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Mahler, Symphony No. 7, third movement

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

The central movement of this five-movement symphony is in the keys of D major and D minor and is structured as a scherzo-trio.  The scherzo material has the feel of something of a moto perpetuo, and this is not Mahler’s first effort in this vein.  It grows from the tiny seed of a half-step (Bb-A) in the timpani and low strings, gathering momentum over the first twelve bars, with each new aspect of the texture–first the horns, then the woodwinds, then a dotted-note flute motive, and finally the arrival of a theme in m. 13–seeming to grow out of the existing material.  If the goal of this study is to unlock some of Mahler’s compositional secrets, I think I have started to find them.  Just as Mahler’s Mahler-ness–his cliches, the predictable aspects of his style–begin to pile up in my mind, I am coming to see how it is that he is able to structure large-scale pieces and more importantly, to maintain the interest of the listener over what may seem an excessive length of time. 

A summary, then, of what I’ve learned thus far:

  • introduce new material sparingly, and base new ideas on old ones.  The first 100 bars of this movement are a fantastic example of this.  The first 24 bars are based on Mahler’s elaboration of the material presented in the introductory passage.  That material is then used to preface a new theme beginning in m. 24, and accompanied by motives that have already been stated.  The suggestions of hemiola made by the opening statement–does it begin on an upbeat or a downbeat–are played out in this theme, as in m. 30ff.
  • Use harmony sparingly.  Mahler extends the horizons of his pieces by avoiding, at all costs, things that I encourage my undergraduate theory students to pursue with a vengeance, in a harmonic sense.  While my students–and admittedly, I myself–tend to write one chord per melody note (chorale style) or one chord per measure (probably an anachronistic reflection of our familiarity with 20th-century popular styles), Mahler tends to have long swathes of music that are based on the same chord.  These aren’t exactly pedal points, but Mahler is thinking in terms of a chord being a key area rather than a single harmonic event.  In some ways, the harmonic rhythm present in much of Mahler is more reminiscent of Mozart or Haydn than it is of composers closer to Mahler in time.  Even Brahms tends toward a more regular harmonic rhythm that I would consider to be a hallmark of the Romantic style.
  • Repetition is not a dirty word for Mahler, even though exact repetition is rare.  When material returns, it is almost always reorchestrated, if not completely reworked.  There is a great deal of repwithout insipidness as a result.  Repetition is welcome in this music.
  • At the same time, Mahler’s music is filled with variety of every type.  Even when he is being his most Mahleristic, there is no sense that we have heard this before.  While I have always perceived the Seventh Symphony as being third in the middle grouping of Mahler’s symphonies, a rehashing of the previous two–the bold Fifth, the cataclysmic Sixth–as I dig deeper, there is less evidence of that.

So, that said, here are some interesting spots in this movement.  I have Schenkerian training, and some might consider me a Schenkerian, but I am always open to other explanations.  However, the passage in mm. 54-62 is so striking an example of an upper neighbor being used to extend a melody that it can’t go without comment.  There is literally nowhere for the G in the violins in m. 58 to go except back to the F# from whence it came, which it does in m. 60.

The transitional section beginning in m. 108 is sublime.   Again, Mahler is being tight with his material, but we see much of the motivic material used thus far in this little passage that also brings the music to D major in m. 116.  The quasi-echo effect of this phrase is a wonderful transitional device.

As mysteriously as it appeared, the scherzo vanishes beginning around m. 155.  Triplets have been replaced by eighths, drifting away into an awkward contrabassoon solo in m. 159.  When the triplets reappear, it is in a muted allusion to the opening material beginning in the following bar.

The Trio material, beginning in m. 179, is a reworking of the woodwind theme first stated in m. 38, only now in the major mode, and in inversion.  As always, Mahler is somewhere between major and minor, and steadfastly refuses to commit to either.

Beginning in m. 210, a persistent call-and-response begins, first between solo viola and celli, then between violins and horns (m. 218ff), then bassoons and brass (m. 226ff), then between trombones and horns (m. 236ff) leading to a climactic moment in m. 243 (marked “Pesante”).  This build-up, however, has not been to some grand release of tension that we would expect of Mahler, but to a prefunctory gesture  that dissolves into a new theme (composed of old motives) in the horns and celli.  This theme, begining in m. 246, is a parody of material from the Third Symphony, as if Mahler is poking himself in the ribs.  A further question–is this self-parody, or self-plagiarism?  Unlike some composers (including me), Mahler was a tireless revisor of his own works, and the Third Symphony was foremost among these, so at any rate, it could not have been accidental.  As a composer who engages in a fair amount of quotation, both of others and myself, I always hope that the listener will catch it–surely an act of parody rather than plagiarism.

The trio ends with the indication Wieder wie am Anfang (“Always as the beginning.”)  Unlike earlier composers (even as late as Brahms and Dvorak), Mahler does not simply indicate a Da Capo and repeat the Scherzo verbatim.    After a transitional section in E-flat minor, which is the perfect setup for preparation for the Bb that begins the scherzo proper, a significantly expanded introduction ensues (m. 293ff).  This allows Mahler to incorporate material from the trio (the call-and-response motive in m. 306ff).

An orchestrational concern–if Mahler could have written a timpani solo in mm. 323ff, would he have done so?  The basses seem to be covering the unavailable timpani notes.

Measure 408 includes the first use I am aware of of the “snap” or “Bartok” pizzicato; certainly the first in Mahler, and an interesting reworking of the introductory material, now being used to introduce a coda.  Trio material appears, now fully voiced, in the form of the Third Symphony quote in m. 417, and from this point, the movement peters out as gradually as it faded in.  If the idea behind this piece is night, then this movement steals in and out in the manner of a dream.  As for myself, I am a night sleeper, and when I remember a dream, it is almost always just before waking.  Perhaps Mahler would have a more receptive audience for this Symphony in my wife, who frequently naps in the evening, only to wake for quite some time around midnight.  I barely know that night happens, but Becky lives a great deal of her life there.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 7, movement 2

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Once again, I find myself with less time than I would like to write.  Hopefully, brevity will make me make each word count.

