Deryck Cooke’s historic analysis of Mahler 10
Via Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc blog, Deryck Cooke discusses his performing edition of the 10th Symphony, left unfinished by Mahler and completed by Cooke.
It's almost two hours of discussion and played excerpts, and well worth it.
Mahler's Popularity? He's the Antidote for Medieval (and Modern) Anonymity: the Sixth at Symphony Center
by obsessing about himself, about Gustav Mahler, personally —and for 80 glorious minutes at a time as Haitink was in no hurry — Mahler gives us, by proxy, some of our dignity back.
Originally, my plan was to review the October 19, 2007 performance by Haitink and the Chicagos of the Mahler Sixth Symphony for these pages. But I decided (to borrow a phrase from one of the psychopathic hillbillies in Deliverance), “That river don’t go to Aintree.” My reviews of particular performances tend to end up like this:
Of course it was great. It was Mahler’s Sixth. It was Haitink and Chicago.
Others are welcome to recount how Haitink’s expansively paced tempi allowed for stentorian (yet plush) sounds from the brass, and other ephemera that you really had to be there to appreciate.
So, let’s talk about something else. How about, “What does Mahler mean for the intellectual and emotional life of a human being in 2007?”
Mahler said, “My time will come.” If he meant that lots of smart people who love music will come to venerate him, he was right on the money. If he meant that his music was ahead of its time or a vision of the future, he was mistaken. We have yet to realize Mahler’s vision of the future: the “Long 19th Century” may have ended with the First World War, but the twentieth century is still, sadly, with us. America is still in “Viet Nam”, the Russians (Soviets) still have a “Czar”, genocide still reigns in too many places, Nuclear weapons are still all the rage, etc.
In a sense, the Twentieth Century is a Medieval epoch. In Medieval times people were largely anonymous, like the characters in Die Frau ohne Schatten: the dyer, the dyer’s wife, the lame brother, the one-eyed brother, etc. All but the wealthy and powerful were so much at the mercy of nature that they, rightly, feared such things as being eaten by wolves.
The twentieth century has alarming similarities. People have names, but technology has made them anonymous (when it isn’t taking away their privacy). Even our “celebrities” have achieved a strange kind of anonymity due to their ubiquity. They’ve become an undifferentiated set of cute nicknames, completely interchangeable. (Was it Britney or Lindsay that got arrested last week?) Some don’t even merit a cute nickname of their own, but must share with a (statistically temporary) partner, a la TomKat, Brangelina, or Bennifer (one Ben, two successive Jennifers). They might as well be The Anorexic Supermodel, The Globe-trotting Humanitarian Actress, or The Former Bodyguard Baby-Daddy. Anonymous, anonymous, anonymous.
Fear of wolves has been replaced by fear of dirty bombs and climate change, but we’re still at the mercy of nature (science), because most people don’t understand it, and too many of those that do only want to deny it, abuse it or exploit it. And have you compared the virulent strains of faith propounded both by some American politicos and their unspeakable “fundamentalist” adversaries with their Dark Age counterparts lately? This is a Medieval epoch. There are Torquemadas, Savonarolas, and Sultans all over the place.
Well, by obsessing about himself, about Gustav Mahler, personally — and for 80 glorious minutes at a time as Haitink was in no hurry — Mahler gives us, by proxy, some of our dignity back. And he gives us the Nineteenth Century back, all over again. Hammer blows of fate doom the victim! The universe cares about us, even if its attitude is malevolent! And the unutterable hearbreak of Alpine beauty in the third movement! Nature is there to awe and move us, and furthermore, to co-operate with our emotional states. Our feelings matter! The third movement is so fabulously, extravagantly, jaw-droppingly beautiful that it verges on the unlistenable.
Arnold Schoenberg was right, as usual, when he flatly stated “Gustav Mahler was a saint.” But let’s not kid ourselves, he is our past, not our present. We can only hope that his vision will become our future.
Repetition or Redundancy: Introductions by Mendelssohn and Mussorgsky
The beginning of Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” symphony is completely inert, and therefore alarmingly dull, if I am permitted the oxymoron. As I’ve been studying this score recently for classroom presentation, I started from the assumption that the piece’s dullness was due to my own limited perception, probably related to the generic problems connected with this “symphony-cantata” as well as the stupefyingly poor text that Medelssohn employed in the work. Salvatore Cammarano’s book for Verdi’s Il Trovatore is a literary masterpiece compared to the shambles that Mendelssohn set in the cantata portion of his piece.
