the status of the subject in mahler's ninth symphony
Post on 07-Aug-2018
219 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 1/14
The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth SymphonyAuthor(s): Julian JohnsonSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 108-120Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746355
Accessed: 28/07/2010 15:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 2/14
h e
S t a t u s o f t h
u b j e c t
in
M ahler s
i n t h
ymphony
JULIANJOHNSON
A
discussion
of
Mahler's
music
in
terms of its
articulation of a musical subject risks some
obvious
dangers.
Not
least,
it
risks
sliding
into
the
very
ideology
of which it seeks to
provide
a
critique.
Even the coincidence
of
the
two words
Mahler
and
subjectivity
suggests
a clich6
of
popular
aesthetics that constitutes the antith-
esis of this
paper.
Such clich6s
have
their ori-
gins,
in
part,
in
the
programmatic panderings
of
nineteenth-century
composers
themselves.
The blame, however, lies not so much with the
composers
as with the dominant mode of re-
ception.
Put
simply,
for
an
age
in which the
uniqueness
of
the
individual
subject
is
a cen-
tral
principle
in
aesthetics
as much as
politics,
music is
necessarily
heard
as
addressed
both
to
and
from the
individual.
On this
level,
I
sug-
gest,
our
own
age
differs
little from the nine-
19th-Century
Music
XVIII/2 Fall
1994).
?
by
The
Regents
of the
University
of
California.
teenth
century.
Within such
a
context
all mu-
sic is vulnerable to a process of misappropria-
tion
as
the narrativeof a
projected
subjectivity,
and all music colludes in it
through
its un-
avoidably
subjective
elements.
With this
in
mind,
questions relating
to
the
model
of
subjectivity implied
by
Mahler's
mu-
sic need
to be
confronted
directly,
not
merely
alluded to as
a
tacitly
understood
given.
In
part,
the task is to
deconstruct
the
popular
notion that music such as this narrates the
adventures of some musical
protagonist.
While
such
a
stance is
easy
to dismiss
in
its
most
overt,
program
note
form,
the
same
assump-
tion remains
undetected,
because
undiscussed,
at the
root
of
more
scholarly
work
in
this
area.
This
article
argues,
most
fundamentally,
through
the
example
of
Mahler's
Ninth,
that
a
critical hermeneutics of music must
differenti-
ate between seeing such a musical work as a
set of narrativeadventuresthat
merely
confirm
the continued existence of
a
ready-made
sub-
108
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 3/14
JULIAN
JOHNSON
The
Subject
n
Mahler's
Ninth
ject
and an
understanding
of
music
as a site for
the
perpetual
construction and dissolution
of
the
subject.
This difference
is
precisely
that
between
ideology
and
criticism.
DUALITIES
In a
note on
Mahler's late
music,
Donald
Mitchell
singled
out
dualities, contrasts,
and
conflicts
as salient
stylistic
characteristics.'
All three
might
reasonably
be cited as
hall-
marks of the
Classical
style
in
general-cer-
tainly
of
Beethoven-but
Mahler's construc-
tion
of musical
dualities is
qualitatively
differ-
ent. With
Beethoven,
the dualities
generate
the
form.
They
are
the
starting
points
of
a discur-
sive
process
that
attempts
to work
through
the surface conflicts
to achieve
some
greater,
transcendental
unity-a
process
that,
viewed
retrospectively,
attempts
to
reveal
the
opposi-
tional elements
as different
aspects
of
a
greater
whole.
The
late works
of
Mahler
give
us some-
thing quite
different.
Here the
attempt
to
forge
a discursive
working-through
persists,
but the
dualities
tend to be
preserved
more
nakedly.
Their
opposition
articulates
a
permanent
state
of
affairs hat
has
to
be
constantly reapproached.
The
musical
process
is here
frequently
defined
by
the alternation of
oppositional
elements,
which are
presented
without
mediation or the
possibility of synthesis. This may be a binary
alternation
(as
in
the
first
and last movements
of
the Ninth
Symphony),
or
it
may
consist of
three
or more elements
(as
in
the second
and
third
movements).
This
represents
a
signifi-
cant
alteration
to
the
narrative
structure axi-
omatic to
much Classical
and Romantic
mu-
sic,
but
it occurs here
in
a musical
style appar-
ently
predicated
on that tradition.
Mahler's
con-
struction of narrativeforms hardlyneeds dem-
onstrating:
the control
of forward
motion and
of
its
disruptions
is
a hallmark of
his
style,
as
is
the debt to
Beethoven,
in
that this
patterning
of
progression
and
arrest is articulated
by
the-
matic materials whose
persistent
identities in
the
face
of
negativity
represent
the
basic
condi-
tion of the form. In other
words,
while Mahler
employs
all
the harmonic
and
thematic build-
ing
blocks
of
the
narrative
tradition,
the
result-
ant musical
forms-particularly
in
the late
works-deviate
markedly
from those of
that
tradition.
The distinction
between
Beethoven
and
Mahler is that between dialectics and dualities
(although
the latter
are
a
necessary
condition
of the
former).
The essence of
dialectic
lies in
its
ability
to transform
duality
into a
process,
one
achieved
by
seeing
the
poles
of a
duality
subsumed as
aspects
of a
larger unity.
This is
precisely
what
gives
dialectics its historical
and
cultural
potency
as
an
explanatory
narrative.
For
Kant,
this
unity
is
of
the
subjective
con-
sciousness,
which
is constructed
as
a
synthetic
center
by drawing together
within itself the
disparatepoles
of
duality
and difference.
In
this
way,
the
perception
of
the world as a
unity
is a
key
moment
in the
construction
of the
unity
of
the
subject
and of its
cognitive
faculties. For
Hegel,
this
process
is
of the whole
of
nature,
and
the
human dialectic of
working
through
difference to
higher unity
is
a
manifestation
of
this universal
process.
Mahler does not
aban-
don this deeply embedded cultural
tradition
of
dialectics,
but
he
massively emphasizes
the
un-
mediated
poles
of his musical dualities.
By
in-
tensifying
the
oppositions,
he
strains the
possi-
bility
of
finding
a discursive connection
be-
tween them-a fact first and foremost of musi-
cal
form.
In
the Ninth
Symphony,
the form of the first
and last movements
is
defined,
above
all,
by
duality. The strophicalternation of sections in
the tonic
major
and tonic minor-a
primary
duality-is
extended to
pervade
virtually every
other
parameter.