This movement has some fascinating aspects.  I begin with Mahler’s use of texture, which is more intricate and highly developed here than in much of his previous music.  Immediately following the horn solo that opens the movement, the woodwinds begin to build a complex sonic scrim more akin to Ravel or Stravinsky than to Mahler (mm. 10-27).  While motives from the horn solo appear throughout this passage, it is really an orchestral crescendo that leads to a climax in m. 28.  In mm. 28-9, the major-minor motive from the Sixth Symphony reappears, here in the home key of C (I should note that this motive doesn’t really “belong” to the Sixth Symphony, as it appears frequently throughout Mahler’s work).

There follows a harmonized repetition of the theme introduced by the horns, with an immediate variation, beginning in m. 37.   In m. 44, there is an example of Mahler’s interesting use of color in the solo oboe and horn.  The oboe colors the repeated horn notes, lending body and renewed interest to the opening theme.

Measure 62 presents the main theme yet again–this is a highly thematic movement.  It is now coupled with a figural countermelody in the woodwinds, a running triplet idea that will reappear frequently in this movment.  In m. 69, Mahler uses a cadential pattern that is somewhat quirky.  Having arrived on a half-cadence, a subdominant chord is inserted before the return of the tonic in m. 70.  The iv chord is highlighted with a dynamic accent, and is somewhat reminiscent of Robert Schumann’s tendency to begin phrases with a subdominant harmony, as though we were joining the music already in progress.

At m. 83, the first significant change in mood appears, with a change in both tempo and key (to Ab major).  The melody here is linked to the main theme by its opening motive, a rising interval from the triad in question, beginning on the anacrusis.  An extension of this initial phrase leads to a half-cadence in m. 81.  Mahler’s frequent use of the half-cadence in this movement suggests a more open, fantasia-like conception.  This dance-like music continues until an authentic cadence in Ab minor in m. 121, followed immediately by a reprise of the opening horn solo, leading into a modulatory passage that brings back the main theme in C major in m. 141.

In m. 144ff, the horn and oboe are again paired, a favorite color choice for Mahler in this movement.  This section is very much a restatement of the first section (up to the key change to Ab).  In m. 161, the fascinating texture from the opening is revisited, culminating with the same CM-Cm chord (more lushly scored this time) in mm. 187-188.

Measure 190 marks the beginning of new material in C minor, roughly based on the inversion of the main theme.  Mahler’s color choice is again interesting–oboe and English horn each doubled by a solo cello and then, when the range becomes excessive, byh solo violas (m. 198ff).  In m. 211ff, there is an interesting diversion to the key of B minor, strikingly remote from each harmonic destination thus far, with a swing back to C major for the return of the main theme in m. 223, now stated by the full orchestra.

The A-flat major theme reappears in m. 262, now with a countermelody in the woodwinds (two flutes, two oboes and two clarinets in unison).  The amount of thematic repetition in this movement is impressive–and highly suggestive of seven-part rondo form, although Mahler chooses not to state this explicity.  This places the A-sections in C major-minor, the B-sections in A-flat major and the C-section in C-minor.

At m. 317, the typical Mahlerian approach to coda begins–the opening theme begins to unravel, with reminders of earlier textures and ideas intertwining.  By the end, all that is left is the triplet accompanimental idea, which dissolves into not the tonic pitch, but rather the dominant of hte movement, G, leaving a sense of incompleteness that the beginning of the next movement fails to resolve.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 7, movement 1

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

I’ve done the listening and score study this time around, but I simply am short on time this morning, so here are my big ideas, and I will leave the close reading for another time.

How long can one go as a composer before beginning to sound like oneself?  I find the opening of this movement to be similar in mood and material to parts of the first movement of the Fifth Symphony.  Mahler has been Mahler from the beginning, of course.  There are always Mahlerisms, and I have been seeking them out through the course of this exercise, but self-quotation is another matter entirely.  And again, this is not the outright recycling that composers have frequently used when time or energy ran short.  In some ways, this is the third symphony in a row that has begun with music that seems to resemble a funeral march.

A harmonic analysis reveals many “wrong way” progressions–I teach my theory students to favor the falling fifth, falling third and rising second root motions, but Mahler frequently moves in the opposite direction.  From a harmonic standpoint, sequential patterns are important here.  There are many instances of slow harmonic rhythm (and pedal point) punctuated by sequences that change chords twice in each bar.  The pedal point tendency is not new, but this use of sequence happens to an extent that seems relatively unique to this movement.

Mahler’s melodic material is highly cohesive–as usual, there is a great deal of motivic development.  At the same time, Mahler very rarely uses “simple” melody-with-accompaniment textures in this movement, which is something of a contrast with the Sixth Symphony.  Even in expository passages, melody is almost always combined with another melody, and in developmental sections, it is difficult to know what the main melodic idea is at some points.

Scoring is drastically different from the two previous pieces.  Mahler had been tending to a mixed scoring, with blending of instrumental colors, and, especially in the Sixth Symphony, most of the orchestra playing a good deal of the time.  Here, instruments seem more likely to play as sections without reinforcement from other sections, although there is still a good deal of flutes-doubling-violins to add penetration to their high register.  Instead of the eight horns customary to Mahler, there are only four, plus a tenorhorn in Bb (my assumption is that this is something like the British bore baritone I remember from my brass band days).  Color has become more of a concern for Mahler.  If memory serves from some undergraduate research into Mahler’s compositional practices, it was around this time that he rejected the piano reduction as a first draft, worried that it made his music too pianistic.  Instead, he began to work with a short score of four to five staves.  I have found this technique to be extremely helpful in creating band and orchestra pieces.

