Archive for January, 2010

Mahler–Symphony No. 4, 2nd movement

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

A day-and-a-half of snow days this week means that I can get to this a little bit ahead of schedule.

I’ve chosen to examine Mahler’s work from a purely compositional standpoint, but for a summary of Mahler’s programmatic and spiritual understandings, I would direct the reader to this excellent note by Chicago Symphony program annotator Phillip Huscher.

The tonal center of the movement is C major, but with a contstant yearning toward D, beginning with the opening material.  The overall progression of the movement, from C minor to C major, F major, twice, then to a D major section, finally ending in C again.

Like the first movement, there is a tautness, a motivic clarity that isn’t present in Mahler’s Second or Third Symphonies to the extent it is here.   There is barely a single bar in this movement that doesn’t contain motivic material introduced in the first twenty measures of the piece.  The various motives have differing roles throughout the movement–some thematic, some transitonal.

The movement begins with a horn solo that strangely emphasizes D–re in the key of the movement, and two keys removed from the tonic pitch.  There is a great deal of Mahler’s typical ambiguity between major and minor as the motives that are more thematic in nature begin to be revealed–first in the flutes, then in the strings.  If I had to type-cast the melody here, it would be moto perpetuo, in part because of the importance of the motive composed of six sixteenth-notes and that tends to run into itself. 

This reliance on motives allows Mahler to make extensive use of melodic sequences, just as in a Bach invention.  I’ve often told my students that the key to writing tonal music is to remember that there are basically two techniques–functional phrases and the sequences that connect them.  Mahler here is reinforcing my lesson.

The scordatura violin deserves a mention.  Mahler scores for it in such a way that when it is present, it is always at the orchestrational foreground.  Lesson–if you’re going to use a strange instrument, feature it.

The opening material returns in measure 110, preceded by a sequential modulation that points to the pitch D–the secondary center of the piece.  The recapitulation is largely similar to the first 100 bars, with some textural elaboration and rescoring.  At the end of this section, the sequential passage returns, and again leads to D–but this time to a large D major section.   This section seems to substitute for the C-minor section at the beginning of the piece, leading back to C major at m. 314. 

This brief C-major section leads to a coda a measure 329, substituting for the F-major music that ended the first two large sections.  What most impresses me is that the opening material here beomes the closing material.  The horn solo from the opening bars that acted as the door into this piece is now the door out.  Appropriately for a middle movement, the ending is somewhat abrupt.

Mahler, Symphony No. 4, first movement

Monday, January 18th, 2010

After the enormity of the Third Symphony, Mahler now gives us a much more managable piece, in length and in pallette, as though after two such pieces, another of this scope were simply unnecessary, or rather, it has now become necessary to step back, to reconsider more modest means.

The Fourth has always been, in my mind, the “little one,” lacking low brass and with triple woodwinds instead of quadruple, and missing even Mahler’s trademark in orchestral writing, the section of eight horns.  “Little,” however, is not the right word.  In scope, it is no less than the pieces that precede it, and in breadth, it is still a long piece by the standards of a Brahms or a Dvorak, and uses a much larger orchestra than those composers typically demanded.

The correct word is not “little” but “taut,” at least in this first movement.  Mahler’s timbral materials are somewhat reduced, but more interesting is the fact that there is none of the sprawling motivic or harmonic architecture of the previous pieces.  All of the basic motives of the piece are introduced in the first two key areas, and this economy of means is not surprising, but I haven’t seen Mahler taking it to this degree until now.  In addition, Mahler’s formal construction is very traditional–the closest yet to a sonata-allegro form in the “textbook” sense. 

The piece begins with a very characteristic texture–flutes in fifths doubling sleigh bells, followed by oboe and clarinet figurations.  These three measures set the stage in a very specific, very unique manner.  Mahler does not continue with this music, but brings it back at key locations throughout the piece, and the open fifths become a motor rhythm that gives a propulsive aspect to the “exposition” of this movement. 

The “first theme” begins on the anacrusis to m. 4 in the violins, but most importantly, the down beat of that measure features a falling sixth.  This interval and its rising form are another crucial motive for the movment.  Measure 5 and 6 also contain material that is developed later–six-sixteenth notes leading to the down beat and a rising dotted eighth-sixteenth rhythm. 