While
sonata form is
predi-
cated on
a
teleological
process,
the
dualities of
strophic
form
presume
neither a linear direc-
tion
nor the achievement of a structural
goal.
Similarly,
whereas the
sonata
process
was tra-
ditionally
the means
by
which
oppositions
are
reconciled, the dualities of Mahler's strophic
forms
produce
no such reconciliations.
The re-
sult is
initially
a
juxtaposition
of
mutually op-
'Donald
Mitchell,
program
note to Claudio Abbado's
re-
cording
of
Mahler's
Ninth
Symphony
Vienna
Philharmonic
Orchestra,
Deutsche
Gramophon
423
564-2,
1988).
Not-
withstanding
the
obvious
differences
between the model
employed
here
of a
major-minor
duality
and
the
double-
tonic
complex
model of
Christopher
Orlo
Lewis
in his
Tonal Coherence in Mahler's Ninth Symphony (Ann Ar-
bor, Mich., 1984),
both models share the
notion of
a basic
duality.
109
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 4/14
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
posed
elements.
Subsequently,
when no
pro-
cess subsumes these
juxtapositions,
the result
is structural
rupture-a
structural
mpasse
that
testifies
to
the
inability
to
join opposing ideas
within the same
syntactical process.
The ab-
sence of this
process
accounts for the unmedi-
ated extremes of the late music of
Mahler,
and
this
provides
the
starting point
for
a search
for
alternative
strategies.
This crisis of
syntax
is
essentially
a
crisis
of
narrative.
Narrative im-
bues
all
the materials of Mahler's late music
and
yet
fails to
realize a
fulfillment to the ex-
pectation it creates.
Alban
Berg's
nterpretation
of the first
move-
ment of the Ninth
(that
the
whole movement
is
based
on the
premonition
of
death )
s
appo-
site
here,
not so much for
the
extramusical
dimension of his
remark,
but because
it
points
to
a
fundamental
model of irredeemable dual-
ity: being
and
nonbeing. Bergdevelops
the
point
further
with his
remark
that
in
the most
pro-
found and anguished love of life, death an-
nounces itself with the utmost
power. 2
n
other
words,
the dualities
are
most
closely
related
where
they
are
most
boldly
in
relief,
because
one is a condition of the other.
This
(Hegelian)
relation is
made clear in
the
music. The first movement
presents
two
differ-
ent kinds of
material: he
D-major
song,
char-
acterized
by
uninflected
diatonicism,
a slow
rate of harmonic movement resultingin a gentle
sense
of
motion;
and the D-minor
material char-
acterized
by
chromaticism,
dense
contrapuntal
textures,
registral
and
timbral
expansion, rhyth-
mic
complexity,
and intense forward
drive. Yet
the
D-minor music is
based on the same mate-
rials as
the
D-major
section;
it
represents
a
negativized
version
of the
opening
section.
Thus,
the tremolo
figure
in
the violas
(mm.
5-
6) is maintained (in mm. 27-31); the violin F#-E
(mm. 6-7)
is turned
into
a
half-step
fall of
Ft-E
(horn,
m.
27,
and thereafter violin
II
and vio-
las).3Despite
its obvious
differences,
the
violin
I
theme
(mm. 29-36)
recalls
aspects
of the
song
of
mm.
7-16.
It
shares the same
preoc-
cupation
with
a
single pitch
center
(C#
n
this
case)
and
similarly
extends itself
by
the same
generating rhythm (ex. la and b). What many
commentators have seen
as the
strongest nega-
tion of the
D-major
song (trumpets,
mm.
44-
46),
what
David Holbrook
calls the hate
theme
and
Deryck
Cooke the
tragic
anfare, 4
also turns out to be a
combination of the horn-
call
rhythm (m.
4)
and a
chromaticization
of
the
falling
second of the
D-major
song
(ex. 2).
The
return to
Tempo primo
at m. 110 delib-
erately evokes the opening of the movement
and
is
thus heard as a kind
of
negativized
re-
beginning.
Whereas the
fragmentary
nature of
the real
beginning
results
in a
process
of coales-
cence,
here
the
negativized
elements
remain
separate
and
dissociated,
such as the bass
clari-
net
figure,
which
is
essentially
a
foregrounded
accompaniment
figure.
This
parody
of
the
symphony's
opening
forms the
background
for
the tonally vagrant cello line of mm. 129-36,
which leads to the
gradual process
of coales-
cence
from mm. 136 to
147,
which
eventually
restores
the
D-major song.
In
other
words,
the
D-major
song
returns
by
being
reconstituted
out of the
fragments
of its own
antinomy.
While the return of the
D-major song
is an
event
in
a linear
process
(the
point
of its
return
also feels like an
arrival,
as
in
any
Classical
recapitulation),it is also the manifestation of
an
essentially cyclical
form. Because
the
D-
major
song
is
always
followed
by
its musical
antinomy
and a
collapse
that claws its
way
back to a rearrival at the
song,
one
might
as-
sume that this
process
is
potentially
infinite.
In
Nietzschean
terms,
the
teleological
thrust of
dialectics has been
replaced by
the
principle
of
eternal
return.
The
specific
musical
logic
of
this movement, however, demands that both
formal models are
kept
in
play.
Indeed,
I
would
argue
that
this music is most
faithfully
ana-
lyzed
by approaching
t as
a
thematicization
of
apparently
contradictory processes.
2Alban
Berg:
Briefe
an seine
Frau
(Munich, 1965),
cited
from Alban
Berg:
Letters
to His
Wife, ed., trans.,
and ann.
BernardGreen
(New York,1971), p.
147.
3All measure numbers
refer
to
the Universal
Edition of
the
score
(Vienna, 1969).
4David
Holbrook,
Gustav
Mahler
and The
Courage
To Be
(London,1975),p.
126;
Deryck
Cooke,
Gustav
Mahler:
An
Introduction to His Music
(2nd
edn.
Cambridge,
1988),
p.
117.
110
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 5/14
JULIAN
JOHNSON
The
Subject
n
Mahler'sNinth
a.
7
Vn.I
b.
29
Vn.
Example
1
44
Trpt.
3
0A
4
Hn.