In some ways there is also a variation technique at work here.  Material presented as a funeral march reappears as a strange, wobbly dance, and then again as a triumphal fanfare.  Mahler never explicitly wrote a “theme and variations,” but he certainly appears capable of employing that strategy.

Onward then–I refer myself to my copy of the score.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 6, movement 4

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

I will be the first to admit that I have not done my homework to the extent I would ideally like to over the past two weeks.  Perhaps I should have allotted more time to the 822 measures of this movement, but truthfully other things have got in the way.  To allow myself an extension would simply impinge on the three remaining pieces, and since by the time I am ready to write the next blog entry, we will also be on the cusp of moving, it seems better to summarize my observations and move forward today.

With this movement, it seems very difficult to get past Mahler’s symbolism–the hammer blows, the major-minor motive and the rest.  Tony Duggan, in his excellent summary of recent recordings of this piece, deals with some of the many performance issues, such as the ordering of the movements (which differs from my edition, the Dover miniature score and from many recent recordings), and the precise number of hammer blows (Mahler’s final decision appears to have been two, while my score, a reprint of the 1906 Nachfolger edition, calls for three).  He also suggests that this piece is the most classically ordered of all of Mahler’s symphonies, and I find myself tending to agree with that statement.

In an interesting way, the two hammer blows that Mahler retained seem to delineate the exposition, development and recapitulation of a sonata-allegro form, with the third (missing) blow indicating the coda.

Mahler opens this movement with an interesting texture and harmony–a German augmented-sixth chord that resolves deceptively to the tonic in m. 9, the first appearance of the major-minor motive in this movement.  The motive is presented as it appeared in the first movement, in the brass, and accompanied by timpani and drums, but with the strings offering a countermelody that contains material of motivic importance for the rest of the movement.

In m. 16, a tuba solo introduces further new material, including an octave leap.  Throughout this symphony, the octave leap has been an important element, and part of the cohesiveness of the work as a whole is Mahler’s use of the octave (and sometimes larger intervals) to create a sense of drama and pathos.  Rodney Winther teaches that small intervals build tension, while large intervals build drama, and Mahler employs both, but the drama of this movement is the aspect that wins out, I think.

The tuba solo is accompanied by a descending chromatic bass, which is highly typical of Mahler.  In mm. 19 and 22, the clarinets and horns have an interesting effect that I typically associate more with later composers, such as Stravinsky.  The clarinets articulate the beginning of a phrase, but the horns sustain the final note, as though the echo has a different timbre than the initial attack.  In the end, it is this sort of synthesis and blending that makes for fantastic orchestral writing, and Mahler is transcending the German orchestrational style in this instance.  A comparison with the scoring techniques used by composers of a generation earlier–Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner–reveals a much more conservative approach, with much greater use of simple block and mixed scoring techniques.  Composers of the same generation and younger, however, start to show this sort of adventurous approach to orchestration–Richard Strauss and Schoenberg, for example.  Strauss would seem to be the first of these new orchestrators to achieve notoriety–before Mahler, perhaps?

I don’t often wish that I were a trumpet player, but m. 46 has an absolutely fantastic line that makes me a little bit envious.  This is followed by another typical descent to the cadence, as the music shifts to C-minor in m. 49 for a chorale setting, first in a very dark woodwind and horn timbre, then in a lighter timbre that uses the middle, relaxed registor of the horns.  Again, Mahler is being expository here, and this material reappears later in the movement in a drastically transformed body.

From this point, the tempo and scoring become faster and fuller, and by m. 114, the written tempo is Allegro energico, the tempo of the first movement.  The martial, mechanistic feel of that movement is carried forward here in a section that, if not quotation, is at least style-copy.

In m. 182, marked pesante, the low brass state a theme that begins with a decsending octave, here on A.  This theme reappears after both of the hammer blows, and as the dark coda, which would have followed the third hammer blow in Mahler’s sometime plan for this movment. 

Measure 228 sees the harmony move from D major to D minor, with both the descending octave idea and a texture that is reminiscent of the material in the first few measures of this movement.  This portion of the piece is developmental in nature, and as it builds to the first hammer blow (m. 336) the music becomes more an more rhythmically compelx, particularly around m. 290, where Mahler juxtaposes several divisions of the beat as the music leads to a cadence in G major in m. 296.

A trend that I have detected in Mahler’s work is a growing concern with counterpoint.  Almost nowhere in this movement does Mahler use a simple “melody with accompaniment” texture.  Whether imitation or inversion or augmentation, Mahler seems to have come to a more “crafty” approach to his art.  At the same time, Mahler’s counterpoint does not adhere strictly to the traditional “rules,” and dissonance is often freely introduced without preparation.   For an example of this tendency, see mm. 302ff, wherein a two-measure motive is passed around imitatively, often with strikingly dissonant results.

I find myself shorter on time than on ideas about this piece–again, I refer myself to my notes on it.  The last three canonical symphonies remain–I am undecided about the Tenth, Das Lied von der Erde or some of the other pieces I might work with.  The Seventh, Eighth and Ninth are enormous compositions with which I am somewhat less familiar with than the first six symphonies, and come December, I will have to see where my thinking about Mahler lies.  If I have learned what I need to from this master, I may move on (to what, I am not certain).

Schedule for the Seventh will be as follows:

  • July 1-12: Movement 1
  • July 13-24: Movement 2
  • July 25-August 5: Movement 3
  • August 6-17:  Movement 4
  • August 18-31:  Movement 5

Hope to have you with me!

