[terug naar inhoud Mahler-biografie 2]

[naar literatuurlijst]

inhoud:

• About the symphonies
• The First Symphony
• The Second Symphony
• The Third Symphony
• The Fourth Symphony
• The Fifth Symphony
• The Sixth Symphony
• The Seventh Symphony
• The Eight Symphony
• The Ninth Symphony
• The Tenth Symphony
• „Das Lied von der Erde"

mmmmm
 

MAHLER`S COMPOSITIONAL MAIN WORK: THE SYMPHONIES

 Like Schubert and Bruckner, he felt the monstrosity of the task to compose symphonies after Beethoven. But in the dealing with this task he succeeded in a new development of the symphonic form. Beethoven's symphonies show a concentration of the spiritual keynotes in the first movement, while the following movements achieve an enhancement in freeing slowly the restraint, in overcoming the heaviness, in Mahler's symphonies the finale becomes the center of the work, from which content results the arrangement of the whole - the number of movements, the characters and their order.

 Mahler's symphonic music is a symphonic music of the rise and the growing, to which its power accrues by the variety of the appearances and which perceives its aim only en route.

 Mahler's notes, memorandums and entries in several handwritten sources document impressively that his symphonic music has to be considered as an art, where personal, biographical, literary and philosophical concerns find expression.

 Mahler's attitude towards the program music was characterized on the one hand by an unshakable faith in the „inner" programs, on the other hand by the awe of communicating them.
 
 

He gave poetic titles to many movements of his early symphonies, he explained his intentions in numerous letters and wrote even detailed programs, from which he dissociated himself later to exclude a discussion on the illustrative character of his music. Certain philosophic keynotes influenced his creative world of thought all his life.

Mahler started with the sketches of the First Symphony in 1885, at the end of his work as conductor in Kassel and shortly after having finished the „Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen". Maybe he continued to work on the drafts already in Prague (1885/86), but certainly in Leipzeig in 1887. In March 1888, he wrote to his friend Friedrich Löhr (1859-1924):

 „That's it! My work is finished! Now I want you by my little piano and to play it for you... You are probably the only one, who will found nothing new in it; the other people will certainly be surprised at quite a few things! It became so overwhelming - as it rushed out of me like a mountain torrent!"

 Mahler converted the expressed wealth of ideas into programmatic titles of the movements, but was in the dark about the name of the whole work at first: Once he talks of a „symphonic poem", once of a „symphonic poem in two parts", of a „symphony in five movements" or a „symphony in D major", then of „Titan, a tone poem in symphonic form" or shortly of „Titan" - under this name the symphony is often performed still today.

 With „Titan" Mahler adopted the title of large-scale novel by Jean Paul. He tried to express the inner attachment to the ideas, which the poet uttered in his novel through the youth Albano: thoughts about love, friendship, death, eternity and particularly about the life of the nature.

 The new thing about Mahler's work is not external. The orchestration corresponds to the usual instrumentation for symphonic music at that time. But new is the latent orientation of the whole work towards the final movement and the method of tone-symbolic arrangement.

 In this work, Mahler refers several times to his „Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen". The first movement returns to the lied „Ging heut' morgen über's Feld" from this cycle. In the second movement, a scherzo, Mahler adopted also motifs of previous compositions („Hans und Grete"). In the third movement he worked up the canon „Bruder Jakob, schläfst du noch" (the German version of the French „Frère Jacques") as well as the final part („Zwei blaue Augen von meinem Schatz") of the „Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen".

 Mahler borrowed the title of the third movement („in Callots Manier") from E. T. A. Hoffmann. His „Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier" (1814/15) are a collection of discourses and narratives put by Hoffmann into the mouth of his musical double, the conductor Kreisler, this likable figure to which Mahler was compared several times.

 The First Symphony was performed for the first time on November 20th 1889 in Budapest, Mahler conducting.

 About his later revirion of the work, Mahler wrote in May 1894 to Richard Strauss, who thougt of preforming it, that „everything has become more slender and transparent".

 In a letter, addressed to the German musical reviewer Max Marschalk in 1896, Mahler thought that it „is irrelevant what is represented - only the mood is important which has to be expressed".

 To illustrate this mood to the audience, Mahler appended at first a describing program to the symphony. But he realized soon that „if you supply a program to the public..., you force it so to see and not to listen!" and he managed without „initiation" of the public.

The symphony in C minor and five movement became known as „Auferstehungssymphonie" (resurrection symphony), because it is based on ideas about the allied subjects death and resurrection. Mahler used here soprano and alto solo and mixed choir and set words by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, verses from „Des Knaben Wunderhorn" and own verses to music. He worked on the 80 minutes lasting work for a relatively long time - from 1888 to 1894. He finished the major part of the composition in 1893 and 1894 in Steinbach am Attersee, where he spent the summer months.