I
s
L
Example
2
LINEARITY
Perhaps
the most fundamental of
the
opposi-
tions
within the
Ninth
Symphony
is
the simul-
taneous
operation
of
linearity
and
nonlinearity.
On
one
level,
the
principle
of
linearity
is self-
evident
in
Mahler,
whose
pervasive
use of
coun-
terpoint and directional harmony imparts a
characteristicforward motion
to the
music.
In
this
respect,
Mahler seems
an
unproblematic
heir to the Austro-Germanic
tradition. But
once
again,
although
the
familiar
elements of this
tradition
are
very
much
present,
they
are here
deployed
within
a
structural
framework
that
vitiates
their traditional
functions.
It is one of the
most remarkable
aspects
of
the Ninth Symphony, for example, that a style
of
functional
harmony
tending
toward
strong
forward motion
is
juxtaposed
with
a kind
of
harmonic
stasis based on the
saturation
of a
diatonic field.
It is with
versions of
the latter
system
that the
symphony
both
begins
and ends.
In
the
case of the
first
movement,
the
relative
harmonic stasis
of the
(purely
diatonic)
D-ma-
jor
song
is
one
of
the
qualities
that
defines
its
opposition to the D-minor material,which uses
a chromatic
harmonic
language
to achieve
lin-
ear
movement.
Moreover,
the
D-major
sections
are characterized
harmonically
by
the
prepon-
derance of unresolved seconds
and
sixths
sounded
with
the tonic chord. The similarities
with the final
section
of Der Abschied
in
Das
Lied von der Erde are clear
enough,
but
there
are
also
important
differences
in
func-
tion.
In Das
Lied,
the
pentatonicism
of
the
final section represents a sublimation of the
preceding
material;
in the case
of
the Ninth
Symphony,
it
is
present
from
the
outset
and
from here onward functions as
a
pole
in
a con-
tinually
reestablished
duality.
In the fourth
movement,
the
predominant
style
of
the
opening
material is a
dense,
late-
Romantic
counterpoint
in which
dissonances
are resolved
in an
apparently
conventional
lin-
ear scheme, although with a markedtendency
to
avoid cadential
points.
This creates
a
strong
sense
of forward
movement,
but one
generated
within
a context of
undefined,
and thus unreal-
ized,
goals.
The
first
appearance
of
a
contrast-
ing
harmonic stasis occurs
at
m.
73
(ex. 3).
Although
this
passage
uses the
same material
as the
opening
D1
section of
the movement
(principally
contrapuntal
ines built
around the
turn figure), their vertical control leads to a
very
different harmonic
result,
one
marked
ver-
tically by
the
preponderance
of
unresolved
sec-
111
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 6/14
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
73
Wieder
ltes
Tempo
ob.
I
Cl.
in
B6
Azu
p-.-
2 L
pp
subito
P
Wiederaltes
Tempo
.__ _
hervortretend
Griffbrett.
Vn. I
pp
subito
verklingend
pp
espress.zcZ
~
~
pp
subito
dolciss.
pp
subito
espress.
Via.
PP
rpp
subito
dolciss.
Vc.r
pp
pp
sempre
PP
dolciss.
Cbsbosb
s u i t o
s u i t o
Example
3
onds,
fourths,
and sixths.
The resultant
satura-
tion
of the
diatonic
field
creates
a
relative sta-
sis
through
the
annulment
of
the tensions
em-
ployed
in
triadic
harmony-tensions
achieved
by
the
differentiation
of
degrees
of
the scale.
These
vertical
simultaneities,
however,
are
the
result
of
contrapuntal
ines
overlapping
nd elid-
ing in away that equivocatestheirnormalfunc-
tion.
This
accounts
for the
sense
of
implied
movement
in this
passage
that
survives
along-
side
its
static
qualities.
The
individual
lines
themselves
suggest
cadential
functions,
but
their
disposition
in
overlapping
patterns,
while
preserving
heir
cadential
characters,
debilitates
their
power
to
move
forward.5
Such tendencies
toward
stasis
in Mahler
are
readily
distinguishable
from
those
in, say,
Debussy:
Mahler's
moments of
stasis
are
cre-
ated
by
a deliberate
freezing
of
the
counter-
point,
an
elision
of
lines that
should
move
con-
trapuntally
in
time
against
each
other.
This
is
particularly
o
at
cadence
points
where
the
stag-
geringof resolving lines creates the impression
of
a
closing gesture,
but one
eroded
and
dis-
solved
by
a
disintegrating
process.
Example
3
shows
how
the
cadential
closure
into
m.
84
of
the
finale
(a
rare
example
in
this
movement)
is
delayed
by
the
voice
leading
of the
inner
parts-
most
obviously
in
mm.
77
and 81.
The
effect
is
the
opposite
of the
affirmative
quality
of
Clas-
SThis
freezing
of
the
moment
of
closure
caused
by
the
erosion
of
the
cadential
function
pervades
the
first
and
last
movements
of the Ninth
Symphony.
The
subject
of
closure
in Mahler's
late music
has
been
extensively
dealt
with
in Robert
G.
Hopkins,
Closure
and
Mahler's
Music:
The
Role
of
Secondary
Parameters
Philadelphia,
1990).
112
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 7/14
JULIAN
JOHNSON
The
Subject
in
Mahler's
Ninth
Fl.
Shervort
nmolto
spress.
Ob. I
p
molto
espress.
morendo
Cl.
in Bp
6--)>
morendo
orendo
Cl.
in
Bb
_
P
morendo
C1.
in B6
--n-
-
-r.
-r.
•-r-
morendo
Vn.
Solo
p
dolce
ma
espress.
pppdolciss.
-
8
--
pp- dolciss.
Vn. I
.
.I
F I Fl
dim.
ppp
Via.
morendo
PP
ppp
dolciss.
.
morendo
--
--ppp dolciss.
Cb - , -,-
Example
3
(continued)
sical
cadential
formulas.
The
close
of the finale
is another
particularly
salient
example
of
cadential
voice
leading
left
merely suspended
in
the
containment of a
saturated
vertical
com-
plex. In other words, the music here produces
static
moments
that
preserve
a
memory
and
desire for
resolution without that
resolution
ever
being given.
The end of the Ninth
thus
projects
a
vision of infinite
desire
for
resolution
without
any
resolution
actually
occurring.