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Mahler, Symphony No. 6, third movement

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Eric Knechtges, a colleague at Northern Kentucky University, recently sent out a survery to university composers.  One of the questions was,  “3) Any advice for potential composition students concerning the college application process, and/or constructing a portfolio?”

Here’s my answer:

In our portfolios, I like to see three compositions which demonstrate the student’s stylistic preferences, ability to pursue a project to completion, and interest in various media.  In general, it is not necessary to include a large-ensemble piece, especially if performance recordings are available of smaller-scale works.  MIDI realizations can do more harm than good.  I would rather hear or see short-to-medium length pieces that demonstrate technical mastery of compositional skills such as motivic development, phrase and phrase group organization, variation technique, harmonic and rhythmic coherence and ability to pursue an idea to its conclusion in a fully-formed piece (with beginning, middle and end).  Submitted scores should have a professional appearance, with attention to the details and standard practices of manuscript or digital score preparation–dynamics, tempi, articulation.  There should be a clear sense that I am not looking at a “first draft,” and that significant effort has been put into revision and the “polishing” phase of work.

Perhaps these are merely my personal prejudices (particularly about making a score look good), but some of these traits are evident to me in the great music of the past.  One of these, motivic development, is the main idea behind the third movement of Mahler’s Sixth, and I want to explore that today.

When I’m teaching basic composition to my students, I always stress economy of material, because emphasizing a single motive or a small group of motives throughout a piece builds unity while also providing opportunities for variety.  Unity is essential because it makes the piece sound like itself and not like a string of melodies or harmonies.  Variety, however, is very important in most styles, because very few listeners want to hear a great deal of exact repetition.

Mahler has set this movement in the key of E-flat major, a key that is somewhat removed from the symphony’s key of A minor.  On closer inspection, though, it is the relative major of the parallel minor of the relative major of the home key (a minor to C major to C minor to E-flat major), so there is a relation here, although it’s somewhat tenuous.

The music begins with a theme, stated in the violins, that introduces much of the material with which Mahler concerns himself throughout the movement.  As Russell Mikkelson frequently states, composers are like bad poker players, because they show you their cards at the beginning of each hand.  In addition to the head-motive of this theme, with its distinctive sol-mi-sol rising and falling sixth, there are motives in the second half of the first full measure (motive a, four eighth-notes, descending by third, then by seconds) and the second half of measure 3 (motive b, a written-out “turn”).  In measure 8, the oboe presents a final important motive, motive c, a figure which alternatively rises falls and rises, with sixteenth-notes on the second half of each beat to give the impression of hesitancy.

The a motive reappears in the violin melody in m. 13, first implying a IV triad, then a borrowed iv on its repetition.  Immediately thereafter, the c motive appears in the violins and woodwinds, again as part of the melody.  In m. 16, the a motive reverses its earlier trick, outlining iv and then IV (the entire passage is constructed over a tonic pedal point).   Measures 20-27 present a fascinating woodwind accompaniment texture, based on the c motive and its inversion.  The melody is assigned to the English horn, and begins in m. 22 with an inversion of the head-motive of the first theme–a falling and rising fifth instead of the sixth from before.  The key of g minor is suggested here, but it does not last, with a return to E-flat major in the next section of music, beginning in m. 28 with a horn melody that incorporates all the important motive material so far.  In m. 31, Mahler extends the dissonant Db5 in the solo horn by two beats, requiring a 2/4 bar (m. 34) to put the next cadence on the downbeat.

There follows a chromatic passage (mm. 36-41) that appears to lead toward C major, but then at the last moment returns to E-flat.  The next passage is based solely on the motives (a and c) from the first theme, with the c motive dominating the music in mm. 42-52, with a making its appearances in mm. 45-46, again highlighting an alternating major-minor chord.  While the overt major-triad-turning-minor motive that has characterized the previous movements of the symphony does not appear in this third movement, there seem to be more sublte, buried echoes of it in this particular use of the a motive, which occurs several times.

Measures 53-56 present a fascinating common-tone modulation, where the pitch G changes from mi in E-flat major to me in E minor.  First the c motive and then the a motive introduce the “second theme,” this time in the horn.  As this theme dissolves (it never really becomes a full-fledged theme, but its certainly too long to be simply a motive), Mahler begins to expand upon the a motive–first in the clarinets by inversion and rhythmic displacement, then in the bass instruments by expanding the third into a fourth, allowing two repetitions of the motive to cover an octave (in m. 65).  In mm. 68-70, a chromatic sequence that maintains the contour of the a motive is heard against the c motive (modified) in the trumpet and oboe.

In mm. 76-77, an almost Baroque-sounding descending-fifths sequence appears–extremely familiar in Common Practice styles, but realtively rare in Mahler, who simply doesn’t seem to have harmonic rhythms that move this quickly.  In the following measure (m. 78) is an early appearance (although not the first, but the first significant one) of the a motive transformed by both retrograde motion (the third at the end instead of the beginning) and the displacement of the third note up an octave, putting dramatic leaps of a seventh and a tenth into the texture.  The c and then the a motives pull the music to the next key, E major, at m. 84.

A note to my students, a spectacular example of the technique known as “horn fifths” appears in m. 85, introducing a trumpet melody that relies on the c motive.  It seems that the tendency is for the c motive to be spun out into some variation of the a motive at many points in this piece, such as in mm. 89-92.  In mm. 95-99, the c motive, and then the a motive create a monophonic modulation (based on the diminished seventh chord) to return to the main theme and the home key.