In this sonata form, the transition from first to second key area begins in m. 18 with a modified version of the first theme.  A spinning out of the sixteenth-note motive leads to m. 38 and the entrance of the second theme, beginning with a rising sixth–a motivic relation between the two very different themes. 

Following the rising 6th are three repeated notes, which are echoed in rhythmic diminution throughout the rest of the piece (for example, in the clarinets in m. 47ff.  Following a half cadence in m. 57, oboe and bassoon present music that appears to sum up, in a way, the second theme area.  It, too, receives the same sort of developmental treatment upon its repetition in the clarinets in m. 67, this time in the mixolydian mode. 

Measures 72ff see a return of the opening material, at the same pitch level despite the key signature indicating the dominant.  The development section begins at this point, returning to a key signature of G major at m. 77 with a reappearance of the first theme.  This development section moves through G major, then A major, E-flat minor, F minor, and a return to G major.  The development ends not with a “standing on the dominant,” but abruptly, with a caesura after m. 238, followed by the recapitulation without transition.

Oddly enough, the recapitulation begins with neither the sleigh bell motive nor the first theme, but depends heavily on the material from each.  At measure 263, the second theme appears in the tonic key, in the same way we would expect.  Measure 330 is the end of the recapitulation, leading to a very typical coda section, emphasizing the subdominant to indicate “after the ending” sentiment.

Mahler–Symphony No. 3, 6th movement

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Less than a week behind schedule now–I’ve been listening and studying the score, but to decide to sit down at the computer and type a bunch of words that maybe no one will ever read takes some fortitude.  Mahler’s 4th Symphony will follow, about two weeks on each movement through January and February.  I’m starting to think about what project will follow this one at the end of the year–let me know if you have ideas.

This movement conjours lots of memories, partly because in college we (that is, my brass player friends and I) were all crazy about it.  I’m hearing it with very different ears now than I had then.  All brass players who want to be more than just brass players have to work through their “louder, higher, longer” phase, and on the other side of that, I can say that I’m not as taken with this movement as I used to be.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve since read Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, in which the book ends (spoiler alert) with the protagonist’s funeral, which service is ended with this very movement.  Is this choice on Roth’s part meant to be ironic?  Who would actually play this entire movement for a church full of mourners?  The Bernstein recording lasts nearly 40 minutes, which I think may be a little bit drawn out.  I’m curious to know what Mahler’s tempi were in this case.

I’ve decided that this piece is musically meaningful because of several features, both internally and in relation to the rest of the piece.  In the overall structure of the piece, it is as much coda as it is finale.  Mahler is continuously bringing in plagal material–the subdominants and supertonics that have always signified the end of a tonal composition.  Just as Handel’s “Hallelujah” Chorus ends its portion of Messiah, this harmonic emphasis serves to signify that this enormous composition, this epic journey, is coming to a close.  This movement, like the epilogue to an expansive novel, celebrates what has come.  Ironically enough, there is no return of earlier thematic material or even the slightest reference to the other movements.  There is only pure, beautiful, very tonal music.

The internal structure of this movement is interesting, but not particularly surprising.  It seems to be cast in  rondo form, like many of the last movements of many Austro-German symphonies from Mozart on.  The refrain consists of the chorale that thrilled my friends and me back in college–the first forty measures, complete with their own coda (the long tonic pedal beginning in m. 29).

Measure 41, with its key change, presents for the first time a kind of transitional material, or perhaps it represents the first episode.  The music settles not in the written key of F# minor but in C# minor in measure 51.  The material that follows suggests F major, allowing the minor subdominant (g minor) of the home key to make an appearance that brings back D major, in a way, at m. 92.  Even though the tonic chord fails to appear, it is clear that the music is in D major from the presence of the dominant and by the return of the sequential theme from the refrain.  The refrain itself returns in m. 108.