The
proximity
of the
opposing
extremes of
Mahler's musical
dualities
and the lack of
any
consistent mediation between them
result
in
repeatedstructuralrupture. It is true that jux-
taposition
and the
risk of structural
rupture
are
undoubtedly
also
elements
in
Beethoven. In
that
music, however,
although
the
integration
of
opposing
elements
may
be
convoluted and
protracted,
he
dialectical
thrust of the musical
process
tends to assure an
ultimate
integration
of materials: the principles of transition and
resolution
eventually
hold
sway,
and
points
of
surface
rupture
are
usually explained
retrospec-
tively
as
tangential
connections.6
In
Mahler,
the
apparent
impossibility
of transformation
and
integration persists.
The
presentation
of a
musical
antinomy
runs
to
the
last measures of
the
symphony.
6The
games
played
in
the scherzo
of
the first
Razumovsky
Quartet,
op. 59,
no.
1,
are a
good
example.
113
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 8/14
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
The absence
of
integration
between
oppos-
ing
musical
poles
results
in
a series
of
struc-
tural
ruptures.
These
frequently
occur
in
place
of an expected cadential figure.Particularly n
the
finale,
sections are not allowed to close
in
the
expected way.
This
is not
surprising
as the
whole movement addresses the
difficulty
of
making
an
ending.
The
finale, however,
also
makes use of a
type
of
rupture
not found earlier
in
the
piece.
In
this
type,
a harmonic
progres-
sion moves toward
a
climactic resolution via
an
increasingly
dissonant set of
harmonies,
but
the resolution or climax fails to materialize.
This sense of dissonance
eroding
its forward
drive
from
within
appearsnotably
in
mm. 21-
27, 70-72,
and
especially
142-47
(ex. 4).
This
break-up
of musical
linearity
complements
the
heightened
need
for resolution created
by
dis-
sonant
counterpoint.
The
musical frustration
at
failing
to
create a
resolution
through
this
linear
process
is
invariably
followed
by
a side-
step into music that is essentially static and
unenergetic (e.g.,
in mm.
28, 73,
and
148).
In
Mahler's
Ninth
Symphony,
then,
linear-
ity
and
nonlinearity
operate
simultaneously;
their
opposition
is not resolved
through
dialec-
tical
integration.
This results
in the
principle
of
rupture displacing
that of
adequate
closure
and therefore the
possibility
of realized
goals.
In the
Ninth,
rupture
eads
either to a theoreti-
cally eternal return of the dualistic poles, as
in the first
movement,
or in some kind of side-
step,
as in the
fourth
movement
(or ndeed,
the
third,
in
which
the
anticipatory
D-major
pas-
sage
in mm.
347-521
provides
the most sus-
tained
example
in
the
whole
symphony).
Ei-
ther
way,
the
teleological
implications
of the
musical material
are
repeatedly
frustrated.The
potential
for a
synthesis
of
dualistically
op-
posed material is continually implied, but it is
presented
within
a
context
in which the
musi-
cal vehicles for
achieving
it are strained
to
the
point
of
inoperancy.
THE
SUBJECT-IN-PROCESS
What are the
consequences
of
all this for the
musical
subject?
As
suggested
earlier,
in
Beethoven's middle period, the intrinsic narra-
tive of the music is
the narrative of the
subject;
both are constituted in the same
way, by
the
integrative synthesis
of a
single
identity
from
the
musical dialectic. In
this
process,
the
sig-
nificance
and
definition of an
identity
are
heightened by the points of rearrivaland reaf-
firmation that the
episodes
of
negativity
en-
gender.
A
very
different balance is evident in
Mahler's
late
music,
one
that articulates the
desire for
synthesis
through
a dialectical
pro-
cess,
while at
the same time
eroding
the
musi-
cal vehicles for
achieving
it.
The
subjectivity
articulated
by
this music is
apparently
inca-
pable
of
reconciling
its own
antinomies
through
a linear process. Instead, it oscillates between
the
desire to
forge
a
teleology,
a
narrativemean-
ing
for
itself,
and an
essentially
static state
in
which
the whole
principle
of
closure,
on which
the
subject's
definition
depends,
is
severely
eroded.
It would be
inadequate, however, merely
to
characterize the Ninth
Symphony
in
the
well-
worn
terms
of a
fin-de-siecle crisis of the sub-
ject-a crisis coterminous with the advent of
modernism. Such
characterizations doubtless
contain their element of
truth,
but
the
nonproblematized
way
in which
they
are usu-
ally
offered
often masks the
specific
signifi-
cance of the individual
work.
The
Ninth
Sym-
phony
is not
simply
a musical articulation
of
the
negativity
of
the
subject; rather,
it
suggests
an
active
search
for
alternative models
and
ar-
ticulations, for different strategies of the
subject's
ormal
definition.
Its
dialectic
between
structure and
rupture,
between the
integration
imposed
by
order
and the
heterogeneity
that
continually
opposes
it,
is one of the most
sig-
nificant elements
of the
piece.
If,
on one
level,
the
Ninth
has
nostalgic
or
valedictory
over-
tones,
it is
because
its
articulation of
heteroge-
neity
is
given
in
such
a
way
as
to
threaten
the
status quo of an implied subject, one predi-
cated on
maintaining
a central
identity
in
the
face of
heterogeneity.
One of the
defining para-
doxes
of this
symphony
is that
while
it
is
ob-
sessed with
gestures
of
closure,
its
principal
structural
moments are most often character-
ized
by
avoidance of closure.
The
finale's
in-
tense desire to
close,
coupled
with the simulta-
neous erosion of
the musical
possibility
of clo-
sure, represents a watershed in the structure of
the
subject
as articulated in Western
music.
Thus
Mahler
problematizes
the
concept
of
114
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 9/14
JULIAN
JOHNSON
The
Subject
n
Mahler's
Ninth
142
_
mf
dm
-----------
dim
--- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
V I
I.....
I.
014
b-•_
•v-
4
L I
if
c
if6
be:
Sf
146
b ` ~ e b
A
LL
-
---pp
ohne Ausdsruck
PP
Example4
subjective
identity by
undermining
the
condi-
tions for
musical dialectics
while at the same
time
employing
their
rhetoric. The results are
not
only
audible
in the structural
stases
exam-
ined but also
in the
nature
of
the musical mate-
rial itself.
