mahler contra wagner the philosophical legacy of romanticism in gustav mahler

Mahler Contra Wagner: The Philosophical Legacy of Romanticism in Gustav Mahler's Thirdand Fourth SymphoniesAuthor(s): Carl NiekerkSource: The German Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 2 (Spring, 2004), pp. 188-209Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Teachers ofGermanStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3252122Accessed: 28/07/2010 15:00

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CARL NIEKERK University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Mahler contra Wagner: The Philosophical Legacy of Romanticism in

Gustav Mahler's Third and Fourth Symphonies'

In recent years, scholars working in the field of German Cultural Studies have produced a substantial number of texts about Richard Wagner and the cultural-political dimensions of his work. In practice, the Cultural Studies movement reproduces thereby, in spite of its critical ambitions, hierarchies which have dominated middle-class German culture for a long time. The cultural interests of the German middle class in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century decidedly included Wagner and excluded Mah- ler. Other contemporary composers such as Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Hugo Wolf or Alexander Zemlinsky, who worked within the same literary, political and cultural tradition as did Wagner and Mahler, shared Mahler's marginality.

But why did Wagner become such a prominent figure in German culture? Several factors are at play here. His popularity can certainly be attrib- uted to his use of mythological texts with considerable canonical status in the German cultural tradition.2 Simultaneously, he published many theoretical essays on important cultural and political issues. From his earliest writ-

ings, he declared himself a political thinker and a cultural critic. His essays explicitly articulated political interests that were initially progressive, but

grew increasingly conservative and nationalistic after the failure of the revolution of 1848. Last but not least, Wagner suggested that his art possessed re-

demptive qualities, accessible only to a carefully selected elite. Wagner's aes-

thetic-political agenda is nowhere clearer than in his last work, Parsifal, the opera Nietzsche hated most (and which Mahler quotes at the end of his Third Symphony).3 More than any other work by Wagner, Parsifal contains the call for a new, purified community.

The current interest of German Cultural Studies in Wagner's music and theoretical writings shows a remarkable lack of concern with the issue of

agency behind the materials it analyzes. The relationship of Cultural Studies to Wagner is marked by a double bind. On the one hand, the dominant attitude is highly critical towards the composer and his audience at the time. On the other hand, however, Wagner remains the focus of intense

The German Quarterly 77.2 (Spring 2004) 188

NIEKERK: Mahler contra Wagner 189

scholarly interest. German Cultural Studies, in other words, seems unable to move beyond the canon of previous stages of German culture. To put it bluntly, scholars of the German cultural tradition love to hate Wagner.4 Al- though they are interested in the power dynamics underlying Wagner's work and will reconstruct that work's political agenda in detail, there is a remarkable indifference to, and perhaps even ignorance of, attempts from out- side the late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century middle-class canon to subvert the power hierarchies inherent therein.

In contrast to Wagner, Gustav Mahler has drawn little attention from German Cultural Studies to date, despite the fact that his orchestral works are nowadays at least as popular and as frequently performed as Wagner's. From the beginning, prejudices against Mahler often concerned the literary material which his compositions employ Even a contemporary critic com- plains that the texts Mahler selected were second-class literature: "Frag- wiirdige Lyrik Friedrich Rdckerts und fragwirdige Wunderhorngedichte im angeblichen Volkston."5 Some of these prejudices may still resound in contemporary scholarship, but there is more to this problem than simple bias. Unlike Wagner, Mahler did not leave any essays about the cultural, philosophical, and aesthetic ambitions informing his work, even though he spoke about these issues often to friends and colleagues. There are clear reasons for Mahler's reticence in these matters. During his lifetime, Mahler was famous as a conductor, not so much as a composer. From 1897 to 1907 he was musical director of the Wiener Hofoper, where two specific factors made his tenure controversial. First, there was the fact that he was a Jew. 1897, the year in which Mahler started his work as musical director of the Wiener Hofoper, was also the year in which Karl Lueger was elected mayor of Vienna after running on an openly anti-semitic agenda. Mahler's tenure at the Hof- oper was continually disrupted by anti-semitic incidents.6 Secondly, there was Mahler's work as a composer. Mahler was viewed by his opponents as someone who pursued his own interests as a composer at great cost to his main profession as a conductor in Vienna. Therefore, publicizing his ideas about music, literature, and culture could have created problems for him, since public pronouncements would have undoubtedly drawn attention to his ethnic background and his own musical agenda which is, as I will show, critical of Wagner's program.