 For the first movement, he revised a previous work, a symphonic piece similar to a funeral march, entitled „Totenfeier". Obviously, Mahler adopted this title from a poem of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, that he received translated by his friend Siegfried Lipiner.

 A scherzo movement follows an idyllic andante, the symphonic transposition of the Lied „Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" (composed in summer 1893), which text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn points the uselessness of all striving out.

 The fourth movement gives practically an answer to the third movement. It is also based on a Wunderhorn lied: „Urlicht" was probably transposed in symphonic form by Mahler in summer 1893.

 With regard to the music and the content, the whole work is keyed to the final choir of the fifth movement, to the setting to music of Klopstock's ode „Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst du". After having finished the composition, Mahler wrote: „The last movement (partition) of the second symphony is finished! It is the most important thing that I have ever made."

 The Second Symphony was performed for the first time on December 13th 1895 in Berlin, Mahler conducting.

In 1895/96, Mahler composed the symphony in D Minor with alto solo, women's and boys' choir after words by Friedrich Nietzsche and verses from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. At that time, Mahler was a very busy conductor at the municipal theater of Hamburg and conducted also the subscription concerts in Hamburg.

 In 1896, he finished the composition in Steinbach am Attersee (Upper Austria). He retired to this place to compose during the summer months. After having finished the symphony in 1896, he wrote: „Probably the most mature and peculiar thing that I have ever made" - and: „My symphony will be something that the world has never heard before! In it, the whole nature receives a voice and tells so deep secrets divined perhaps in dreams!"

 In a letter to Max Marschalk, Mahler compared the work with a „summer midday dream", which six stops give the poetic titles of the several movements: „Pan erwacht - der Sommer marschiert ein", „Was mir die Blumen auf der Wiese erzählen", „Was mir die Tiere im Walde erzählen", „Was mir der Mensch erzählt", „Was mir die Engel erzählen" and „Was mir die Liebe erzählt". Initially, he had conceived a seventh movement, „Was mir das Kind erzählt" or „Das himmlische Leben". He composed this movement already in 1892, but after having finished the first movement he struck it off the partition and it became the basic unit of the Fourth Symphony.

 As in the second and Fourth Symphony, Mahler used also in this work texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and own previous lieder based on this texts. In the third movement, the lied „Ablösung im Sommer" is treated as motif. In the fourth movement, the voice develops in a free recitative (words from Friedrich Nietzsche's „Also sprach Zarathustra"). The fifth movement (lasting only four and a half minutes) follows without transition, a setting to music of the naive-pious „Armer Kinder Bettlerlied" from the Wunderhorn.

 With its six movements and the enormous apparatus composed of solos, choirs and orchestra, the Third Symphony departs from the usual symphonic system. Its duration (one and a half hours) is also uncommon.

 Arthur Nikisch, at his side Mahler had worked in Leipzig as second conductor, played the second movement in a philharmonic concert in Berlin on November 9th 1896. In March 1897, Felix Weingartner performed the movements 2, 3 and 6 in a concert of the royal orchestra also in Berlin. The complete symphony was performed only five years later, on June 9th 1902 at the musicians' festival in Krefeld.

When Mahler composed the Fourth Symphony, he was already director of the Viennese court opera. During the summer months, he worked on the composition at different places: in Bad Aussee in the Sazkammergut, in Maiernigg and finalkly in Vienna. He started the composition in 1899, finished it in 1900 and undertook a final revision in 1902. It was performed for the first time in Munich on November 25th 1901, Mahler conducting.

 The audience was from the beginning disturbed at the provocative naiveté of this musical picture world with symphonic claim. The core of the work is the lied finale for soprano and small orchestra, which is originated in the lied „Das himmlische Leben" (after a text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and already composed in 1892) and describes the pleasures of the heavenly Cockaigne. Here is the key to the understanding of the whole work: „In the last movement the child explains..., how everything is meant" (Mahler).

 Initially, the first movement was called „Die Welt als ewige Jetztzeit" and is so a pendant to the finale. The initial title of the second movement, „Freund Hein spielt auf", is missing in the partition. It is replaced by the expression mark „Sehr zufahrend, wie eine Fiedel" - according to Mahler's own statement, the Death plays here. To give the macabre dance the appropriate horrible effect, the solo violin is tuned up.