According
to Theodor
W.
Adorno,
the specific difference of Mahler'streatment of
material
may
be located in the
concept
of the
variant. Adorno
carefully distinguishes
this
from
the
variation,
which
presumes
a the-
matic
identity
as
its
central
referent,
whereas
the theme in Mahler is
present
as
an invisible
center,
delineated
by
the sum of variants.
In
this
way,
Adorno
claims,
Mahler
avoids
the
(Classical)
presentation
of a thematic
process
as the realization through time of a self-iden-
tity:
The
variants
are
the
countervailing
force
to fulfillment.
They
divest
the theme of its
identity;
the fulfillment is the
positive
mani-
festation of what
the
theme
has not
yet
be-
come. 7
From this
perspective,
we
might say
that the Ninth
presents
extreme instances
of
the
insubstantiality
of thematic
material.
The
opening
and
closing
of the
first
movement,
the
closing
of the fourth
movement,
and the
pas-
sages
that serve as retransitions
back to the D-
major song
material in the first
movement
are
formed,
on
the one
hand,
by
a
fluid
process
of
dissolution or
liquidation
and,
on
the
other,
by
its reverse-a coalescence of the resulting frag-
ments.8 The effect creates a wider
continuum
for
the
musical
subject,
one that
flows between
widely separated
poles
of
assertive
identity (e.g.,
the first-movement
passage
of mm.
92-107)
and
its
dissolution
(e.g.,
the
first-movement
pas-
sage
of mm.
254-66).
The
significance
of this
limbo
material lies in its
being
located
between
the defined
identities of the
movement's
poles
(i.e., the D-major and the D-minor passages),
and thus
constituting
an
exploration
between
those definitions of the
subject
that find some
7Theodor
W.
Adorno,
Mahler:
A
Musical
Physiognomy,
trans.
Edmund
Jephcott (Chicago, 1992), p.
88.
8Liquidation
s a
key
term in
Adorno,
Mahler
and Peter
Revers,
Gustav
Mahler:
Untersuchungen
zu den
spaten
Sinfonien
(Hamburg,
1985).
Revers draws a distinction be-
tween the
disintegration
of
existing
formal schemes and
techniques
of
composition (as
in
Adorno),
and the
gradual
elimination
of
characteristic motivic features
(as
in
Schoenberg's
definition in Fundamentals
of
Musical Com-
position,
ed. Gerald
Strang,
with
coll.
of
Leonard
Stein
[London,1980], p. 58).
115
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 10/14
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
clearly
articulated
representation.
This
repre-
sents a
significant
departure
rom
the Kantian
model of
subjectivity,
which
is defined
by
its
synthesizing
function.
The
principle
of
disso-
lution,
or
liquidation,
constitutes
a
reversal of
this
function.
It is
a
defining
characteristic of
the Ninth
Symphony
that
it
presents
both
pro-
cesses as
aspects
of
a
cyclical
destruction
and
regeneration
of
identity.
This
urge
toward the
amorphous
marks
the late works' involvement with
a new model
of the
subject.
Or
rather,
it is
the
tension be-
tween this urge and the desire to create forms
in the
face
of it that
characterizes
this music.
As Adorno
claimed,
The
originality
of Mahler's
music
takes
up
Nietzsche's
insight
that the
system
and
its
seamless
unity,
its
appearance
of
reconciliation,
is
dishonest. 9
In
this
case,
the
system
is more than
simply
the
musical
or the
philosophical system:
it is the
discursive
universe,
the
symbolic
order in which
signifi-
cance is constructed.As such, it is the system
in
which
the
subject
is constructed.
Adorno's
referenceto Nietzsche is
more
than
incidental;
it
points
to a connection that
is
far
more
profound
han
might
be
suggested
by
mere
contemporaneity.
The dualities of the Ninth
find their
corollary
in
the
dualities
central to
Nietzsche's aesthetic
theory.
His
model,
as out-
lined in
The
Birth
of Tragedy
(1872),
is well
known. Brieflysummarized,it advances a theo-
retical
opposition
between
the
individuality
or
identity
conferred
through
differentiation,
on
which
the Classical
concept
of form
depends,
and those forces
that break down the
forms,
dissolving
them
into a
single
energy
that
Nietzsche calls the
Dionysian.
This
energy
is
thus
seen as the whole
from which individu-
ated forms
are wrested and which
eventually
reclaims them. Nietzsche characterized the
world
of individuated
forms,
or
phenomena,
as
the
Apollinian.
Above
all,
the
Apollinian
is
concerned
with an
ordering
and
a
limitation of
the raw
Dionysian energies,
a
fixing
of what
is
inherently dynamic
in order
to achieve defini-
tion. In other
words,
it concerns structure.
The
significance
of this for
a
theory
of musical form
lies in
the
dynamic
relation between
the two
forces.
Like
the individuated
forms of
phenom-
ena,
the definition of musical
identities
(whether
of
theme,
key,
or
whatever)
are
wrested from a
dynamic
continuum that
may
erode and even-
tually
reclaim them.
Nietzsche insisted that
the
duality
of the
two is
a
perpetual
strife
with
only periodically
ntervening
reconciliations. 10
It is this
dynamic
model,
by
turns destructive
and
regenerative,
n
which formal identities
are
fragile, precarious,
and above all
temporary
achievements,
that binds
Nietzsche's
philo-
sophical
discourse to
Mahler's
musical one.
The connectionmay seem inadequateso long
as
one reads Nietzsche
only
in
terms of nine-
teenth-century metaphysics.
Indeed,
it
might
be read as
merely
another
example
of the
very
programmatic
work that we
rejected
earlier. Its
significance may
become
clearer,
however,
when it is
reapproached
through
another dis-
course-for
example,
that
of
the
poststructural
theory
of
Julia
Kristeva.11
Nietzsche's
discus-
sion of the Dionysian has often been consid-
ered a
precursor
of Freud's
theory
of the Un-
conscious,
and it is
essentially
here,
in a
psychoanalytical theory,
that the
points
of con-
vergence
of these different theories are most
closely
observed.
Kristeva,
following
Lacan,
takes as
central the
poststructuralist premise
that the
subject
is constructed in
language.
She
is
concerned with
considering
how
this is
achieved. LikeNietzsche's, her model is one in
which
precarious
orms are
continually
created
and
destroyed
by
the unstructured
energies
of
their raw material.
