Which M6 has the best hammer blows?

[Polarius T]

Since we agree we can't Know what Mahler had in , well, in himself, then how is the accuracy of Bauer-Lechner vital?

Think about it in this way:

1) In his post above Dave H (immediately after questioning the meaningfulness of doing so in the case of Mahler) cites words by Stravinsky from an unattributed source describing the birth process of the "Sacre."
2) You cite an anecdote about Beethoven's reaction to a question concerning his Eroica.
3) But we shouldn't refer back to Mahler in the same way because we cannot know what he "ultimately and definitively" meant by what he said and did.

What's wrong with this logic?

Sounds to me like an equivalent of spreading hearsay from one corner of our mouths while suppressing a factbook with the other.

Bauer-Lechner is a source for precisely that type of words and descriptions, too, one moreover that has born scrutiny remarkably well (with dates, names, numbers, all that notated down often in great detail). It should be much more "vital" as a source for insights of the above kind than any undocumented, unchecked, unpublished, unverified, unattributed, unreferenced re- and paraphrasings of something we may once have heard someone tell someone else somewhere. B-L is pretty much the opposite of hearsay: a record that's highly accurate and notably careful to all that we know from double-checking it.

It's just a source of information for those willing to learn more of Mahler, his work and his world. Scholars use her to establish timelines and other facts not available from elsewhere (e.g. from Alma's unreliable diaries). That's all. Of course she doesn't tell us "the meaning" of Mahler's work; it's not musicology or philosophy, it's recollections, even if it contains reflections of both kind in which the author shows an unusual ability to understand and expound on (technical and philosophical) musical subjects (not least thanks to her own training as a musician).

I wouldn't use it to tell me what Mahler means; she's not even trying to do that. For what it matters that question, in the context of Western classical music more broadly, has been much better broached by others who were musicologists, sociologists, philosophers, cultural critics.

Remember that more knowledge is always good unless you're a charlatan who wants to become an authority owning the topic; then more knowledge is your enemy. Right?

Now I've think I've said it all (twice [thrice?] already)... But I'm still not sure what the issue is, really, underneath.

-PT

[Polarius T]

Oh, I quoted but I didn't do the purply thing. Hm.

  Ivor

Took me just two months to figure it out: After you log in to start replying, you see the button QUOTE on the right hand side corner of the post you are replying to. Click that, it opens up the text box. Type after where you see "close-bracket slash quote" (I probably can't type the actual signs here as they are a programming code and thus wouldn't show). Within that and the preceding "open-bracket quote author equals" etc. code you can freely delete the superfluous parts of the quote you will not need (the "author equals name" tells you whose words you are quoting, appearing in the actual post as well).

If you want to break the quote into separate parts, copy and past those two signs plus the desired text passage pasted in between them.

The little edit icons on upper left hand corner of the text box are also great. Move your cursor above them and they tell what they do. The codes must always precede (open) and follow (close) the text segment for the feature to have effect on it.

And if you want to go back and revise you can click the MODIFY button on upper right hand corner of your post, then SAVE below it once done.

-PT

[Polarius T]

Dave H has stressed that we have the music, and must be wary of reading more into it.
Polarius T has reminded us that everything we can learn has relevance, and may augment our understanding and appreciation.

At the risk of being simplistic, could I say that we're trying to compare music and writing, which is akin to describing the color or taste of an orange in words. 

For my own part I'd say that there is truth to the statement that "music is just music"; but then, we also have music which we (and others before us and undoubtedly others after us too) think is "art," and music which we (and others before us and undoubtedly others after us too) think is "great art."

Now, thinking positivistically that music is nothing but those ink marks on the paper and their organization into audible sounds carries the risk of not being able to comprehend anything of the latter two kinds of music. Or of not having anything to say about them.

Moreover, if in accordance with such thinking we would then consider "great" music to be simply the piece that has more detailed ink marks in it, forming a more complicated and possibly longer whole on paper that's  then more demanding to translate into coherent sounds, all we need to do to rebuke this reasoning is to note that Mahler has been surpassed in any and all such criteria by about one hundred thousand other composers already long, long ago; so why are we still here, listening and debating Mahler? (I don't think the positivists around are quite prepared yet to accept the simpler solution that "Great music is the one I happen to like the most.")

(I'm leaving aside for a moment the kind of conservative position that holds that "great" music is the stuff composed before Schoenberg [with the possible exception of a couple of Russians] and that's about it until the neoprimitivists came along.)

So what it would then mean that music is "art" and sometimes even "great"?

For that we need also other type of reflections, not just beancounting the note marks that got aurally reproduced.

I think I'm sidestepping your point, though -- sorry for that.

