Mahler's music

[BorisG]

Quite simple, really. Both sides of Mahler's brain got along famously.

[barry guerrero]

OK, I get it - I think - I'm just not sure that you and Ivor are really at odds here. Let's just assume that all sides are right.

Wunderhorn,

It came to me this morning:  I think I know what you're getting at. I believe that you're saying that Mahler composed from a "stream on consciousness" (or subconsciousness). Have I got that right? In other words, the narrative isn't really so planned out in advance. Am I guessing right here? If so, I think that you may really have a point. Of course, a composer has to go slow enough to get his/her musical thoughts down on paper; which is probably a good deal more involved than just writing down words. Or am I just grasping at straws here?

Barry

[Wunderhorn]

That is quite correct. As stream of consciousness is to apply a person's thought process in literature without defined stylisations, but rather the style of the person own strain-of-thought. It can be applied musically in a similar sense, though I'm sure Mahler planned and constructed much, the general feel of the musical statement remains the same, therefore yes, you have explained it better then I was able to.

[Ivor]

     Perhaps I can clarify the phrase you've picked up,and what I meant.

     No,I didn't mean that M's music was 'grotesque or homely'. My phrase wasn't directed to M's music as a whole. I meant ,rather as he said himself ('a symphony should be like the world,containing evrything'), that he included the mushy,the untidy,the ugly,the raucous,the brash etc.etc. in his works. Not just the elegant, joyful - well etc. - hope you get the picture.

    And the sources of all those 'warts' are our world and our unconscious, which, like it or not, is part of the world.

   So he didn't aim only for precision, confidence, smoothness, perfection, and so on.

   He was a 'why not?', rather than a 'why?'

   Perhaps that's why there were (still are?) listeners who object to Mahler on the grounds of taste.

   Their loss. And anyway, there is taste and there is taste.


         Ivor

[Wunderhorn]

I've said similar thing in a rant about the 3rd earlier in this thread. It is quite true the phenomena you mention.

[Wunderhorn]

Furious, Sensual, Playfull, and Tender all falling on a Late-Romantic with a love of folk music and marches. He could compose as small lieder in one day and orchestrate it the next and it would still scream Mahlerian, as some of his Wunderhorn songs were done as such. I've noticed common motifs in Mahler music that most composer would think far too banal for anything of high-society which falls upon the idea of snubbing convention far any of his predecessors. Also in this so called banal music is more characteristic of returning to music more basic elements that had long held precedence for thousands of years from most of Indo-European cultures. Though I am no expert on the worlds cultural music I'm positive what I'm saying contains some merit. If you've never heard a Arabian belly-dance or traditional Jewish folk music you'd recognize several similarities.

[Leo K]

I agree there.  Within the macrocism of the 5th symphony, for example, exist the references to funeral marches, landler, fugues, and chorales (to name a few), and on first hearing the totality of the 5th may be a little confusing.  Yet all these 'tunes' are broken and used again throughout and somehow a 'unity' is achieved though musical form. 

[Wunderhorn]

'Pan awakes, summer marches' This is the title of the first movement of the Third. I just read an interesting article from the Chicago Mahlerites site bringing some light on what Pan awakes means possibly. Pan in Greek Mythology is a half man half goat creature, but dating back earlier it was actual Greek God. He is often pictured playing the panpipes. This god was in circulation before the god Apollo was known.

Bach had written a cantata based on a musical rivalry between Apollo and Pan where Apollo played the part of music of high culture, and Pan the part of so call banal music. It is unknown whether Mahler knew of this cantata

Pan was also referred of by Nietzsche in 'The Birth of Tragedy', it is known that Mahler did have a fair knowledge of Nietzsche therefore this work is perhaps one of the key influences to this title.

I recently saw the foreign film Pan's Labyrinth which was exceptional by the way!

[Ivor]

  I'd just like to encourage other members to respond to the first post.

  i'm interested in how  and what different Mahlerians hear.



     Ivor

[Wunderhorn]

The funniest miracle to me seems how different my thoughts on Mahler are from everyone else's. I believe sensuality is what Mahler was perhaps best at. With the opening of the third movement of the 2nd, or the second movement of the 4th; I believe both are greater than Strauss's Salome's dance in terms of pure 'eroticism', but know fan I've talked to speaks of such things. I suppose they find it indecent... too bad, because Mahler was great, I could just picture some scandalizing female choreography to such music; too bad indeed!

[Vatz Relham]

The funniest miracle to me seems how different my thoughts on Mahler are from everyone else's. I believe sensuality is what Mahler was perhaps best at. With the opening of the third movement of the 2nd, or the second movement of the 4th; I believe both are greater than Strauss's Salome's dance in terms of pure 'eroticism', but know fan I've talked to speaks of such things. I suppose they find it indecent... too bad, because Mahler was great, I could just picture some scandalizing female choreography to such music; too bad indeed!

I certainly agree that sensuality and sex plays a part in Mahler's music, although I don't see them in examples you mention. The march and southern storm music in the 1st mvmt of M3 certainly has sex written all over it, Mahler himself mentions Dionysus and Bacchus as inspirations for this music. And there is the Adagietto of M5 which has been called a love letter to Alma, which makes sense since it is part of the finale to be performed attaca as the 3rd part of M5.
Plus Mahler partially quotes the prelude to Act I of Wagner's Tristan in the Adagietto and you can't get more openly erotic than that Opera! The 2nd Nachtmuzik of M7 is considered a romantic serenade by some.
And what about M8? Isn't it mostly about the creative act physical and spiritual combined with the love of the feminine?

Vatz

[Wunderhorn]

Vatz,

You must never have been a fan of the more primitive side of rhythms, you know, the side which captivates all these zombies obsessed with hip-hop in todays bass-depthed carnalities!

[barry guerrero]

"And what about M8? Isn't it mostly about the creative act physical and spiritual combined with the love of the feminine?"

I would agree with that. But, by way of extention, I think that Mahler was trying to point towards the idea that the world and all its people, could find meaning and purpose in their lives without getting caught up in all the usual traps that people DO get themselves caught up in; which - eventually - lead to conflict sooner or later. In other words, Mahler might have been promoting intelligent sex, birth control, a woman's right to choose, etc. Undoubtedly, he would have become a supporter of Planned Parenthood, had he lived in a different time and place. Regardless, there's little question that women played a very important part in Mahler's life. As we all know, Freud said that Mahler was searching for his mother in the way that he transacted with his young and beautiful wife.

Barry

[Vatz Relham]

Vatz,

You must never have been a fan of the more primitive side of rhythms, you know, the side which captivates all these zombies obsessed with hip-hop in todays bass-depthed carnalities!

Wunderhorn,

Actually I love primative and complex rhythms, I've played drums since I was 13.

Vatz

[Wunderhorn]

Also Vatz, another example I'm thinking of is the entire Scherzo in M7. It is also very sensual.