I adore Mendelssohn, and confess to being intimidated as well by the advocacy for this score by R. Larry Todd in his book on Mendelssohn that I’m using in the class. Todd is really careful to avoid personal enthusiasms and censures in his book, but the fact that he draws a structural diagram for “Lobgesang” and has several music examples constitutes advocacy. I also hope that I’m man enough to admit my limitations. But I think I’ve discovered something that lends credence to my negative assessment of the piece.
The first phrase of “Lobgesang” and the first phrase of Modest Mussorgsky’s (admittedly totally different and unrelated work conceptually and stylistically) Pictures at an Exhibition are similar. It’s not an uncanny similarity, but similar they are, and not because they share the same key signature and roughly the same thematic shape, which they do, but which is certainly coincidental, but similar in their rhetoric. Both are statement and response formulations, rather like a mass celebrant chanting something and being answered by a congregation. This is common in classical music. Brahms’ first piano sonata, Beethoven’s last symphony, Bach’s great mass, Rimsky’s Russian Easter Overture and most likely thousands of other works use this device. It is common, to say the very least. But Mendelssohn’s passage flops and Mussorgsky’s is immortal. Why?
It is because in Mendelssohn the responsorial harmonization of the original single note phrase merely confirms the harmonies that are obviously implied in the former. And then he adds new strophes to his passage, and each time the subsequent harmonization confirms the totally obvious. In Mussorsgsky, the harmonization, or at least the spacing is different each time, and even presents certain modal ambiguities; his opening promenade is definitely in B-flat, yes indeedy, but it is tinged by a lurking modal g minor, and sports as well the feeling of a premature move to the dominant, F major. If this seems technical, well, it is-but remember, music is a craft with its own procedural protocols. I can put it this way, non-technically: each time the listener hears the “celebrant” intone a phrase in Pictures, the listener is curious as to how the “responsorial” is formulated, and by the way, this interest does not diminish over repeated hearings. The “Promenade” is a unique thing. In Mendelssohn’s opening, you get exactly what is stongly implied each time. It’s boring the first time, and it approaches unendurable on subsequent listenings.
This should not sound immodest, because it is only basic musicianship, but I think I proved my contention in class yesterday. I improvised Mendessohnian sounding harmonizations of the responsorials at the piano , but used different spacings each time and employed proxy chords which were rational but less obvious then the chords in the actual piece. The passage was somewhat improved, but because I didn’t have an overarching conception of where I was going, it was still pretty bad. In other words, I improved the passage tactically but not strategically. If this seems like lese majestie, let me suggest that the alternative is that we all shut up, stop thinking and experimenting, and eat everything that is put on our plate. We shouldn’t eat everything that even a great master puts on our plate; we’ll get fat and complacent, and lose our powers of crititical discrimination. The Italian and Scottish symphonies are masterpieces, “Lobgesang is an also-ran, that’s the way it is, whether I am personally impertinent or not. I return to my profound rejection of the phrase, “You like it, I don’t, end of discussion” which an exceptionally intelligent friend of mine formulated during our conservatory days. We need standards and discrimination.
Finally, you may ask: “Isn’t repetition an often important unifying device, and therefore okey-dokey?” Oh my, yes. But repetition and redundancy are different things. If you don’t believe me, consult a reliable dictionary.
Berlioz and his "Fantastique"; Revenge May Be Best Served Cold, But Hector Ordered a Side Dish of Panache With His Meal
Holde-Quiz
Here’s a quiz:
What is the best way to exact revenge on a woman whose very existence torments you with pangs of jealous obsession?
a) Be a creep and put compromising pictures of her on the internet.
b) Pull an “O.J.”
c) Keep a stiff upper lip and show that you can handle yourself with dignity; show her who’s the adult.
d) Compose one of the greatest and most original symphonies in history.
Made your choice?
If you happen to be Hector Berlioz, the answer you choose is “d”. By the way, the option least likely to be chosen if you’re Berlioz is “C”, not withstanding that internet access was quite rare in 1830.
Here is a second quiz:
What is the best way to exact revenge on your professors, those pompous nincompoops who are so blind as to not recognize your genius, and instead choose to bore you with dull admonitions about your faulty counterpoint?
a) Slash the tires of their cars in the teacher’s lot.
b) Scrawl scatological insults on their blackboards.
c) Vow to work harder to improve your counterpoint, and subsequently become recognized as a greater contrapuntal expert than they are.
d) Write one of the greatest and most original symphonies in history, and portray your profs as slobbering demons in Hell dancing orgasmically to the notes of their beloved counterpoint.