Here
that
raw material is
roughly
mappable
onto the
energies
and drives
of
the
Freudian
Unconscious,
but called
(some-
what
perversely)
in her
theory,
the
semiotic
chora.
In
distinction to
this,
what she calls
the
thetic
subject
is the
subject
that is
placed
through the operation of the Symbolic Order
9Adorno,
Mahler,
pp.
14,
64.
'0Friedrich
Nietzsche,
The Birth
of
Tragedy,
trans.
and
comm. WalterKaufmann
New
York, 1967), p.
33.
Julia
Kristeva'sdebt to the work of
Jacques
Lacan
s
well
documented.
See,
e.g.,
Madan
Sarup,Jacques
Lacan
(Lon-
don, 1992), pp.
139-44.
The terms of
her model-the
semiotic
and
the
symbolic-clearly
relate to the
Imagi-
nary
and
the
Symbolic
in
Lacanian
theory.
Most
signifi-
cant for her
theory,
it
was
Lacan who initiated
a move
away
from the
biological tendency
of Freudian
heory
and
towarda focus on the cultural determinantsof the
subject.
In a
poststructuralist
context,
language
has
of course
been
seen as the
single
most
important
of these determinants.
116
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 11/14
JULIAN
JOHNSON
The
Subject
n
Mahler'sNinth
(preeminently,
language),
a
placing
achieved
by
the
ordering
and
structuring
of the
energies
of
the
semiotic chora.12The
ordering
of
the sub-
ject
throughlanguage
however,
like Nietzsche's
model of
Apollinian
individuation,
is
always
open
to
disruption
and destruction
by
the unor-
dered
energy
that
it
attempts
to structure. This
process-in
which
language
establishes an or-
dering
grid
that
is
itself
open
to
disruption,
and
that is then
in
turn
reordered-is
seen as
per-
petual
and
ever-renewing.
Nietzsche's model is
articulated
as a
metaphysics-an
outmoded
framework
in
current
practice
but when this is
recast as a model of internal
processes,
as a
psychology
of
artistic
production,
its
relation
to Kristeva's
psychoanalytical
project
becomes
clearer. While there remain
significant
mate-
rial differences between these two
discourses,
both
produce
models of
a
subject
in
process
that
relates
directly
to the
musical
processes
at
work
in
Mahler's Ninth.
Kristeva'sconcept of the semiotic chora and
the
urge
toward the
amorphous,
noted
by
Adorno,
converge
in this
symphony.
The static
passages
of the first and last movements are
not
simply distinguished
from
the
directional
music to
which
they
are
juxtaposed; they
con-
stitute
the
musical
remains
after
each suc-
cessive
collapse,
remains
that become
a new
beginning
for the reformulation of a
contingent
identity. Such passages are thus both begin-
nings
and
endings,
and at the same time nei-
ther,
in
the sense
that the
cyclical
nature of the
movement
suggests
that
this
music must for-
ever
return
as the re-creative womb
that ab-
sorbs the death of
the musical
subject
and
pro-
duces its
rebirth.
Kristeva underlines the maternal connota-
tion of the semiotic chora
as a
key
element
in
her feminist theory; she cites the characteriza-
tion of the chora
in
Plato's
Timeus
as a
recep-
tacle, unnameable,
improbable, hybrid,
ante-
rior to
naming,
to
the
One,
to the father. Else-
where it is
variously
described
as a fullness
without
structure,
a
nonexpressive
totality
that
precedes
and
underlies
figuration
.
.
and is
analogous only
to
vocal or
kinetic
rhythm. '13
Examining
Mahler's Ninth in
these terms cor-
responds
well
with the
nature and
function
of
the first movement's
D-major
song,
which
is
also characterized
by
a
lack of
tension and an
essentially
static
repetition
rather
than linear
progression.
This element of
repetition (of
the
same
melodic
fragments
and the
same con-
stant
harmony,
register,
and
warm
orches-
tral
sonority)
is
definitive of the
D-major
mu-
sic.
Such
movement
is
a
kind
of
rhythmic
rock-
ing
achieved
through
the
repetition
of its ele-
ments. These
passages
contrast
strongly
with
the directional
force of the rest
of
the
music.
They
stand
apart
from the
process
of
musical
development
and
function
as a
state
of
being
that undermines the
dialectical
struggle,
en-
during
after it is
abandoned rather than
com-
pleted
or overcome.
In this sense, I am suggesting that the musi-
cal
configuration
functions here as a
musical
analogue
to
a
specific
cultural
concept
of
the
maternal. It
does so not
by
presenting
symbols
of
the
maternal-although
one
may
find
them
easily enough-but
in
the
very
conditions of its
language.
Thus one
may
cite
vivid
examples
of
maternal
symbolism
as
oceanic embrace
in
the finale of the Ninth and the first
movement
of the Tenth. The effect of the single, highly
intense line that
begins
the Ninth's
finale,
for
example,
is
unequivocal.
Its
opening
anacrusis
and turn
figure
are
musical
ciphers
for a
ges-
ture of
assertion,
but
in
fact
the line moves
steadily
and
inexorably
downward,
its inten-
sity
absorbed
by
a
quiet
but
all-embracing
DK-
major
chord
in
tutti
strings-a
musical ana-
logue
of the
reabsorption
of the tension of the
individualby a maternallyconnoted whole (ex.
5).
The
opening
of the Tenth
provides
a
more
extended
example
of the same
pattern.'4
What-
ever the
evocative
or
even
representational
orce
of these
passages,
it
is
primarily
at
the level
of
musical
syntax
that their
relation to the
con-
'2Kristeva's
heory
of the semiotic chora
is found in her
Desire
in
Language:
A
Semiotic
Approach
to Literature
and
Art,
ed. Leon S.
Roudiez,
trans. Thomas
Gora,
Alice
Jardine,
and Roudiez
(New
York,
1980),
and Revolution in
Poetic
Language,
trans.
Margaret
Waller,
with an intro.
Leon S. Roudiez
(New York, 1984).
'3Kristeva,
From
One
Identity
to
Another
(1975)
in De-
sire in
Language, p.
133,
and Revolution in Poetic Lan-
guage,
p.
26.
14The
pening
to the
finale
of Bruckner'sNinth
Symphony
is another obvious
example.
