importance. After all, being Jewish, he had no love for the racist, purist mentality that existed throughout Europe during the 1800s and his lifetime, which had forced such changes in his own life. Could there have not been a strong element of sarcasm in his marches (as is true of much of his music) aimed at the social and political group think of the era? There are certainly those who believe Shostakovich used marches in that way (although not all are convinced). So, by shifting marches into a minor key, coupled with the angst of his slower movements and the common hommage to baroque/classical era music, the march becomes a signifier of inevitability and condemns the destructiveness of prevailing groupthink?

There is one use of the march that did appear sparingly in classical music before Mahler's time. The funeral march, the march of death. From Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz and others. So, it is possible, I suppose, that Mahler fixated on this source of inspiration. But that would still not explain why he used it so much - why it became so important for him.

barry guerrero:
"I suppose, that Mahler fixated on this source of inspiration (marches). But that would still not explain why he used it so much - why it became so important for him".

There was certainly no more "heaven storming" composer than Mahler. But I also believe that he was "existential" enough to believe that in order to truly know heaven, one must also know hell (please note that existential does not mean atheistic - it's simply a belief or acknowledgement that existence precedes essence, for the human experience on earth). This kind of extreme dichotomy was often noted in his personality: the sudden and extreme mood shifts that he had.  This is where a bit of good-old sun sign astrology comes in handy. Mahler was sun-sign "cancer". Cancer people are famous for being moody - sometimes with extreme mood shifts. That trait is attributed to cancer being the first of the four "water" signs (sensitive), in the wheel or cylce of karma that the twelve different signs make up. But Cancer is also one of the three "cardinal" signs, which means leadership. A sort of "loony" or goofy sense of humor is sometimes observed as well (boy, do these traits fit my own mother to a tee!). Certainly, Mahler was all of these things. A microcosm of this dichotomy can be noted in the fifth symphony, which is certainly a "darkness to light" type symphony. In Mahler's mind, the heaven storming brass chorale that caps both the second and fifth movements (it gets negated in the second movement), is utterly meaningless without the listener having been dragged through the mud first. And, in the first movement, being dragged through the mud is represented in the form of a funeral cortege, or march. This is echt Mahler - very typical.

By the way, I agree with every point that Amphissa makes in his third paragraph.

John Kim:
Barry,

You've given us an extraordinary observation about the nature of Mahler and his music. I can't agree more with you on this. He could be described as "the first existentialist in music". This thought has always lingered in my mind whenever I listen to his music. Yes, the existentialism is abound with sudden shifts of moods and it is very representative of modern society in general. That's probably why so many us are drawn into the world of Mahler. The Fifth Symphony is a good example in this regard, but the Third is not that far from it either.

Thank you again for you nice writing.

John, listening to Abbado/BPO M3rd...

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