Measure 100 and the following passage suggest a recapitulation, but Mahler has other plans in mind.  The last chord in m. 114 acts as an augmented sixth chord which points to C major (an interesting use of the augmented sixth to point to a tonic function instead of the dominant, in this case to a key a minor third below the original key).  All three motives (a, b and c) appear in this C-major section, which ends in an unprepared modulation to A major  (mm. 124-145, again, down a minor third).  In this section, Mahler employs the a motive in the bass with the c motive in the horns against a violin melody that reaches higher and higher, to a C#7.  In m. 137, A major turns to A minor, without a key signature, as the oboe gives the “second theme” material. 

A slightly less abrupt key change leads to C-sharp minor in m. 146, as the full orchestra begins to enter with with climactic material based on the a motive (at first, to m. 156 or so), then on a chromatic version of the c  motive, this time in eighth notes instead of the alternating eighth-sixteenth-sixteenth-rest pattern.  By m. 160, the music has abated, leaving music in B major based on the b motive, followed by the c motive to set up an entrance of the a motive on the Neapolitan chord (C major, m. 164).  The major-minor motive is impled by the a motive in mm. 167-8, again extending the phrase by two beats, which are then rectified by the other 2/4 bar in the movement, m. 171.

The a motive takes over the texture in m. 173, as the music returns to E-flat.  Then in m. 176, the descending fifths sequence appears in a moment that is reminiscent of nearly every Hollywood love theme.  A note on the scoring here–one of the interlocking voices here is given to the 1st and 2nd violins, and the other to the violas with the oboes and clarinets, and the effect is very strong (of course, it seems to require seven woodwinds to allow the violas to balance.

The remainder of the movement is coda material, dependent mostly on the a motive and some of its modifications.  Mahler’s use of dynamics in m. 188 allows an effective color change, and there is an itneresting use of rhythmic augmentation of the a motive (with octave displacement, and modified to suggest harmonic closure) in the flute in m. 196ff.  Overall, the tautness of this piece seems to outdo everything Mahler has presented so far.  Despite the sprawling length and scoring of this symphony, the motivic clarity allows it to be highly managable in a way that hasn’t always been the case in these works.

On, then, to the highly-charged, tense finale.  I hope to be able to concentrate on aspects of compositional structure rather than any supposed autobiographical content (a study of how much of this is authentic and how much simply mythological would be very interesting; one day, I hope to tackle Henri-Louis de la Grange’s massive biography of Mahler.  Until then, my biographical understanding of these pieces comes largely from Kurt Blaukopf’s shorter work).

A final note, I’ve recently become aware of a similar project to my own, done much better, I must say, and by a composer of vastly greater experience than myself.  Anyone reading this blog should head over to YouTube to see Don Freund’s videos analyzing Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.  Great stuff!

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Mahler, Symphony No. 6, 2nd movement

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

I keep thinking of non-Mahler topics I would like to tackle here, but things have been busy.  I have some time over the next few weeks, so perhaps they will pop up, but for now, here are some observations on the Scherzo from the Sixth Symphony.

The  first time I ever heard this piece, in April 1995, as performed by the Cincinnati Symphony, I heard the Scherzo as a sort of reimagining of the first movement.  I feel less and less that this is true, but the opening bars of each bear a striking similarity with their pedal A and melodic figures that rise toward the meat of the piece–a Schenkerian inital ascent, as it were.

What is really interesting about the first section of the Scherzo is that it seems to be related to a device that Mozart and Hadyn used from time to time in their menuetto movements–the spot that later composers used for the Scherzo.  In a few of their minuets, Mozart and Hadyn employ a strict canonic construction, and if Mahler’s use of canon isn’t strict, it is at least suggested–very clearly in places like mm. 7-9, in which motives are repeated directly, and in Mahler’s use of invertible counterpoint.  It is, really, the same old trick that Zarlino teaches–using invertible counterpoint, write two sections of music at the same time.  Again, Mahler isn’t strict, but his motivic choices allow him to layer and relayer his material.

Orchestrationally, there is a great deal of sort of “standard” writing, with mixed scoring that is effective, but not particularly colorful.  Lutoslawski, with his single movement symphonic plans, criticized the Romantic composers for making two large statements in their symphonies–typically the first and last movements.  He had Brahms in mind, but surely Mahler is no less guilty, if not more so.  In the Sixth, the last movement is by far the most significant, with the first movement probably next so, if not least for beign the most memorable.  Where, then, does that leave this piece, the middle child?

In constructing a piece of this length, is it possible to fully engage the audience for the complete duration of the symphony?  It is difficult to imagine the audience not becoming slightly fidgety at some point.   In Shakespeare, there is frequently a pause in the dramatic arc at the beginning of the last act–some ceremony, or comic relief.  In the same way, Mahler has moments of intense drama that are contrasted with moments of thoughtfulness and repose–even, moments that are simply “vamp” that have us waiting patiently for a scene change or to let us relax.  Is it lazy to think of Mahler in this way?  He was a man, not a god.

This movement spends a great deal of time on the subdominant of its various keys, for example, in m. 44ff.  There is also a fair amount of sequential motion, although generally up or down by second.  This aids in getting to more remote keys, as at m. 62, which sees a modulation to C-minor.

The concept of key is beginning to feel a little stretched in some places, as in the long “D-major” section beginning in m. 273, which never arrives at a tonic chord (although, characteristically for this movement, it lands on the subdominant in m. 299).  At the same time, there are more meter changes in this movement than in any of Mahler’s work so far.  While the outer sections are somewhat canonic in structure, the frequent meter changes disrupt this by throwing a simple-meter wrench into a compound-meter machine.

The major-minor motto of this piece makes its appearance at some of the crucial formal junctures, but most importantly in the coda, beginning at m. 419.  The harmony moves down by step, with AM-am, GM-gm, FM-fm in the trumpets and flutes.  The motto returns again in A, and is repeated several times against motivic material from this movement. 

