Certain people in the classical music world are really  into Mahler.  You've seen him.  He's the scruffy, rotund low-brass player with his ass crack peeking out of the top of his baggy jeans and a ring of chapped skin on his lips from his mouth piece.  He's the guy who is unapologetic about emptying his spit valve right on the floor, saying, "Don't worry, it's just condensation, not actual spit."  That guy talks about Mahler with the same awe that astronomers have when they talk about how every atom in your body was created in an ancient star.  

And I'm not sure I get it.

So, today I listened to Mahler's ninth and final completed symphony.  I chose it because I read a review a little while ago of a new recording from the LA Phil, conducted by The Dude, that is, Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel.

Mahler 9 was written in 1909 and 1910, but wasn't premiered until after Mahler's death.  Supposedly, the composer had been diagnosed with the heart disease that would kill him while he was writing this thing, and scholars have written quite a lot about the death imagery in it.  For example, according to the textbook from a class I took on symphonic lit at Shenandoah, Alban Berg said this:
Once again I have played through the score of Mahler's ninth Symphony:  the first movement is the most heavenly thing Mahler ever wrote.  It is the expression of an exceptional fondness for this earth, the longing to live in peace on it, to enjoy nature to its depths - before death comes.  For he comes irresistibly.  The whole movement is permeated by premonitions of death.
Then there was this 1983 essay by Lewis Thomas, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony.  In it, the author reflects on Cold War tensions and the possibility of a nuclear conflict decimating the population.  Grim.

This is high, high, high romticism.  The music is lush and expressive, and really quite gorgeous.  I get the sense that for symphonic musicians, specifically brass players, Mahler is like Puccini is to singers.  He wrote beautiful, mushy music for them that they just love to play.  (Of course, Mahler is usually compared to Wagner, and you can definitely hear his influence, but I'm talking about it from a performers perspective, not a musicological one.)

When the second movement comes in it really marks a huge contrast with the first.  Folk dance form feels shockingly different from what precedes it.  But then the composer begins to tweak it little by little.  Honestly, if symphony is all about the exploration and development of a musical idea, well, this whole piece does exactly that, and does it a lot, and does it well.

The third movement is a rondo, and the recurring rondo theme is a double fugue, with some really masterfully written counterpoint that has a frenetic feeling that seems to grow more tense with each reiteration.  I don't know if either of you have ever experienced a full-on panic attack?  I thought the final iteration of the rondo theme feels just like that, like when your brain is uncontrollably rushing through increasingly horrible worst-case scenarios until you become convinced that you can't breath and you're actually dying right now.

When I was listening to the final movement, a one point I thought that it sounded a bit like Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.  Then I thought, nah, Adagio For Strings wishes  it was the fanale to Mahler 9, but doesn't even come close.

So anyway, have a listen.  It's quite long, I'm afraid to say.  I know that was the complaint about the Shostakovich, and like the Shostakovich, I'm not sure it's a good idea to break it up.  Sorry!  Anyway, 


7/6/2013 06:57:17 am

Well. I kept forgetting about this. I just remembered, and I actually have time now, so here goes.

I'm coming into this not knowing all that much about Mahler or most of his music. I'll just type up a stream-of-consciousness type reaction, movement by movement.

First Movement:
Score: http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/3/32/IMSLP20988-PMLP48640-Symphony_No._9_-_I.pdf

Is there anything better than low harp? Not much, I say.

To be honest, I was pretty bored with the melody when the strings came in. That whole pastoral thing rarely works for me... I do have a somewhat embarrassing penchant for moody, devastating stuff. When it shifts to minor before rehearsal 3 I thought "thank god."

Then the huge leaps in the violins! It switches back to major, but it's so ecstatic that I'm really gripped.

The pastoral stuff comes back, but I care less, because now I know it's not gonna stick there for a while. It doesn't, but where it goes is not quite as gripping to me (in the "etwas frischer." Don't get frisch with me, Mahler.)

