Mahler’s Symphonic World
Music for the Age of Uncertainty
9780226836027
9780226836034
Mahler’s Symphonic World
Music for the Age of Uncertainty
A new analysis of Mahler’s symphonies, placing each within the context of his musical way of being in and experiencing the world.
Between 1888 and 1909 Gustav Mahler completed nine symphonies; the tenth was left incomplete at his death in 1911. Mahler’s Symphonic World makes a radical claim: that over his lifetime, the composer pursued a single vision, a single ideal symphony, striving to capture in his music a philosophical outlook on human existence. Writing at the turn of the twentieth century, Mahler found himself in a spiritual situation in which all trust in firm foundations had evaporated. In Karol Berger’s analysis, each of Mahler’s symphonies reflects his preoccupation with human suffering and transience and his search for sources of possible consolation. Through detailed analysis of individual symphonies, Berger traces how the same images and plots appear in different works and how the borderlines between symphonies can become porous. Mahler’s Symphonic World uncovers the single ideal symphony that Berger asserts the composer was pursuing all his life, locates Mahler’s music within the matrix of intellectual currents that defined his epoch, and offers a revelatory picture of his musical way of being in the world.
Between 1888 and 1909 Gustav Mahler completed nine symphonies; the tenth was left incomplete at his death in 1911. Mahler’s Symphonic World makes a radical claim: that over his lifetime, the composer pursued a single vision, a single ideal symphony, striving to capture in his music a philosophical outlook on human existence. Writing at the turn of the twentieth century, Mahler found himself in a spiritual situation in which all trust in firm foundations had evaporated. In Karol Berger’s analysis, each of Mahler’s symphonies reflects his preoccupation with human suffering and transience and his search for sources of possible consolation. Through detailed analysis of individual symphonies, Berger traces how the same images and plots appear in different works and how the borderlines between symphonies can become porous. Mahler’s Symphonic World uncovers the single ideal symphony that Berger asserts the composer was pursuing all his life, locates Mahler’s music within the matrix of intellectual currents that defined his epoch, and offers a revelatory picture of his musical way of being in the world.
Table of Contents
Preface
Prologue: The Lesson of Mahler
1. Cycles: The Norm and Its Extensions
2. Allegro: The March of the World
Acknowledgments
Symphonic Works
Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Prologue: The Lesson of Mahler
1. Cycles: The Norm and Its Extensions
2. Allegro: The March of the World
The First: Art before Art
The Second: Building and Breaking
The Third: The Rite of Summer
The Fourth: Neoclassicism and Exhaustion
The Fifth: The Tentative Triumph
The Sixth: The Programmatic Temptation
The Seventh: The Intransitive Anticipation
The Ninth: The Amalgamation of Forms
The Tenth: Music and Autobiography
3. Andante: The Respite The Second: Building and Breaking
The Third: The Rite of Summer
The Fourth: Neoclassicism and Exhaustion
The Fifth: The Tentative Triumph
The Sixth: The Programmatic Temptation
The Seventh: The Intransitive Anticipation
The Ninth: The Amalgamation of Forms
The Tenth: Music and Autobiography
The Funeral March
The First: Jewishness in Music
The Dance-Based Andante
The Second: Remembrance of Music’s Past
The Third: The Dance of the jeunes filles en fleurs
The Third: The Dance of the jeunes filles en fleurs
The Serenade
The Sixth: Night Music I
The Seventh: Night Music II and III
4. Scherzo: The Run of the World The Seventh: Night Music II and III
The First: Danse à la campagne and Danse à la ville
The Second: An Outsider Looks In
The Third: Animals Listen
The Fourth: Dancing till We Drop
The Fifth: La Valse
The Sixth: The Invention of Cubism
The Seventh: Night Music IV
The Ninth: The Development of Cubism
The Rondo-Burleske of the Ninth: The Wild Chase
Postscript: The Tenth
5. Finale: In Search of Consolation The Second: An Outsider Looks In
The Third: Animals Listen
The Fourth: Dancing till We Drop
The Fifth: La Valse
The Sixth: The Invention of Cubism
The Seventh: Night Music IV
The Ninth: The Development of Cubism
The Rondo-Burleske of the Ninth: The Wild Chase
Postscript: The Tenth
The Allegro-Finale
The First: The Breakthrough
The Sixth: The Unmotivated Catastrophe
The Sixth: The Unmotivated Catastrophe
The Rondo-Finale
The Fifth: The Taking Back of the Ninth
The Seventh: On the Nuremberg Meadow
The Seventh: On the Nuremberg Meadow
The Adagio-Finale
The Third: Love Descending
The Ninth: On the Heights
The Ninth: On the Heights
The Vocal Finale
The Second: The Taking Up of the Ninth
The Fourth: Finding the Solution
6. The Vocal Cycles The Fourth: Finding the Solution
The Eighth Symphony
I. Hymnus: Veni, creator spiritus
II. Schlußszene aus “Faust”
II. Schlußszene aus “Faust”
Das Lied von der Erde
I. Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde
II. Der Einsame im Herbst
III. Von der Jugend
IV. Von der Schönheit
V. Der Trunkene im Frühling
VI. Der Abschied
7. Symphonies for the Age of Uncertainty II. Der Einsame im Herbst
III. Von der Jugend
IV. Von der Schönheit
V. Der Trunkene im Frühling
VI. Der Abschied
The Sense of an Ending
How Poor a Yea-Sayer Was Mahler?
The Worldview Music
Epilogue: The Lesson of ProustHow Poor a Yea-Sayer Was Mahler?
The Worldview Music
Acknowledgments
Symphonic Works
Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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