117
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 12/14
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
Sehr
angsam
und noch
zuriickhaltend
a
tempo
(Molto
adagio)
v
G-Saite
V
groger
on
stets
groier
Ton
Vn.
I
b.A-e
,
>> > di
m.
a
>i
lang gezogen
p
molto
espress.
Vn.I
bb
SG-Saite
dim.
f
lang gezogen
p molto
espress.
p
molto
espress.
Vc.
p
molto
espress.
p
molto
espress.
Cb.
p
molto
espress.
Example
5
cept of the maternal s sustained. Bothexamples
comprise
a
single
line whose chromatic inflec-
tions create
a
pronounced
harmonic tension in
respect
to
an
unstated
tonic;
both lines ini-
tially
rise and then
slowly
fall
to
a
conclusive
goal
that
absorbs
he individual
voice
in
a whole
characterized
by
a
global
completion-defined
here
by
the
homogeneity
and
stability
of har-
mony
and
sonority.
It is of
course
symptomatic
of the Ninth Symphonythat the stability of the
tutti section
is undermined almost immedi-
ately
with
the shock of the
chordal shift
to
WVI
on the third beat
of m. 3.
Many
readers
may recognize
that this is
not
an
altogether
unfamiliar observation.
Indeed,
in
1975
David Holbrook
argued
hat the
Ninth
Symphony
.
.
. is a massive
piece
of
regression
to the
stage
of
primary
identification
with
the
mother, and a rediscoveryof this realm of 'fe-
male element
being'.
According
to
Holbrook,
the
D-major
theme
equates
with the most
primeval
sound of
the
gently
beating
heart
and the
lullaby
of the mother
and
suggests
that
this
represents
a search for an
'at-one-ness'
we
once
knew,
at the
beginning
of our lives.
He
makes a
further connection
with the music
that ends
Der Abschied :
The essenceof the love
song
or
peace ong i.e.,
D-major
ong]
n the Ninth is its
femininity-it
be-
longs to the primaryexperienceof being in the
mother's
arms,
cradled,
ocking,
crooned o: and
t
echoes
the
rocking
peace
of Der Abschied
(which
is
also the
peace
of at-one-nesswith MotherEarth hat
Mahler
chievesunder he
contemplation
f
death).'1
I
dispute
neither the maternal
connotation
of this music nor its
relation to
Der Abschied.
More
problematic, though,
is
Holbrook's
con-
tention that the symphony as a whole is a
massive
piece
of
regression.
This
oversimpli-
fies a
piece
that
has a maternal
symbolism
as
a
central element but is
by
no
means
merely
an
articulation
of
the maternal. More
precisely,
a
specific
cultural
concept
of the maternal finds
its
analogue
in
a
particular
kind of
musical
process
within the Ninth
but,
as
we
have
seen,
the
symphony
as a
whole
is
defined
by
the
opposition of different kinds of music.
Holbrook's assertion
suggests
not
only
an
in-
fantilism
at odds with the
sophistication
of
much
of the
symphony
but also
a
singularity
of
meaning
that Mahler's deliberate
fragmenta-
tion
opposes.
In
particular,
he ambivalent
atti-
'Holbrook,
Gustav
Mahler,
p.
55.
Quite
apart
from the
fact that the rhythm of
a
heart beat is usually given
the
other
way
round
(i.e., eighth note--dotted quarter
note),
Holbrook
ignores
the
negative
functions
of
this
rhythm
(e.g.,
m.
318).
See also
p.
125.
118
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 13/14
JULIAN
JOHNSON
The
Subject
n
Mahler'sNinth
tude to
closure, continually reapproached
throughout
the entire
symphony,
suggests
a far
more
complex
model. Holbrook's
desire to
read
the
Ninth both as
a literal narrative
and, worse,
as
a
personal
narrative
belonging
specifically
to
Mahler,
leads
him
to miss
an essential
point:
the Ninth is not about the
journey
of
any spe-
cific
subject,
but
explores
the conditions of sub-
jectivity
sui
generis.
Holbrook
argues
that in
his music Mahler was
seeking
to
preserve
an
identity
against
forces
which
threatened to
dis-
rupt
it,
or annihilate
it. 16 The
implication
of
this
approach
is the
envisioning
of an assault
on some
ready-made
dentity
whose battle
and
subsequent victory
over forces
which
threaten
to
disrupt
it is
precisely
the
ideology
of much
nineteenth-century
music.
My
contention is
different:
Mahler's
Ninth
is
a
musical
articula-
tion of the
subject
in
process.
This
is
given
most
strongly
in the musical
language
itself
rather than the
narrative that is carried
by
it.
This articulation is particularlyobvious in
the two
inner
movements
of
the
symphony.
Here the
plurality
of
material resists obvious
narrative
interpretations
and forces attention
onto
the
musical
process
itself. Whereas the
outer movements
of the
Ninth articulate
an
impasse
of the Romantic
subject-the
desire
for self-articulation
juxtaposed
with the
appar-
ent
inability
to do so-the
inner movements
take a differentapproachto the same problem.
Mahler's use of
irony
is
usually
discussed
in
terms
of
its
modernist
aspect,
in
which
irony
functions
as a
mask,
or series of
masks,
for the
speaking
subject-projecting
an
implied frag-
mentation of the
speaking
voice
and thus sub-
verting
the
notion of
a unified
subject
as
au-
thor.
But
Mahler's
use
of
irony
is hard
to
equate
with the
apparent
coolness
of,
for
example,
Stravinsky's masks. It representsrather a self-
denial and self-ridicule that retains
a sense
of
nostalgic
loss for
the
inability
to
talk with a
single,
unified
voice. Thus
the
ironic
in Mahler
is
not
merely
the
grotesque
distortion of the
familiar but also an
exploitation
of the
proxim-
ity
between
expressivism
and sentimentaliza-
tion,
a
deliberate derision of the desire
for
expressivism
within a
musical
style
in
which
expressive
aims
are
central.
These two movements take as their
mate-
rial
sources two
parallel
but
contradictory
con-
cerns of the
Austro-Germanic
tradition:
the
classicalization of
the
popular
on the one
hand,
and the
pursuit
of the
intensely
abstract and
intellectual on
the
other. Thus the
second move-
ment
uses dance
material,
with all its extra-
musical associations
of
wordly enjoyment
and
all its musical
associations of classicism and
formalism.
