Is Gustav Mahler really a profound composer??

Naupilus, we now touched the subject of Mahler as a modernist - and what better piece to discuss in this light than the Tenth?

The Nineth, in all it's originality and profundity (yes, Oscar) always struck me as a piece that looks as much back as it looks forward. The genial first movement (the best Mahler ever wrote) and the scherzo cast a shadow far into the 20th century, but the "ländler" and specially the finale look back, to Bruckner and his own Wunderhorn heritage.

It's in his Tenth that Mahler takes the last - and definitive step forward, and the symphony as a whole is an avant-garde piece, with more ties to the musical world ahead than of his own past.

The Tenth has always been one of my favorite symphonies - and not only of Mahler's. I always accepted it as a complete piece, too - not as a first movement torso. It helped that my first recording of it was Rattle's Bournemouth performance (bought with some saved allowance money - it was also one of my first cd's.)

Later, at the conservatorium in Maastricht, Holland, I had a very unusual encounter with Mahler and his 10th. I noticed that our music history teacher had a bunch of manuscript papers stacked in his cupboard in the class room. I asked him what it was, and he showed me. It was Mahler's own manuscript of the second scherzo of the 10th. Nice copy, I said. "Oh, this isn't a copy. It's the original." I think my heart skipped a few beats there. I couldn't believe I was holding in my hands one of the most important musical manuscripts of the 20th century - and that our teacher just had it stacked casually in a non-locked cupboard. I think we had walked past it for a couple of weeks without realizing what it was.
He explained it was handed to him by his former teacher at the conservatorium - who got it in turn from his own teacher, and he got it from Bruno Walter.

I got permission from him to make some photocopies of the score - with all those creepy and touching remarks in the border like "Der Teufel tanszt es mit mir". I could read Mahler's notes and while holding the manuscript, I could hear the music in my head, in the orchestration of Deryk Cooke.

I still wonder - did our teacher back then realise the value of his possession? I heard about parts of the manuscript of the 10th - parts, not the whole score - being sold at Sotheby's for half a million dollars...

After that, the Tenth became even more of a favorite piece for me. I tried to get my hands on every complete recording I could get: after the Rattle I found an LP of the original Eugene Ormandy recording (Philadelphia), and some time after that, Chailly's version with the RSO Berlin. Still stands as one of the best.

Then came Inbal, Frankfurt - as part of his complete cycle (curiously enough, the set also includes another version of the 1st movement, which he recorded earlier.) Then Rattle again, in his 2nd recording with the Berliner. It surely surpasses his Bournemouth version in terms of orchestral playing and beauty of tone, but I'm not sure it goes "deeper" than his first recording. I love them both, but when I look through my nostalgia glasses, I choose the Bournemouth.

But then, when I thought Rattle had spoken the definitive word about Mahler X, I found Kurt Sanderling's recording, made in 1978, so even before Rattle's first.

I now consider Sanderling's version to be the best. It has the raw, honest directness we associate with this conductor, and which works wonderfully in this music. Maybe the first movement could sound a bit more lyrical (we've got Rattle for that), but as the symphony progresses, Sanderling digs deeper and deeper, culminating in a finale that's truly devastating. In some other recordings, the famous flute solo that follows the catastrophic beginning of the movement can sound overly sweet, as a kitchy reminder of Mahler's earlier style (Robert Simpson - in his analysis of the symphony - hated this passage) but with Sanderling, the flute doesn't conflict with the bleakness of the overall atmosphere, it enhances it.

Of course there's a lot more to be said about the tenth - the crushing dissonant chord in the first movement, a Mene Tekel for tonal music in general, the almost Stravinsky-esque rhythms of the second movement, and the strange short and elusive "Purgatorio" that sounds as a lyrical intermezzo in some recordings, and as a menacing, brooding premonition of future doom in others. Not sure what the right approach is, but I always get a cold shiver when I hear that final dark minor chord, with those creepy harp arpeggios.

Yes, Sanderling is this kind of conductor who can convince you even if he is wrong. Despite I don't find his Mahler too idiomatic, he is fascinating as a listening experience.

50m, I thoroughly enjoy your passion for the 10th. It's not my cup of tea though, probably because I don't believe Mahler was at his best as a "modernist" composer but as the culminating peak (or one of them) of the late Romanticism. His 2nd, 3rd and 4th and to some extent his 5th are his culminating points and most profound. His 9th is a devastating experience if one has to listen it all the way through. After a glorious performance in Berlin with Inbal at the podium, my wife told me: "now it is the right time to commit suicide". I have to admit, Mahler went a bit over the top. Of course, listening to it movement by movement, the work sounds more accessible.