Don’t give up — you can do it! Take a deep breath…
If you happen to be “You Know Who”, the answer again is “d”. And by the way, the least likely option to be exercised if you are in the habit of putting “H.B.” monograms on your pistol cases is “c”, not withstanding the fact that very few professors of music at the Paris Conservatory in the 1820s drove their cars to work.
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique;
Excerpts from Lélio
“The Tilson Thomas
Symphonie fantastique is the
cream of a very, very good crop
of recordings.” (John Gibbons)
It is also a potentially tenable notion that Berlioz was turning Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony upside down in a similar vein to that in which he turned Beethoven’s Ninth upside down in Harold en Italie; like the Big Man’s 5th, the Fantastique travels from c minor to C major, ends in cathartic triumph (albeit for the ghouls, just as it was the brigand’s triumph in “Harold”), has a scherzo that is yoked to the finale, even to the point of representing a transitional state emerging into the finale, as in Beethoven’s 5th, and has passages (a descending minor passage in the low strings in the “March to the Scaffold”, and an optimistic C major scaler horn call figure in the Witch’s Sabbath) that are suspiciously similar to passages in the Beethoven work, at equivalent structural junctures.
Extra Credit!
Here’s a third little quiz. Which photo below is of Hector Berlioz — and which one is of Jefferson Davis?
Hope you earned your motarboard!
Schumann's "Spring" Symphony: A Great Symphony that Could Have Been Greater
Mendelssohn, Schumann
This is a fairly technical post.
Schumann’s symphonies have traditionally been criticized for their amateurish orchestration. This criticism is valid. Schumann attempted to transfer the mechanics, techniques, and acoustical character of the piano to the orchestra, which works poorly. Transferring orchestral style sonority to the piano, on the other hand, paradoxically works reasonably well; consider Brahms’ First Sonata or Shostakovich’s op. 34 preludes, or Stravinsky’s “Serenade in A” for example.
The “Spring” symphony, composed in 1841 and published as Schumann’s op. 38, has many virtues. It is a lengthy work but one absolutely without “longeurs”, it abounds in contrast, it is by turns exuberant and lyrical, the melodic writing is consistently superior without compromising the sense of symphonic narrative and drive, and its organization and structure is flat out brilliant; consider the beautiful masterstrokes that frame the piece, the evocation of Schubert’s “Great” C Major symphony (whose manuscript was discovered by Schumann in Vienna) in the horns and trumpets fanfare at the beginning, which summons spring, and then is reiterated with perfect calculation at the beginning of the recapitulation in the first movement, and the lovely and unexpected birdsong cadenza that elegantly and touchingly launches the recapitulation in the finale. This warm, youthful, and luminous work is a treasure.
But the orchestration is problematical.
This may come as a shock to the uninitiated, but conductors alter orchestration all the time, and not just in Schumann. Yes, in Beethoven and Schubert as well, if not usually in Mozart and Mendelssohn. Just go to a rehearsal. In no time you’ll see a conductor ask a clarinet to double a passage for bassoons and horns, or divide the double basses so only half play a scampering figure, or tell the flute to play something an octave lower, or tell the disengaged last member of the second violins to take his finger out of his nose, pack up his fiddle, and go home. Just kidding about that last one! But seriously, this stuff happens all the time, and needs to happen. Only idiots and children think you can serve the music by slavish devotion to the printed text. And composers who are also conductors probably make the most changes. Look at Mahler, for example, who changed so much in the Schumann symphonies that he has his own version of the works. Mahler also made changes again and again in his own works.
Here is an example of Schumann’s bad orchestration. The beginning of the second movement features a lovely melody in octaves for the first violins, a sustained, syncopated accompanimental texture for the second violins and violas, and a bass line in contrary motion to the melody in the cellos and basses. Here are the problems:
1. Octave doubling of melodies is great on the piano, but ineffective in the violins, especially in the relatively less expressive middle of the violin register, where this melody lies. The octave doubling adds little weight and makes the melody a tiny bit out of tune, which is sometimes welcome, as it warms up the sound, but not here, where it is essential that the first violins, who are all on their divisi lonesome, hold their own against all of the second violins, violas, cellos, and basses.