Although
less abstract and
philo-
sophical
than the
first,
this movement is
nev-
ertheless
highly
sophisticated
in
its treatment
of
familiar
materials. As
if
to underline its
con-
trast
to the first
movement,
it
makes with it
several thematic
connections,
producing
worldly
and absurd
reworkings
of the first
movement's
high
subject
matter. In
fact,
the
juxtaposition
of these two
movements
neatly
represents a historical and cultural watershed
between a
nineteenth-century
faith in
the au-
tonomy
of
the
musical
language
and its dialec-
tical
ability
to solve a musical
antinomy
through
musical
argument,
and a
very
different
approach
that deals
negatively
and
ironically
with familiar
material.
In
this
way,
the second
movement's evoca-
tion of dance
styles parallels
the first's evoca-
tion of an idealized representationof the ma-
ternal. It
presents
the
Ldindler
as the social-
maternal-the static world of an idealized
pas-
toral. The waltz
that
interrupts
it is
more ur-
ban, modern,
and
hectic. These
differences
are
given
in
the
music,
whose
semiosis
denotes
these
things (by using specific
musical
materi-
als
as
signs
for
things
outside the
music),
but
also
iconically
in
that the musical
language
changes between simple, stable, and basically
static
patterns,
and
those that
are
less
stable,
more
dynamic,
and more
complex.
At the same
time,
all of the dance forms are social
forms,
musical
representations
of
a loss of self-iden-
tity
in
the
rhythm
of a
larger
whole
(albeit
in
the case of the waltz
in
a
deliberately
senti-
mentalized
way).
The
grim
mania of the move-
ment
results
directly
from the
inadequacy
of
these social forms as vehicles for subjective
meaning.
They
are
literally
absurd.
They
con-
tain
no framework
in
which the existential
16Ibid., .
74. The same
implication
of a
preexistent
sub-
ject
to whom these events
happen
runs
through
David B.
Greene,
Mahler,
Consciousness and
Temporality (New
York, 1984).
119
8/20/2019 The Status of the Subject in Mahler's Ninth Symphony
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-status-of-the-subject-in-mahlers-ninth-symphony 14/14
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
questions
of
the
first
movement can be ad-
equately
answered.
In
keeping
with the idea
of
an
ironic
reworking,
the second movement's
ending parallels
in
certain
importantways
the
end
of
the first-the
descent to
a
maternally
connoted
pastoral
C
major,
and a
fragmenta-
tion of the elements
of
the musical
discourse,
mirroring
with
irony
the
parallel
return
to
D
major
in
the first movement.
The third
movement contains
a
raw,
anar-
chic
energy
that is
pure
Dionysian,
but is
ex-
pressed
in the context of a
contrapuntal
tech-
nique whose traditional implication is rather
one
of
Apollinian
control. Strict
counterpoint
is a musical
symbol
of
logical
thought
and
an
intellectual
working-through-a
kind
of
philo-
sophical approach
to
music,
but here Mahler
sets
in
motion
a
movement
that breaks
open
this
process
from within:
hence the
eventual
need to
sidestep-to
look for
a
solution outside
the dialectical
process.
The
movement is char-
acterized formallyby the continual foreground-
ing
of new material:
an
incessant,
volcanic flux
of
material affected
by
a
perpetual shifting
of
background
and
foreground.
It is an extreme
example
of
Mahler's
declared
credo
that a
sym-
phony
should
include the whole
world ;
in
attempting
to do
so,
it strains the
possibility
of
coherence.
It thus mirrors
precisely
the
pro-
cess of the
semiotic chora
in
relation to
the
symbolic order. To attempt to present the
whole,
to include
all
within
language,
is
to
risk
slipping
back into
the
chora,
the
Dionysian
cauldron,
because
form,
symbolic
order,
and
meaning
are
predicated
on differentiation.
This,
in
turn,
implies
limitation
and exclusion.
The introduction
of
stylistic
quotation
in
the second
movement
and the
rapid
flux
of
material
in the third result
in a
high degree
of
formal disjunction. The intrusion of heteroge-
neous
elements
in
these
movements subverts
the
attempt
to maintain
a
unitary
voice
in the
outer
movements.
It contradicts
a basic
prin-
ciple
of Western
Classical
music: that of the
autonomy
and internal
consistency
of its mate-
rial,
predicated
on the
exclusion of the hetero-
geneous.
Such a
principle
is of coursea
primary
condition
of
the
musical
style
of an
autono-
mous,
internally consistent,
synthetic subject;
whereas the
proliferation
of
heterogeneity
is,
in
the Classical
framework,
akin to the de-
struction of the
centralizing
subject
and
a kind
of madness. In
this
very
different
way,
the
in-
ner
two
movements thus address he
same
prob-
lematic as the
outer movements.
All
four
strugglewith similar problemsof musical iden-
tity
and the
inability
to achieve narrative clo-
sure.
This is
not, however,
to
imply
a lack of
di-
rection
through
the
symphony
as a
whole;
the
attempt
in
the finale to
produce
a closure
ad-
equate
to the entire
piece
constitutes
a teleol-
ogy
of
its
own.
In
the
finale,
the tension be-
tween
the
desire for closure and the
inability
to
effect it becomes thematic. It saturatesthe final
Adagissimo.
The
piece stops
(rather
han
closes)
by
neither
achieving
cadential closure
nor
de-
nying
it,
but
by
allowing
the whole
process
to
fragment
and
dissolve without
an
unequivocal
resolution. Such
resolution,
founded
in
cadential
closure,
is definitive of tonal
music's
claim to
form. It
is
axiomatic to the self-iden-
tity
of the Classical
subject.
The
specificity
of
Mahler's Ninth lies precisely in its desire to
achieve
subjective identity through
closure
within
a musical context that renders
this
unachievable.
Its
straining
for closure
is
essen-
tially
Romantic;
its
exploration
of
alternative,
plural
strategies
is
essentially
modern.
Mahler's
Ninth is
a
symphony,
to borrow
Nietzsche's
words,
stretched
in
the contradiction
,h
etween
today
and
tomorrow. '7
'7Nietzsche,
The
Gay
Science,
trans.
and
comm.
Walter
Kaufmann
New York, 1974), p.
279.
120
top related