For me, based on a very straightforward narrative, clean musical lines, an almost transparent and lucid at the same time orchestration and the most glorious slow movement of all, it is the 4th. Even omitting the trombones is not an issue. The work sounds so natural and its length so sensible.

Beyond the Symphonies, I strongly believe Mahler excelled in his Songs. Even his earlier cycles are so good. As for "Das Lied von der Erde", I believe, for the same reasons as the 4th, mutatis mutandis, is his chef d'oeuvre par excellence.

Parla

Whoever it was that said, "There are no straight men any more. Everyone wants to be a comedian," didn't know Parla.

I must admit that since the discussion turned to Mahler 10 I have been spending a few days thinking about the topic. I suspect this is, in part, because my personal feelinsg towards Mahler 10 are less crystallised than towards the other works.

There are of course many very great musicians who have avoided Mahler 10, for reasons that are very obvious (i.e.it's not real Mahler). For me, after quite a few years, I have come to see the symphony as one of the most unique pieces that I know, because (for me) it hints of an alternate route for music. In a sense the symphony exists outside of the history of music because its ressurection was long after its inception. When I listen to Mahler 10 I wonder how Webern, Berg and Schoenberg might have been influenced had Maher finished the piece and had a chance to perform it. Given Berg's enthusiasm for Mahler 9 it would be fascinating to speculate if it would have had any hold on his development.

I have spent the last few days listening to Mahler 10, together with Berg's magnificent 3 Pieces for Orchestra and Webern's extraordinarily distilled 6 Pieces for Orchestra. If you take, for example, the third movement Marsch from the Berg the hints of Mahler appear to my ears strong, with a hint of the night music of Mahler 7, married to moments that remind me of the finest music in Strauss's Elektra. The strutting march in this third piece, all brass, percussion and sour, sardonic woodwind, avoids the irony so often on display in Mahler, but the stretch towards the climax is savage and yet rooted in catharsis. Webern's six pieces, written just after his mother's death, inhabit this same world, but the unique pinpoint control that I find so fascinating in Webern.

Back to Mahler (and sorry for the digression, but it is what has ocupied my thoughts!). I think Mahler 10 (together with Das Lied) is in part a repudiation for the idea that Mahler 9 is a symphony about death, or more specifically Mahler's final testatment. I used to think this argument was true but over the years I have come to the conclusion that the Mahler 9 is more about letting go. By this I mean that when I listen to this music and the dissolving of the last few bars into silence I don't feel sad, I feel a sense of farewell, catharsis in what I understand (with my simplistic knowledge) to be Aristole's idea of purification or cleansing. So that is why I find the music so profound... personally.

It has been a while since I listened to Mahler 10 and what struck me most in the reaquaintance is that the music contains shadows of other works. Gestures point to Mahler 5 and 7 and of course there are passages in the final movement that appear torn from the pages of Das Lied. As for the flute solo I find it effective every time, although as has been pointed out, it can be a tricky passage to get right in the context of the wider interpretation of the piece. Played sentimentality (the precursor to Morricone?) is sounds plangent, yearning while played more sharply it seems more desolate.

It is remarkable to think that at about the time Mahler was sketching the tenth Elgar was tackling his second, Vaughan Williams was on his first, Ives his second and Sibelius was (I think) creating his magnificent fourth symphony -  each compelling in their own right. I also sometimes wonder how much of an impact Richard Strauss's music might have made if he had continued down the extraordinary path he made with Elektra, which I personally think is his finest opera.

The other work that I think of most often when listening to Mahler 10 in Cooke's version is Berio's Rendering, another wonderful attempt at bringing fragments to life. In the main I like Rendering because Berio acknowledges that he cannot hope to immitate Schubert, so instead he renders the gaps with his own music. It is a bold move, and of course only one a supremely confident (and gifted) composer can make. This makes it very different to Cooke's (or othrs) work on Mahler 10 - for them it is a realisation. I must admit that on occasion I wish some composer would 'render' Mahler 10. I wish I could see Wolfgang Rihm doing this but I think his style is now too close - maybe somebody like Kurtag, with his playful way of channeling the past?

If all the words above mean little else, they do say that at least one person finds Mahler profound.