2. The second violins and violas are trying to duplicate the effect created by a pianist’s right foot on the sustain pedal. Maybe Schumann congratulated himself on finding such a subtle rythmic expedient to represent the piano’s pedal, but he shouldn’t have been trying to represent the piano’s pedal at all, the orchestra has plenty of ways of its own to create sympathetic vibrations. Also, and most damaging, the ensemble is gonna be a huge problem. Even the finest players in the best orchestras are going to be tentative here, they are not going to be as comfortable finding the beat and coming in properly, with well co-ordinated ensemble as they could be. And all for nothing. Plus, this passage is likely to consume valuable rehearsal time.
3. All the cellos and basses playing a kind of mirror image of the first violins (who are not in a brilliant register, or in a great violin key [the key here is E-flat Major]) are more than a match for the first violin section; there is a danger of a bottom heavy sound, and in any case, the melody should predominate, as this is a homophonic texture.
Okay, Tough Guy, your solution?
1. Have all the first violins play the top octave of the melody, and half of the second violins and half of the violas play the bottom octave of the melody.
2. Have the syncopated accompaniment played by the left over second violins and violas, and re-notate their parts so you don’t have two sixteenth notes tied together commencing on off-beats. Use overlaps rather than rythmic unisons, so you get the sustain, but don’t have ensemble problems. You might consider putting mutes on the players executing this passage. That depends, it’s hard to know if it’s necessary or desirable before trying it out in the hall.
3. Keep the cellos as is, but make the basses (who double the cellos an octave lower) punctuate rather than double the cello line. In the first measure they could play an eighth note E-flat, in the second an eighth note A-flat, in the third they could take the whole value of the D, as the melody is now in a more exposed register, etc.
Conductors have to mess with stuff like this all the time, it’s a tough job, I promise you. When done right. Some conductors might skate past the whole problem. I have not heard Mahler’s solution to this passage, but I understand that his versions have been recorded. Perhaps someone who has heard what he does can enlighten me…I’m sure his solution to the passage discussed is better than mine.
Mendelssohn and "The Anxiety of Influence"
David’s reply to a previous post on Mendelssohn’s relationship to Beethoven brings up an important point. How and to what extent did Beethoven’s (especially symphonic) successors respond to his overwhelming prestige, to his inescapable influence?
Mendelssohn’s three great Beethoven glosses (Piano Sonata in E Major, op. 6, String Quartets Opp. 12 and 13) are early works. Mendelssohn appears to be more concerned with Bach, Handel and Mozart in most of his latter works, maybe because Beethoven seemed like too big an elephant in the room to the mature Mendelssohn, but then, of course, you have the “Lobegesang”, as a (problematical) exception. A kid’ll try anything, and if you’re a kid like Mendelssohn, you just might succeed. But the only kid like Mendelssohn in musical history had a father named Leopold. Mendelssohn’s latter works are not nearly as experimental or progressively minded as the earlier works. Beethoven, of course, is the most experimental and progressive composer in history.
Is it coincidence that Mendelssohn’s two indisputably great symphonies are placed outside of the Germanic (Beethovenian) orbit, in Scotland and Italy? Is the “Lobegesang” weakened because Mendelssohn is Handelian grandiose, perhaps, but not Beethovenian grandiose?
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music
R. Larry Todd
A work that takes up the Beethovenian gauntlet and works well is the Brahms First. The 5th and 9th symphonies meet and reconcile in an incredibly classisizing synthesis. Brahms was progressive by reinventing the past. Bruckner’s Beethoven glosses in the Third, Ninth, and parts of the Eighth work well because, unlike Mendelssohn, Bruckner was attuned to the Beethovenian grandiose. David mentitions a book by Bond that tosses Schumann 4th into the ring. If Schumann’s 4th wasn’t in d minor, and didn’t accentuate submediant relationships, and wasn’t cyclical, would we associate it with Beethoven’s Ninth, and Fifth? And do all cyclical works owe their existence to Beethoven’s Fifth, with its famous motto? Maybe, but we can’t say for sure. The question is, is Beethoven so fundamental in himself, or was he accepted as fundamental because the zeitgeist of the 19th century was in accord with his nature? Some of both, but if I had to choose, I’d take the first alternative, when we’re talking symphony.