 The Fourth Symphony is often considered to be an cheerful or humorous work - Mahler had entitled his first drafts „humoresque" at first. He said: „There is the cheerfulness of a higher, strange world inside, which is for us horrible", and: „There is a lot of laughing in my Fourth - at the beginning of the second movement."

The following three symphonies are pure instrumental works. Mahler applied himself more to instrumental techniques, the symphonic-thematic work and counterpoint types of movement. But the Fifth still shows reminiscences of lieder composed at the same time: Mahler began the composition during his holiday stay in Maiernigg in summer 1901. At that time, he composed besides three movements of the in five movements conceived symphony also eight lieder after texts by Friedrich Rückert (some of them from the cycle Kindertotenlieder).

 The first movement „Trauermarsch" - funeral march - (With measured steps. Severe. Like a conduct) is thematically and formally an integral part of the second. The powerful scherzo, which Mahler considered to be the most imortant movement of the symphony, was followed by an „Adagietto" for harp and strings, Mahler's certainly most popular symphonic movement. According to Wilhelm Mengelberg, this music represents Mahler's declaration of love to Alma Schindler, he met in November 1901 and married in March 1902. For the final movement, Mahler chose for the first time a rondo form. He will deal with it again in the finale of the Seventh.

 For this symphony, Mahler demanded an enormous orchestral apparatus with a big orchestrated brass choir, which carries the musical action for a long time. The dominant of the brass sound had disadvantageous consequences for the distribution of the work.

 Richard Strauss, who had a particular high opinion of the first three movements, wrote on March 5th 1905 to Mahler: „Your 5th Symphony made me very happy recently in the final rehearsal. Only the Adagietto clouded my joy. That the public liked it best, serves you right. The first two movements in particular are very excellent. But the brilliant scherzo seemed to be a bit too long..."

 

About this symphony - the subtitle „Die Tragische" (The Tragic) comes from Mahler himself - the composer wrote: „My 6th will ask riddles, which only a generation is allowed to dare tackle, which has taken in and digested my first five symphonies."

 The work was composed between 1903 and 1905 in Maiernigg. Alma Mahler relates, that he has composed in summer 1903 two movements of the Sixth and „the idea for the other movements was finished in his head". He wrote down the extensive final movement in summer 1904. In 1905, he finished the instrumentation of the whole work.

 The programmatic content of this symphony can be described as the struggle for existence of the wanting, creative man against the inexorability of destiny, which ends catastrophically with the undoing of the hero. Among all of Mahler's symphonies, the Sixth is the only, that shows no way out and finishes in a gloomy minor key.

 The orchestration outnumbers even the instrumentation of the fifth, but Mahler arranged the sound effects more economically. As characteristic sound symbols he uses herd bells and hammers: According to his own statement, the herd bells are the last tone that sounds from earth to a lonely person in farthest height, a symbol of total loneliness. The sound effect of the hammer stands for the blows, which brake finally the will.

 The weighing down effect of destiny is represented by a recurrent motif symbol, the sudden change from A major to A minor triad.

 According to Mahler's wife Alma, the second passionate theme is supposed to reflect Alma's position in Mahler's life.

 The Sixth Symphony was performed for the first time on May 27th 1906 at the music festival of the Allgemeine Deutschen Musikverein in Essen, Mahler conducting.

Mahler drafted the first sketches of the symphony with five movements in summer 1904, while he was still working on finishing the Sixth. At first, he composed the second and fourth movement, both entitled „Nachtmusik" (night music). In August 1905, he finished the work. The première was performed in Prague three years later, on September 19th 1908, Mahler conducting.

 The Seventh brings the liberation from the mental agony of the Sixth Symphony. Here, no struggles were fought out, but contrasts were compares all of the sudden.

 Also for this symphony Mahler demands again some unusual instruments: tenor horn (a kind of „bugle"), mandolin and guitar and even, in addition to the percussion section including kettledrums, drums and triangle, a tam-tam (a flat gong instrument), a tambourine and herd bells - he used them already in the Sixth.

The Eight Symphony , also called „Die Symphonie der Tausend", reckons with four-part double choir, boys' choir eight solo voices and full orchestra. The cover of the partition bears the dedication: „Meiner lieben Frau Alma Mahler" (to my dear wife Alma Mahler). Mahler composed the work in summer 1906 in Maiernigg am Wörthersee, where he had built a villa and had a „composing cottage" furnished especially for him.

 After having finished the composition, he wrote: „... It is the greatest thing that I have ever made. And so peculiar in content and form, that I can't write about it. Imagine, that the universe begins to sound. No more human voices, but planets and suns are revolving."