Berlioz and Tchaikovsky brought such motives into their symphonic writing; in a way, Mahler’s concept of the symphony owes a great deal to Symphonie Fantastique.  Mahler has been self-referential before, but this is the first instance of a “motto” in any of his symphonies, and so there can be little wonder about the attachment of such importance to it by musicologists.  As a composer, though, I am more interested in the musical effect–what does the listener with no knowledge of Mahler’s biography or any explicit or implicit “program” to the symphony make of this device?  It is a unifying element, certainly, but its application seems slightly ham-handed at times.  The motive itself, as I mentioned in my previous post, is clear and direct, and distinctly unconventional–a relatively rare occurence in tonal music.  Could Mahler have dealt with it in a way that is not so obvious?

Another month with this symphony, then, so another month to ponder such questions.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 6, first movement

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Part of the problem in thinking about this piece will prove to be cutting through what I think of as the “mythology–” a tragic piece responding to tragedy, with hammer blows, and fate-motives–and getting to what makes it, in the end, a magnificently effective musical statement.

The truth is that none of the extramusical meaning means a thing if the piece isn’t well-crafted and well-executed.  Fortunately for us, Mahler was not only pouring his soul into the piece, but he was using his mind as a composer at the peak of his creative powers.

I must begin with some thoughts about scoring, because this orchestra is simply enormous.  I remember being a college student and seeing the Cincinnati Symphony fill its stage to near capacity for this piece, and it seemed as though not a single musician more could have been on the platform.  One of my music history teachers, John Trout, taught that Mahler’s orchestra was of that size not for the sake of power, but to allow a greater number of combinations of instruments, and to illustrate this, he used an example from the Kindertotenlieder, the work Mahler finished just before the Sixth.  Indeed, in that vocal texture, Mahler did score delicately, but he also didn’t score for an orchestra of the size found in the Sixth.  As much as Mahler’s scoring is at times delicate, always well-conceived and above all masterful, I think, in this movement at least, it is about power.  Sixteen brass have the effect at times of a slap in the face, particularly when the trumpet in F is near the top of its range. 

Most of the mood of this first movement is simply menacing, and it is cast in one of Mahler’s strictest sonata-allegro forms, with no slow introduction as in the opening movement of the First.  To my hearing, the secondary theme begins in the pick-ups to m. 77, with the key change to F major, a closely-related key to the home key, a-minor.  The exposition is repeated, with the development section clearly beginning in m. 128.  The recapitulation begins in m. 291, with the return of the main theme in A major and the secondary theme at m. 357 in D major–keeping the same relative harmonic distance of “adding a flat” but not the same key relationship.  A coda begins at m. 379, in precisely the place that it “ought” to begin in a sonata model.

Mahler has not, up to this time, been an especially strict follower of the classical forms, and I have to wonder what caused him to begin to be so now.  In reading program notes and musicological discussions of this piece, I have never read that, in addition to hiding autobiographical information and working through his not-inconsiderable angst in this piece, Mahler also adheres as close as can be expected to a formal model that had largely passed by the wayside (although Beethoven was always close to Mahler’s mind, and to the minds of his contemporaries).  This is Mahler’s first all-instrumental four-movement symphony (the First was originally in five movements), and as arch-Romantic as its expression seems, at the same time, its conception, at least in this first movement, is as meta-Classical as Brahms or Mendelssohn.

With the formal overview covered, then, here are some spots I find to be of interest.

The main theme, beginning in m. 6 has a highly characteristic octave jump that creates from the first moments of the piece a lurching, yet strangely deliberate quality.  This octave motive, though, is only part of Mahler’s material.  In m. 8, the violins have the first appearance of a developmentally supple fragment that will appear again and again through the movement, most interestingly in inversion as the head motive of the secondary theme. 

Dotted rhythms are crucial to this piece–they are propulsive, pulling the ear constantly forward, but with each iteration giving a sense of pause before the “late” second note.  Almost every measure of the main theme includes them, with the exception of those measures in which the melody dissolves into running 16ths (as in mm. 11-12). 

In a technique again typical of the Classical sonata-allegro, the transitional material begins with a modified version of the main theme in m. 25.  This time, the octave leap is down, not up.   A sequence in m. 31 over an insistent pedal A starts to open up the harmonic realm, until the main theme returns in m. 43 over a chromatic descent from A to E, the goal of this section.

In m. 53, the running 16th notes come apart into trill gestrues in the woodwinds and low strings.  The scoring is compelling, particularly the last statement of this idea in m. 56 by the contrabassoon in its low register with the basses.  Here is a deviation from the Classical model–at this point, the secondary theme should enter in the dominant, but Mahler instead returns to the tonic to give the first appearance of a motive that he has used before, but will take on paramount importance in this symphony–the major triad changing to a minor triad on the same root.  In this first instance, mm. 59 and 60, it appears in the trumpets and oboes (note the intriguing use of dynamics here), in the home key, A.  It is followed by a transitional passage that does lead to the second theme, in the key of F, which is reached by a deceptive resolution of the dominant in m. 77.

Before continuing on, I must consider this changing chord-quality motive.  A change from a major to a minor chord is rarely part of the “textbook” tonal vocabulary.  It would tend to suggest a passing tone, often from IV to iv to I (la-le-sol is the specific voicing I have in mind).  A more likely event might be a diatonic minor triad becoming a secondary dominant chord, as, for example, i to V/IV, but this is the retrograde of what Mahler is giving us.  Does this fall under the rubric of “coloristic chord succession” from the Kotska-Payne textbook, where those authors throw up their hands, as if to say, “Sometimes composers just write what sounds good!”  The other usage of this sort of succession that comes to mind is in the Italian madrigalists, particularly Gesualdo, in which this sort of motive becomes a means for expressing a text.  As a motive, then, it has the advantage of being unfamiliar enough to the listener that it doesn’t simply blend into the texture.

