salem@sri-unix.ARPA (Bruce B. Salem) (10/23/85)
The following is some comments on the Symphonies of Gustav Mahler,
particularly difficulties in them and some analytical comments.
Last year I was finally able to find the score of the Mahler 10th
Symphony in the Performing Version of Deryk Cooke which dates from 1960.
Mr Cooke's effort was based on the fact that the sketches were developed
enough to offer an idea of how the finished work would be realized. They are
published with Cooke's realization in a full score. With the Ormandy/Phil.
Orch. recording one can see that the result is a good rough aproximation to
what might have been.
The full Symphony as realized is a five movement work of which the
opening adagio and the first scherzo have been published in other
editions, with most of the rest of the piece in various stages of
development. The Purgaterio, third movt., is the least realized of
all, consisting of only one part in most of the sketch. I think that
Mahler would have added more counterpoint and length to this piece.
The last two movements a second scherzo and a finale are closer to a
finished form in the sketch.
What is important about the music, especially the finale of the
Tenth as compared with the finale of the Ninth, is that it debunks
the theory that Mahler was a defeated man at his death.
What would people have read into the finale of the Third Symphony
if Mahler had died a decade earlier? The finale of the Tenth is
certiantly nostalgic but neither about death or futile struggles.
The ending is really quite peaceful.
The somber tone of the Ninth finale is due in part to its formal
construction. The very spare ending of the finale is an answer
to the countrapuntal development of the turn motive in the theme and
looks forward in time to Berg and Schoenberg in technique. I don't
disagree that the movement is about an emotional struggle, especially
after hearing the theme for it in the Rondo Burlesque, the third
movement, only that Mahler seems to have come to peace with himself
by the time he died.
Several movements in Mahler are linked formally to a variation form
in the third movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The B-flat
movement of Beethoven's Ninth is a new kind of variation form, a kind
of double variation. There is a pretty standard variation of the
B-Flat theme, Adagio, but the second theme in D-Major, Andante, comes
back once more in G-Major. This much of the Beethoven movement is the
idea that Mahler uses in the form for movements in most of his symphonies.
These movements are the 2nd. Movt. of Resurectrion, finale of Third,
3rd. Movt. of Fourth, 3rd. Movt. of Sixth, and the Finale of the Ninth.
These are very formal pieces with the second theme in the parallel minor,
usually. The Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony is a simple variation
Movement.
As an asside, Beethoven does not bring back the Andante Theme after
two variations in the Third Movement of the Minth Symphony The problem he has
created for himself in the placing of the Andante is that he has to end the
Adagio theme on a half cadence and framata. He introduces a cadencial figure
in E- flat which modulates to B-flat minor and via interchange in
mode to B-Flat and the material that would have been the mormal
cadence of the theme. This new material is expanded into the coda.
It is Beethoven's use of the framata and second theme which Mahler
makes use of in his variation movements.
I think that Mahler Symphonies are diffucult because of their great
length and the very learned counterpoint in them. Themes are often really
trivial, sounding like snipits of military marches and horn calls, but
it is what Mahler does with simple ideas that is impressive. I cannot
argue with the difficulties in Mahler, which make having a score a
real aid in deciphering the details of a piece like the finale of the
Seventh Symphony or the first part of the Eighth.
The scale of these synphonies is often due to the huge outer movements
in sonata form as in the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies. Many of the Symphonies
are five movement forms with large sonata outer movements, two scherzi and a
intermezzo movement in the middle. The original version of the Titan Symphony,
the Second, Third, Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth fit this form. Four mouvement
symphonies follow the more classical plan of sonata, variations or adagio,
scherzo, sonata, e.g. Fourth, Sixth and Ninth. The Eighth Symphony's second
part can be analyzed as three movements, adagio, scherzo and finale, joined
into one. Even though the variation movements of the Third and Ninth
Symphonies are not sonata movements, they have the texture of a sonata even
if not the key form. Note that the last movement of Beethoven's Eroica is a
variations but really as well a sonata movement with the variations serving
the sections of a sonata.
Bruce Salem