Tchaikovsky appropriated the model of the Fifth in his own Fifth, but I think he might have thought he was getting it from Liszt, a composer much closer to his heart than Beethoven. And How about Liszt? Is the “Faust” symphony another Beethoven gloss? As for Berlioz, in “Fantastique” and “Harold in Italy”, how about that? Berlioz was too much his own man to be sure about. His big musical gods included Cherubini and Gluck. And he was weird.
You Don't Have to Start at the Beginning: Mendelssohn and Beethoven
Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13, written at the age of 18, and his String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 12, written at the age of 20, are at once the most knowlegeable glosses on Beethoven in existence and yet at the same time deeply original works. Beethoven’s late style was not exactly terra incognita for the early romantics, but middle period works, especially the Fifth Symphony, exerted much more influence, generally. Mendelssohn is the exception. As he comments himself, “You don’t have to start at the beginning…”. Early Mendelssohn bends back only a year or two to embrace late Beethoven. These quartets are from 1827 and 1829, and therefore can properly be regarded as a sort of continuation of late Beethoven rather than works with a retrospective orientation. Consider a wildly different repertory that looks back to late Beethoven, the Rochberg quartets, especially the “Beethoven” movement in the Third, and you will understand the difference between the creator and the curator.
Mendelssohn was amused, and possibly flattered, when an auditeur of his a-minor quartet mistook the piece as having been written by Beethoven. Mendelssohn took all sorts of Beethoven works as models for these quartets: The “Harp” Quartet, the Quartet Serioso, the a-minor quartet, Op. 132, the “Tempest” piano sonata, the “Les Adieu” piano sonata, the F-Major quartet, op. 135, especially the “Muss es sein” idea, which Mendelssohn balances with his own “Ist es wahr” quotation from his own song, “Frage” which is actually printed in its entirety in my score. But Mendelssohn doesn’t quote! He absorbs and sublimates. Those who know and love the late Beethoven quartets can only marvel at the profundity and originality of Mendelssohn’s ability in extending this most personal of styles.
Mendelssohn’s counterpoint is breath-taking. Effortlessly elegant, flexible, natural and eloquent, contrapuntal textures have rarely been such a joy, as opposed to a sort of chore to listen to.
Mendelssohn doesn’t need to take his scherzi from Beethoven, because Mendelssohn was himself a very great scherzo writer. Both Scherzo movements in these quartets are actually archaic sounding intermezzi with scherzo music taking the middle panel of A-B-A structures. These intermezzi are the most obvious delights in these great works. I think they deeply influenced Brahms, as well, who has several archaic sounding movements with scherzando central panels.
And Mendelssohn is tonally progressive. How innovative the E-flat quartet is! movements in E-flat, g minor, B-flat, and c-minor, with a coda derived from the E-flat end of the first movement. This is not “progressive” tonality in the sense we associate with Carl Nielsen, because the different tonalities do not directly engage each other, but it sort of points in the same direction.
Mendelssohn is always a master of the string quartet texture. These vibrant works jump off the page. And melodies? Take a look at the Mozartian elegance of both slow movements. Sometimes one hears the absurd defamation that Mendelssohn is superficial. If a composer has the right to be judged by his best work (definitely not the “Songs Without Words”!) Mendelssohn is deep. He’s just so very, very, competent that his works never betray anything like the struggle of genesis. M had it all, from a very young age. A prodigy to rival Mozart, but who wrote true repertory works at an age younger than Mozart. These quartets are winners.
Definitely not a winner, however, is Mendelssohn’s symphony, “Lobegesang”; It’s actually a 23 minute symphony yoked with a 40 minute cantata, and is a pathetic and futile attempt to be a work in the manner of Beethoven’s Ninth. I followed the score with amazement as I heard the excellent recording by Kurt Masur with the splendid Leipzig Gewandhaus. Amazement, because, as a thoroughly trained musician, someone who is really comfortable with reading scores accurately, and hopefully insightfully, I could find nothing wrong, and yet the work was excruciating, interminable! All the competency was there; the great, light on its feet orchestration, the effortless counterpoint, the relative pithiness of individual sections, the mastery of choral writing, yet the work was almost unlistenable. Maybe it’s my fault, that I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe it’s the flat out awfulness of the text, with lines such as “Now all praise the Lord, ye who have breath…” I don’t know.
The first symphony, in c minor, written when M was 15, is a delight. It combines a sort of “sturm und drang” as practiced by Mozart in his g minor symphonies with a cheerful appropriation of Beethoven’s Fifth. No where near the quality of the quartets, this is nevertheless a very charming and listenable work.
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music
by R. Larry Todd