The secondary theme is derived from the first theme–its head motive is a reworking of the material found in m. 8.  This motivic tautness is a characteristic that I greatly admire in all of Mahler’s music–while his work may seem sprawling, there is an underlying unity that justifies its dimensions, and Mahler truly does not overstay his welcome.  I don’t consider myself to have a great attention span, particularly for the spoken word, but, truthfully, sometimes for musical utterance as well.  Mahler holds my attention, not through variety but through unity.

I find it interesting that at the beginning of the first ending (m. 121), Mahler returns to A minor in a retrograde fashion from the way he got there–moving from F down to E, and thence to A in the bass.  This would not be a completely tonal solution but for the fact that the F is not the root of the chord here.

Again, Mahler’s development section is tightly conceived, even if it ranges widely from a harmonic standpoint.  Measure  149 sees the main theme in e minor, which moves quickly back to the home key in m. 156.  One of my favorite melodic moments in the piece happens at m. 163, when a very strident, almost Tchaikovskian melody appears in the violins and high woodwinds.  It is, of course, derived from the main theme.

Measure 180 has a typically Mahlerian descent in the bass to a new key–now D minor.  This means of modulating is typical of Mahler,  and I believe he may have borrowed it from Wagner; more research is needed on this point. 

Measure 201 begins a slow section that is a point of repose (almost relief) within this massive movement.  Although the Seventh Symphony has a more pastoral character, Mahler uses cowbells for the first time in this section, with an interesting notational solution instead of the standard roll notation that he might have borrowed from the snare drum.

With that, I must close–I’ve far exceeded the time I allotted myself this morning, and other duties beckon.  I refer myself to my notes in the score.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 5, fifth movement

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

This movement has gone, over the last weeks, from being a piece that I’ve long admired to something of an analytic enigma.  Simply put, I am at odds to determine whether this “Rondo-Finale” is best considered as a rondo, a sonata-allegro or a fugue.

First, to the title, if that can be a clue for the analyst.  Does “Rondo-Finale” suggest “rondo-as-finale” or “rondo-then-finale?”  My hearing suggests that there is indeed a rondo here, and that it is followed by a lengthy coda, so that the second possibility seems stronger.  In this case, the coda could perhaps begin in m. 581, at a key change to A-flat major, far-removed from the home key of D major.  The melodic and motivic material is related to the rondo theme (mm. 24-55), but this late harmonic move away from the home key suggests a coda.

The music up to this point is highly suggestive of rondo technique, specifically of five-part rondo with its three statements of the rondo theme with interspersed refrains.  The second refrain (beginning in m. 167, the “C” of “ABACA”) is the longest, and is heavily reliant on developmental techniques, especially exploration of remote key areas and contrapuntal recombination of motivic material.

It is, however, the first refrain (beginning at m. 56, the “B” section) that is most striking.  It suggests a four-part fugal exposition, first with a running eighth-note subject, then with various countersubjects introduced over the eighty bars of this section before the return of the rondo theme.  The second refrain can then be cast as a continuation of the fugue.  At m. 273, the original fugue subject appears in counterpoint with one of the countersubjects.  This countersubject becomes the second subject of a double fugue that dominates much of the rest of the second refrain (development).  Contrapuntal technique abounds, with the inversion of the second subject appearing in the violins at m. 457.

The final entrance of the rondo theme appears in a highly modified form at m. 497, leading not back to the beginning, then, but toward the “finale” section of the movement.

There are also intimations here of sonata-allegro, or at least something along the lines of a hybrid sonata-rondo, as found in another wonderfully contrapuntal work, the finale of Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, Op. 44.  The first rondo and first refrain would correspond to a sonata exposition, the second rondo and second refrain to the development, and the last refrain and “finale” to the recapitulation and coda.

It is a fascinating feature of this movement that it not only is a highly compelling piece of music, but that it also embodies these three formal procedures .

A final issue with this symphony is its harmonic plan.  The home keys of the five movements are, in order, C-sharp minor, A minor, D major, F major and D major.  Mahler uses this narrative tonality in other places.  If Mahler had in mind a major-key finale to a minor-key symphony, in the manner of Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, perhaps he felt that the technical challenges involved in C-sharp major might be too much for his orchestra, given the already stiff demands of the music.  At any rate, it is also simply possible that Mahler is moving away from the single-key concept of a symphony.  The five movements appear appear to be held together from a motivic standpoint, rather than from harmonic consistency, but in a traditional sense, they are no more related than a suite of pieces extracted from an opera or ballet.  It is a testament to Mahler’s compositional technique that the piece feels completely unified without sharing a common key center.

Now on to the Sixth–four large movements, so two weeks each.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 5, movement 4

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

This Adagietto captures, to my hearing, a version of Mozart’s Romanza design, appearing, for example, in that composer’s Concerto, K. 466 (D-minor).  Here is Mahler at his most reflective, most concentrated, with each note seemingly imbued with meaning.

Again, I’m somewhat confused by Mahler’s labelling of this symphony in C-sharp minor, as only the first movement is in that key.  This movement is in F major.  The Romanza plan calls for a basically ternary structure, with the outer sections being closely related to each other in the home key and a faster middle section in a contrasting key.  In this case, the sections divide at measures 39 and 72, with the middle section in G-flat major, the lowered second scale-degree.

Mahler’s melodic material in the first section is centered around two ideas, a three eighth-note anacrusis followed by a retardation.  At times, the anacrusis motive is augmented to three quarter-notes, as in the first celli in m. 10.  This second appearance of the theme leads to A minor in m. 19, which then pulls back to F major.  From here, the music builds to a climax on the dominant in m. 30.  The next few measures are “after-the-ending” music for the first section.

