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I'm reading Culture and Value, a collection of notebook jottings by Wittgenstein and ran across a passage where he mentions Mahler:
If it is true that Mahler's music is worthless, as I believe to be the case, then the question is what I think he ought to have done with his talent. For quite obviously it took a set of very rare talents to produce this bad music.Mahler, Richard Strauss and other famous musicians were frequent visitors at the Wittgenstein family palace in Vienna. He goes on, but offers no specifics as to why he thinks Mahler's music is bad. I agree with him, by the way, but I have no specifics to offer either! I think that what holds me back, at least, is the enormous effort it would take to do an analysis of a Mahler symphony sufficient to produce such specifics. I have always liked Das Lied von der Erde, by the way.
Ludwig Wittgenstein came from a very wealthy family of Viennese industrialists. His brother Paul was a concert pianist who lost his right arm in WWI and subsequently commissioned concertos by Ravel and Prokofiev for the left hand alone. Three of Ludwig's five brothers committed suicide!
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I'm learning a pair of Bach gavottes right now and am once more amazed at the harmonic delights he creates. For example, he manages to incorporate some really severe dissonances, but handles them so adroitly that they sound beautiful and haunting, not harsh. For example:
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This is the opening phrase. The so-called "Third Lute Suite" is an arrangement for Baroque lute, by Bach, of the Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor. In the cello original the harmonies are different with usually one fewer voices. What is so lovely about this opening is the minor/minor seventh chords such as the one on the first beat of the first complete measure, on D. Indeed we have a string of seventh chords on the next three beats: G7 (minor/major) then C with a major seventh, B minor/minor seventh and finally a V-i cadence in A minor with the seventh delayed onto the next downbeat. If Meghan Trainor is all about the bass, then Bach is all about the sevenths. Let's look a bit more closely. How does he get away with this string of seventh chords, some, like the one on the downbeat of the second complete measure, rather dissonant? If you look at the middle voice you see that the opening C is repeated. Bach, while he follows the basic rules of counterpoint, often interrupts a melodic line. Here, the C on the downbeat of the first complete measure is a suspension from the previous measure. It resolves into the B on the second beat (over the G bass). Then this B is suspended into the next downbeat where it forms a major seventh with the C in the bass. That B then resolves into the A on the next beat, which in its turn resolves to the G#. This whole middle voice is a series of suspensions. There are even more remarkable dissonances, which don't sound dissonant, later on in the second half. But they follow the same technique of suspension/resolution.
Look how much discussion it took to do a simple analysis of four measures of Bach! (And I didn't even mention the rising fourths sequence in the bass line.) That's why I haven't analyzed Mahler.
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Let's have three envois! First, "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde" from Das Lied von der Erde by Mahler. This is Jonas Kaufmann with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Next, the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 4 for the left hand. This is Alexei Volodin with the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Valery Gergiev.
And finally, the Bach Gavotte played on Baroque lute by Yair Avidor.
Well at least you and to some extent me are kicking Mahler when he's up not down. I recommend people who don't understand a lack of sympathy for his music to listen to any of his finished symphonies and then listen to the restored Symphony 10. The Symphony 10 moves like normal music does although with excessive length as was his wont. The others may seem better or worse but none of them move the way Sym 10 moves. Das Lied also moves in the way that Sym 10 does but not his other songs. Shortening them would be helpful but unlike Bruckner one can't simply chop a section out. They would have to be recomposed to be shorter.
ReplyDeleteI think it is just a case of excessive self consciousness of effect. Beethoven may have been the model in some of his works like the Grosse Fugue (note the title). At least in Beethoven the struggle for effect sounds like a genuine struggle. With Mahler it is more a cinematic struggle where the conflicts seem staged. Contrast the openings of each one's Symphony 5. Which one sounds powerful and which one fussy? His forte passages seem as self conscious as the lyrical sections all with tidy glittering orchestration. The only even partly ill mannered forte passage occurs in the Sym 10 along with the ill mannered bass drum. I guess the colloquial word is histrionic. It works better on the stage but oddly Mahler refused to write for it.
I don't think typical musical analysis is useful for these kind of perceptions as they get mired in harmonic plan, progressions and melodic motives. This is more an emergent property of music which would have to be analyzed as sequential episodes. But it is clear that Mahler was a genius at this kind of self conscious posing. I have no idea what kind of music he would have written if he had lived another decade.
Very thought-provoking comment, Maury. I think I have some of the same reactions to Mahler. I think of him as being neurotic, which is another way of putting it.
ReplyDeleteYes Maury, Mahler is histrionic among other things. I do like many of his taffy-stretched movements because ... well, I can't really say. Maybe because no one else does them quite like he does them ...? Not sure. I do like his Adagietto to the 5th ... I also like Mascagni's Intermezzo ...I admit it .... I'm shallow ... I'm a musical Philistine ....help!
ReplyDeleteNot so much, Dex!
ReplyDeleteI think I prefer his lieder. His symphonies are either profound or unbearable, but haven't really clicked with me yet. Maybe I'll give it another 15 years of trying?
ReplyDeleteA few decades ago I was a big Mahler fan, but now I find his symphonies very hard to listen to. Shostakovich rings far truer for me.
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