-PT

[barry guerrero]

The problem is that subjectivity is just that: subjective. Of course music means more than just the printed page. If that weren't true, nobody would bother to listen to it. But as for for some kind of subtext or narrative, each person is perfectly free to make up their own. Our visions of what the music is about, are just as private as the actual experience of listening to the music. We can only dwell in our own hearts and minds; not anybody else's (or to be more precise, we can only speculate about others). The narrative or subtext that we envision may, or may not, jive with what the composer had in mind.

To me, the far relevant question - and the one that's far more difficult to tackle - is what specifically is it about the music (or IN the music) that makes us feel the way that we feel. That's what true Mahlerian "pioneers" should be grappling with.

[Polarius T]

Yes, but "What does this music mean?" is not the same as the subtext or narrative that we project for it in our minds. You seem to be talking about some sort of programs we imagine the music might have, whether reflecting the personal vicissitudes of the composer and his life or as illustrating some sort of a story the composer made up for it.

For example you would never confuse the meaning of Beethoven -- or a Mozart or a Bach or a Gesualdo -- to consist of what they said it did or how it seemed to their contemporaries: mere trifles. (Beethoven: rage over a lost penny; Mozart: appealing to the lowest common denominator to make a buck; Bach: the glory of God; Gesualdo: bad conscience for lost love.)

Then again, I might be wrong, but...

-PT

[barry guerrero]

.   .    .  yes, but often times, there's no way of truly knowing, "what does this music mean". And even if we did know, it might not be all that relevant to our own listening experience. And beyond that, the composer might have had several things in mind; not just one. Then again, we could go back and forth on such stuff forever.

Barry

[john haueisen]

Most of what I've read seems to indicate that Mahler did not object to people looking for meaning in his symphonies.  An example of this would be his telling Alma she had it right, when she explained her take on M2.
I think what irritated Mahler was when people wanted a line-for-line, literal "translation" that was set in stone.  I believe that was what prompted him to discontinue providing detailed program notes.  It must certainly have been annoying to have countless people "bugging" him about the exact meaning of every musical phrase.  (Perhaps this is why Barry shies away from anything beyond the music itself.)
John H

[barry guerrero]

It's not so much that I'm trying to shy away from "meaning" beyond the notes. It's just that I think the far more important issue - the one that requires some mental elbow grease (and really using your ears) - is deciphering what specifically it is in Mahler's music that makes us feel the way that we feel. I prefer to focus on that. Anyone can share their feelings and thoughts, interesting though they may or may not be.

Barry

[Leo K]

For one thing...I really respond to the timbre of each instrument, and combinations of timbre...a good recording will highlight this, and if played "well" (here is where subjective really kicks in) I respond in kind.  Mahler good really orchestrate the timbre out of anything it seems.


--Todd

[john haueisen]

Barry said: 

"deciphering what specifically it is in Mahler's music that makes us feel the way that we feel."

Yes, Barry--that's it exactly--whatever way we go about it!  But this is not at all an easy thing to accomplish.  One could spend an entire lifetime at such an endeavor.  (What a wonderful way to spend one's life!)

--John H

[Polarius T]

...deciphering what specifically it is in Mahler's music that makes us feel the way that we feel.

For me, the way I feel about Mahler's music is more or less this (as crystallized by someone else): in it the absolute is conceived, felt and longed for, yet it does not exist.

Deciphering what it is in his music that makes me feel this way equals for me trying to understand, using all sorts of materials and analyses as an aid, the ways in which in the final analysis Mahler has extended the Jewish prohibition on making graven images so as to include hope.

Now I know that the distance between the two poles (as formulated here by Adorno), proceeding from the level of personal experience to a philosophical diagnosis of its origins, is quite big, but that's the kind of meaning I was trying to talk about: not the composer's own thoughts and ideas regarding his works, and not necessarily the personal significance his music might have for me, or the associations I might have when listening to it, but what it ultimately is all about, in the context of the cultural history of the Western world: why is it "great" and something else isn't?

I mean, that's the way I feel when listening to Mahler, and that's what I'm trying to figure out as a prompted by these feelings -- the "what" and the "why" informing my Mahler listening, then. The "why," on the other hand, can only be explained through musicological investigation assisted by various other sorts of information and insight (including also those obtained from Bauer-Lechner which we've been talking about), giving us then the "how," exactly.

Methinks.

Then again I just also LOVE those unique textures (did someone just mention sthg about them? Todd?) and the big devastating turns and catastrophic pile-ups that make my own seem like a bagatelle.    Music opens up in so many ways that are so hard to pin down, and that's why I guess we're still here, arguing, and not back-patting one another in some literary forum.

-PT