The middle section of this Romanza begins with the tempo indication “Fliessender,” in F major.  The introduction of E-flat starts to suggest that F is now the dominant instead of the tonic, and a deceptive resolution in m. 46 establishes the next key of G-flat major.  Where the first theme was centered on the tonic pitch, this second thematic material tends to descend from the dominant in something of an inversion of the original motive.  The register of the melody rises throughout this section, until a written key change to E major in m. 60.  This would appear to be a transposition of convenience, as it lasts only three measures before D major appears in m. 63.  D major is never fully established as the tonic, but the entire nine measures in this key are given over to a long dominant chord.  Instead of D major, the music shifts down another step to give C, the first note of the piece, and the dominant of the home key. 

In m. 72, the original music returns, giving the second “A” section of the Romanza form.  Mahler states this section in abridged form, with only one appearance of the first section theme and no modulation to A minor.  Measure 87 is roughly parallel to measure 23, but the approach to the dominant relies on V/V instead of the Neapolitan, and the climax of the movement in m. 95 employs the highest register of the violin.  I feel that the moment to which the movement has been building comes very late in the overall structure.  An obvious comparison is Samuel Barber’s Adagio (in its various incarnations), which seems to me to have a more proportional denouement.  This is not to say that Mahler’s music is ineffective in any way, but it is intriguing to see to very different approaches to much the same musical idea.

The fortissimo lasts until m. 100, whereupon a final suspension brings the music to the expected tonic chord, strangely, strangely voiced without the middle strings (although in a wondrously sonorous open voicing that would get a good mark from me on on orchestration assignment).

What then is the compositional lesson one can take from this movement?  I hope that I can learn from Mahler’s approach to tension and release, to slow unfolding, to harmonic variety within tonal coherence.

This leaves the rest of the month for the final movement.  I’ve given myself a little extra time, as my wife and I are anticipating the birth of our son–if my posts become less frequent, that may be the reason, but I’m going to try to keep to my schedule.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 5, third movement

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Here is another enormous movement–ironically, lying at the heart of this symphony, defying the traditional conception of the scherzo as a light-hearted respite.  Of course, there is nothing small, and very little that is light-hearted about Mahler’s music in general or this piece in particular.

Another puzzling aspect of this symphony is that only the first movement of this symphony conforms to the stated key of the piece–a riddle for a later post, perhaps.  The movement begins in D major with a horn call that introduces, as is Mahler’s way, some of the most important motivic material of the music that follows.  The first three measures emphasize beat two of the three-to-a-bar meter.  Clarinets and bassoons answer with continuing material that employs hemiola–a second important idea here.  At the beginning of the second phrase, in m. 16, the horn again takes the lead with a figure that emphasizes the second beat of the measure. 

The music moves to f-sharp minor in m. 40, with the first appearance of music that suggests a moto perpetuo approach.  These two ideas–the waltz-like material and the moto perpetuo alternate through the rest of the movement.  Imitation plays a role as well, with a motive introduced in the clarinets in mm. 43ff.  This imitative figure appears at times with entrances spaced by a single measure, but at other times with a displacement of two or three bars, as in m. 84, between trumpets and bassoons. 

The harmonic plan of this movement is highly complex, with key changes happening very frequently.  By measure 150, the music is in B-flat major, a highly remote key, with melodic material derived from the original motives and a more relaxed melodic idea centered around sol.  At m. 174, a direct modulation to D major is followed by a trio of trumpet, horn and trombone.  The material is the opening themes.  The moto perpetuo material returns, and leads quickly to F minor, and then to Ab major, keys as remote from D major as most composers would dare to go.

The relaxed sol-centered theme is combined with a motive derived from the opening notes in m. 252.  This leads to a fascinating moment in m. 270 in which harmonic motion pauses on D minor with an interesting orchestral effect–horns on F, entering at two beat intervals, creating timbral interest in an otherwise static moment.  This is followed by a low-voiced passage in the strings and woodwinds, interrupted by the solo horn, with the ultimate goal of D minor, which is reach in m. 308.

Slowly, the music returns to the tempo and textures of the opening, leading to the moto perpetuo material.  In m. 402, there is an intriguing ensemble of flutes, clarinets and trombone.   The full momentum of the music is reached by m. 448, with its key of G-flat major.  The formal function of this section remains developmental, and the harmonic basis shifts quickly.  Measure 486 shows the moto perpetuo material turned into thematic material that in its registral and motivic characteristics resembles the material that characterized the second movement (see second movement, mm. 9-11 in the violins, for example).  The resemblance is more in character than otherwise, but the two themes play similar roles, and are somewhat spasmodic in nature–throwing listener expectations into sharp relief against the composer’s actual choices. 

The music breaks off after this material to return again–for the third time– to the material of the opening in m. 490.  This repetition is precise, not simply implied like the earlier return. 

The moto perpetuo material brings the music now by m. 614 to a minor, in a section that had been in the more remote key of F-minor previously.  This allows the music to return to the original tonic pitch, D, by m. 763, employing the same tightly-wrought construction of the two previous movements.  A bass-drum solo begins the drive to the end of the movement, a coda of sorts, but more the final statement.  D, only just established as the tonic, becomes the third of a diminished-seventh chord that opens up the moto perpetuo, combined with rhythmic motives from the more thematic ideas of the opening of the movement.  The high point of this section is reached at m. 799, with the full orchestra presenting no fewer than five of the motivic ideas of the movement in a swirling, relentless assualt that leads to a final horn melody in m. 813, which strangely, abruptly, ends in D major, as though Mahler is in some hurry to get back to where he started.

Why the title “Scherzo” for this movement?  The translation “joke” is not altogether accurate, as there seem to be few moments of outright humor.  Perhaps a better idea would be “tall tale,” or “riddle,” both of which do a better job of describing the sprawling, playful-but-not-humourous nature of the piece.

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