As is typical of rondo form, the second appearance of the refrain is shortened–a mere reminder of the dominating material of the piece.  Measure 132 is the start of the second episode–after transitional material similar to that which appeared before the first episode, and beginning with material that is similar to m. 51ff, but which is now developmental in nature.  The sequential motive from the refrain and the do-sol-le-sol motive of the transitional material provide the fodder for this developmental section, which continues until measure 214, when the chorale theme begins to reappear.  We are back in the home key, but not yet truly home. 

The fullest tutti of the movement so far is in m. 220, and revealingly is a chord of undoubtedly plagal function–a minor subdominant, which further reinforces the coda-ness of this movement. 

The final refrain begins in m. 252 with the chorale theme in the brass.  Despite appearing over a dominant pedal instead of a full harmonization, it is clear that we have arrived at the end of the piece, and the basic structure of the refrain is intact.  From this point forward, any digression from tonic must inevitably lead back. 

The coda to this entire coda movement begins in m. 300, and from here the music speaks for itself.

This is the most extensive, most complex composition I have ever attempted to pull apart like this, and I am frankly still puzzled by it.  It is in many ways almost too large to understand in its entirety–while a painting can always be viewed from afar, I find it difficult to “step back” from this piece.  In many ways, too, it is a prototype for what is to come, for after the relative respite of the Fourth these next two months, the remaining pieces only get more difficult and more expansive in their scope, and four of them lack the tool of a song text to fall back upon.  I should be in awe, and a little bit intimidated, because this is the musical equivalent of hiking the Appalachain Trail.

Mahler–Symphony No. 3, 5th movement

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

After the premiere of my Five Rhythmic Etudes for orchestra in 2007, a person whose opinion I trust came up to me and told me that the first movement was a tiny masterpiece.  I don’t know whether the rest of the world would agree, but it certainly felt good to hear it.  This movement feels much the same.  One reason I’ve chosen to study Mahler’s symphonies is because of their sprawling, rambling scope, similar to novels by Tolstoy.  This movement, though, is focused and concentrated in the manner of a tiny masterpiece.

Mahler’s text is from the venerable Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and as I mentioned in my previous post on the fourth movement, it seems to balance Nietzsche’s text.  The resources are somewhat different–children’s and women’s choruses and an orchestra without violins.  The music is wholly different in mood.  Where the fourth movement is solemn and seems to suggest a deliberate mode of expression, this fifth movement is joyful and exuberant.  The folk poetry of Wunderhorn recieves an simple, folk-like setting, as though we should know this song already.

A first for Mahler (at least in the symphonies) is the use of voices as a timbral resource rather than as pure textual exposition.  Throughout, the words “bimm, bamm,” to be performed “as the sound of a bell,” work in this fashion, but at other moments, the the voices perform similar roles, most strikingly in the highest women’s voices in mm. 96-99, where a melisma on the word “Stadt” contributes to the overall texture.

To break up the folk-like, sing-song approach to the text, Mahler frequently avoids strict hypermeter, with many three-bar phrases, and often constructing four-bar phrases in a 3+1 kind of structure (as in mm.13-16 and 96-99).  Another common hypermetrical structure here is groups of four bars plus two bars.  These asymmetries seem to break up the piece, giving it the same sophistication as other of Mahler’s movements.

Beyond the wonderful use of treble voices, the orchestration is fantastic.  The absence of violins (Brahms did this before, of course) immediately shifts the emphasis to the winds, with wonderful effects.  The bassoons and contrabassoons are featured in a way that hasn’t happened earlier in the piece, and is quite refreshing–by this time, it is necessary to exploit the orchestral palette a little bit to help maintain interest.  Measures 65-83 are an essentially instrumental treatment (the voices are treated timbrally) of the material, and work in the kind of developmental way that vocal writing doesn’t always permit.  While the shape of the movement is relatively small, the scoring isn’t.

The placement of this movement within the symphony is important.  Does the five-movement second part balance the gigantic single-movement first part?  We seem to contrast unity with variety, relatively organic form with a more sectional group of forms–a minuet, a scherzo, a recitative and a chorus, followed by the sixth movement.  Mahler’s world is fully articulated, as rich and as full as the natural world, compunded by the depth and variety of the creative world.