 The first part is based on the hymn „Veni creator spiritus" by archbishop Hrabanus Maurus of Mainz (around 780-856). In the second part he set the final scene from Goethe's Faust II to music.

 The considered the Eight as his principal work, his message to mankind. As in Beethoven's Ninth, eternal goods were celebrated here: The old Latin hymn praises the divine love as the elemental power inherent in creation, Goethe's poetry glorifies the love as purifying power.

 After Mahler's return from America, he rehearsed with the soloists in Vienna and at his holiday domicile in Toblach. He took part in the rehearsals of the choir singers in Leipzig and started the first general rehearsals in Munich three months before the performance.

 The première - in the program as: „Eight Symphony in two parts for solos, choirs, orchestra and organ" - was performed on September 12th 1910 in Munich. 8 soloists, 850 choristers, 170 orchestra musicians and one organist took part in the concert - with the conductor 1,030 performers. This work scored the first extensive success after his Second Symphony.

 

src="

"Partitur Ninth Symphony"

The Ninth Symphony is the last work, that Mahler has finished. He composed the major part of the work in four movements in 1909 in Toblach. He made the fair copy in New York. For since he had undertaken obligations in America, he spent half the year as conductor in New York and half the year in Europe. He devoted the summer months exclusively to the composing, while in winter, he finished off his works and completed their instrumentation in the mornings.

 The Ninth was preceded by „Das Lied von der Erde", which should have been actually the number nine in the series of his symphonic works. According to the superstition, that no composer can get further than a ninth symphony after Beethoven, Mahler called only the next symphony the Ninth et he thought that he has outwitted the destiny by that. But it was not granted to him to finish his Tenth Symphony and he has not heard the Ninth: The première was performed after his death on June 26th 1912 in Vienna, Bruno Walter conducting.

 Like „Das Lied von der Erde", Mahler's Ninth Symphony endeavors to obtain a new independence of the several voices, which is reflected in the instrumentation and causes an broken, ascetic orchestral sound.

 The first movement starts with a basic motif from „Das Lied von der Erde". A multitude of passages of previous works is worked up in the symphony (for instance themes from the fourth movement of the Third Symphony, the second movement of the Fifth, the first lied of „Kindertotenlieder") numerous quotations or reminiscences of motifs by Beethoven and Bruckner do also appear.

 In the sketch of the partition, there are informative autographic entries, which show clearly that Mahler associates memories and farewell thoughts with this work. In the first movement, he noted the exclamations: „O youth! Vanished! O love! Scattered!" and „Farewell! Farewell!"

 

After „Das Lied von der Erde" (1908) and the Ninth Symphony (1909), Mahler began in 1910 in Toblach to work on the Tenth Symphony, but could not finish it. After his death, his notes devolved on his widow Alma Mahler. The folders, numbered with Roman numerals, provide information on the intended course of the symphony in five movements, which has certain parallels to the arrangement of the Seventh: Two scherzos frame as second and fourth movement a third movement called „Purgatorio", but there was no fair copy of any movement. Only a leading voice was often specified. Only the first movement, an Adagio, reached the stage of an elaborated sketch of the partition, which is, nevertheless, certainly only a provisory stage.

 Alma Mahler decided to publish some sketches as facsimile. The volume came out in 1924.

 In 1924 too, the reconstruction of the adagio and of the third movement, made by the twenty-four-year-old composer Ernst Krenek - through his marriage with Anna Justina Mahler Alma Mahler's son-in-law - with the help of Alban Berg and Franz Schalk, was performed for the first time in Vienna.

 Later, Franz Schalk and Alexander von Zemlinsky undertook again the completion and the arrangement of the adagio and the first scherzo. In 1951, the result was published by a publishing house in New York. Neither the adagio, which was almost completely orchestrated by Mahler's hand, nor the arrangement of the scherzo met with a particular response. - Today, the adagio is mostly performed alone.

 In the left sketches, there are diary-like exclamations of moving intensity, which bear testimony to Mahler's inner jolt and presentiment of death. On the first page of the first scherzo he wrote: „Mercy! O Lord! Why did you leave me?" - „Thy will be done!"

Mahler finished the partition of this work, that he called a „symphony for one tenor and one alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra", in summer 1908 in Altschluderbach near Toblach. In a cycle of six solo singings, he set texts from Hans Bethge's free adaptation of old Chinese poems to music.

 The exotic character of theses texts conveys a sense of loneliness, which is expressed even more intensively in Mahler's music. The polyphony, cultivated by Mahler since his Fifth, is replaced now by a free coexistence of the voices, the form seems nearly arbitrary, improvisatorial, the orchestral setting shows a chamber music-like treatment.