Parla, as much as I respect your opinion, I don't quite agree with your view that Mahler's development as a composer somehow halted with the 4th and that his later works didn't reach that level of artistry anymore.

To me, that's as a very bold and debatable statement - like saying that Beethoven has reached his top with the Razumovski quartets and that his late, more abstract quartets are inferior to his middle period ones.

I listened to the 2nd again today. The famous Klemperer recording - and as good as it is, I can't help but getting irritated by the music itself. It's too much grand guignol, too much of an overripe romantic view on Christian themes, too much warmed-up Berlioz and second-hand Wagner. In all its opulence and wealth of orchestral colors, it presents what's basically a very banal and oldfashioned view on the cliche'd themes of death and resurrection. "This isn't my idea of the Afterlife, mate" is what I'm tempted to say.

Mahler picked up these themes again and again, in his later works, but wisely he chose more abstract disguises for them. When he reused them in his 5th, 6th, 7th... well, basically every single symphony after the 3rd, they were filtered by his life experiences and his maturity as a composer and a human being.
Even in the 4th, this growth is remarkable already, and I agree with you that it's the highlight of his earlier works. The childish Wunderhorn-vision of death and afterlife works so much better than the ho-hum pomposities of Klopstock in the 2nd.

When I listen to the 2nd, I hear a young composer wrestling with themes that fascinated him, but which were still alien to his nature. As brilliant as the music may be, I don't "buy" it.
In the 9th and 10th, I hear a composer who's been battered by life and who chose the old themes of life and death, darkness and light because he had grown familiar with them. By then - through the loss of one of his childs and his own medical death-sentence - he knew exactly what he was dealing with.

When Richard Specht (in his first Mahler-biography, 1913) compared the pulsating rhythm of the first bars of the 9th to the hollow sound of dirt being thrown on top of a coffin, he put in words what Mahler put in music - but still, it's just one of dozens of possible interpretations. To me, this multi-interpretability of Mahler's late music is much more interesting than the bland picture-book illustrations of the 2nd - and even the ironic statements of the 4th. Modern, 20th century music like the 9th doesn't need the traditional concepts of God and Heaven anymore to dig deep into the human psyche and tell something meaningful about life and death.

If there's one piece I truly love of Mahler's early works, it's not the 4th, but the first movement of the 3rd. It's an early example of Mahler being "multi-interpretable", and that's what makes it so fascinating to me. And still, the music is pretty primitive compared to his later works. Like in the first movement of the 2nd, you get a lot of bold strokes, but the rich counterpoint, so prevalant in his later works is still - for the most part - absent.

This addition to his style in his later works (something that he admitted himself: having "discovered" counterpoint in the 5th) is what makes Mahler's music truly genial.

To me, his growth as a composer is most striking in the transition from the 4th to the 5th. And I think the 5th is a better symphony than the 4th. Why? Because the music has become more layered, abstract, contrapunctual and multi-interpretable. More "difficult" too - for the audience AND for the performers. And ultimately: more rewarding.

Like I said in another post, there are basically two kinds of Mahler conductors: the ones who go for a romantic approach, firmly rooted in the 19th century - and those who regard Mahler as a forerunner of the 20th century modernists. You've got Walter and Haitink in the first category and Klemperer and Chailly in the 2nd. It's a simplified view of course, but it explains why I admire Chailly in the 6th and 7th so much, while I can't stand Haitink in those works.

I listened to Chailly's 7th with the Concertgebouw Orchestra again last week - and my conviction grew that this may be the best performance on record of this work. Because Chailly regards the 7th as a truly modern work, and emphasizes the "modern" aspect of it: the horizontality of the music (counterpoint). Most other performances go for a romantic and traditional vertical (harmonic)-oriented view. Try listening to a piece like this with these concepts in mind: the differences may be often very subtle, but they're striking.

It's a concept that often has been misunderstood. What makes music "modern"? Adventurous harmony, like in Wagner's Tristan? Harmony is just one of the many layers of music, and advanced harmony alone doesn't make music "modern". It has to be combined with advanced counterpoint. And that's exactly what Mahler tried in his later works. And needless to say, he succeeded gloriously.

This "horizontality" always strikes me when I listen to the first movement of the 9th - probably the best movement that Mahler ever wrote. It's a world apart from the "verticality" of the early symphonies, and as much as I admire the 3rd and 4th, it's in another league in terms of greatness as well.