Ooh, clarinet in its chalumeau register right before rehearsal 7. As one of my favorite quotes from a really well-written orchestration textbook says, the clarinet in this register is "hollow, dark, sinister, and oily." I'd add "sexy" to that list.

Before and shortly after reh. 8: I'm bored again.

I'm definitely more drawn to the sinister reh. 11 than I am to the "tah-dah!" leading up to it.

"Schattenhaft" is such a great word. "Shadowy."

Each time this pastoral idea comes back I like it a little more. Maybe it's a familiarity thing? Everything has been so all over the place, that when something familiar comes back I'm like "Oh yay I know this!" (I'm talking about leading up to 16 here.) Ooh, I actually love what's happening at 16 - the pastoral theme got drunk!

Is it just me, or did that flute solo feel out of place?

On the other hand, I love this little mostly woodwind section here, with the harp harmonizing unexpectedly underneath.

Oh hey really difficult to tune D at the end.

All in all, I give this movement 3 out of 5 Grace Faces. I enjoyed it, but wasn't really swept away like I was expecting to be.

Reply
7/6/2013 07:25:21 am

Second Movement
http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/7/71/IMSLP21104-PMLP48640-Symphony_No._9_-_II.pdf

Cute!

I love the droning open fifths in the low strings and the upper strings really digging into it.

LOVE the big change at the poco piu mosso.

After reh. 20: I've never heard a horn play that fast.

Oh hello there, Mozartian circle-of-fifths movement in the a tempo (langsam vie vorher), fließend.

I like how Mahler uses the accelerando with various "wrong" notes to keep up the interest, but then it goes back to the beginning idea again. In this movement, I'm craving more variety and getting annoyed by repeating ideas. This movement is the anti-first movement.

Love the viola solo after 27.

Check out that contrabassoon!

So, yes, I also give this one three out of five. I wish it had some of the interest and emotion of the first movement, but I'm thankful for the increased clarity, even if it feels like it's a little too clear at some points.

Reply
7/6/2013 07:42:47 am

Third Movement:
http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/9/96/IMSLP21157-PMLP48640-Symphony_No._9_-_III.pdf

Rondo Burleske? I'm intrigued already.

It was fun to follow along with the score when everything was going quickly and the melody was jumping around. It was like a tennis match. Then, when it slowed down, if you had told me it was Strauss I would have believed you.

But then it thinned out a bit and I got a little bored... until the viola solo comes in one system before reh. 40. That's some pretty shit right there.

Tempo I subito: WAKE UP, FUCKERS!

I enjoyed this - 3.5 out of 5? But I was waiting for the woman to come out wearing only a thong and pasties. That's what burlesque is, right?

Reply
7/6/2013 08:17:09 am

4th Movement:
http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/5/5d/IMSLP21194-PMLP48640-Symphony_No._9_-_IV.pdf

Why is this score suddenly so much harder to read?

That opening string section - holy crap. That was better than everything leading up to it in the first three movements.

Wow, unexpected creepy contrabassoon.

At the end of the phrase starting with the Molto adagio subito, with the horn solo - this is the second time it's happened, and it was with a horn solo before, but I find this cheesy: the horn playing a "fa mi re do," and then a plagal cadence under the do. I could have let that go once, but, really? Twice, Mahler?

Wow. Wow. Leading into the Wieder altes Tempo. Wow.

I got too distracted to type any more of my thoughts. That was stunning.

I will say, though, that comparing this to Adagio for Strings is a little unfair. For one thing, this is for a full orchestra. (Though, at the beginning and the end, I found myself forgetting that there were other instruments at play here. What's that weird sound? Oh, not a stringed instrument.) I think this movement is more similar in language to Strauss's Metamorphosen, which may be my next choice of piece. Compared to Adagio and Metamorphosen both, though, this movement is much more hopeful in tone.

Still. Love it. This last movement made the whole symphony more than worth it. Five stars. I'm a big fan.

Reply



Leave a Reply.