The lack of an essayistic framework that explains the aesthetic and political agenda behind his works, however, should not keep us from asking which theoretical deliberations are at the roots of Mahler's own work. In the following pages, I reconstruct Mahler's position within the cultural and political debates of his time. I begin with some deliberations about the anti-semitic agenda underlying Wagner's music and Mahler's response to this agenda. My claim is that Mahler does not take issue with Wagner's anti-semitism directly, but focuses instead on the ways in which Wagner

190 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Spring 2004

instrumentalizes a one-sided view of the German cultural tradition in order to push his nationalistic and conservative politics, particularly in his later works. Particularly relevant for my approach is the Early Romantic idea of a "new mythology" which plays a prominent role not only in Wagner's theoretical writings but also in those of Nietzsche. I will show that there are good reasons to assume that Mahler's music is also a response to the idea of a "new mythology," but that his productive reception of Romanticism, under the influence of Nietzsche's criticism of Wagner, emphasizes very different aspects of Romanticism than does Wagner. Ultimately, the theory that informs Mahler's compositions functions as a critique of Wagner's political and cultural agenda.7

Wagner's operas do not directly articulate a political agenda, but rather translate political interests into the search for a "new mythology," or a new collective symbolism. I will elaborate on this early Romantic concept later; for the moment, it is sufficient to point out that for Wagner this new mythology is the vehicle for the creation of community, and, more specifically, a German national community. Whether consciously or not, Wagner reproduces a German pattern here. Facing political disappointments such as the debacle of the French Revolution, German authors and intellectuals (such as Goethe and Schiller, but also the Romantics) sought to compensate for the defeat of their political ideas by creating in art a forum that would allow them to remain active in the public domain while avoiding the pitfalls of ev-

eryday politics. Art functions as compensation for these intellectuals' lack of direct political engagement; it became an alternate route for pursuing political ends. The politicization of art and the aesthetization of politics in

Wagner's operas are closely related (Kapnick 158-60). The blurring of the borders between art and politics creates a fundamental ambiguity in the

concept of autonomy as it applies to Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk. Wagner's anti-semitic agenda and its impact on German culture have

helped define Mahler's relationship to Wagner as a composer and an essay- ist. Gender and race figure prominently not only in Wagner's theoretical

writings but also in his operas. The texts of Wagner's operas are built around

exemplary, heroic men. The plots of several of Wagner's works center on the

possession of certain phallic symbols. Der Ring des Nibelungen, for instance, is less about a ring and more about the possession of the sword "Nothung." In addition, the plot also contains a strong oedipal component. The creation of a positive masculine ideal in Wagner's work is only possible via the simulta- neous creation of what George Mosse calls an effeminate and racially degenerate "countertype" (56-76). This "countertype" has a strong anti-semitic dimension in Wagner's work, both in his theoretical writings and in his com-


positions, as has been demonstrated recently in studies by Paul Lawrence Rose (1992) and Marc Weiner (1997a).

Mahler was well aware of this anti-semitic subtext in Wagner's operas. The memoirs of his close friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner include an interesting reference to a Vienna performance of Wagner's Siegfried that Mahler con- ducted:

Im "Siegfried" Spielmann als neuer Mime. Obwohl er keineswegs unbedeutend, ja musikalisch wie darstellerisch charakteristisch und geistvoll war, so tat er leider des Guten zu viel, "wollte," wie Mahler voll Arger sagte, "witziger als witzig sein und geriet dadurch vom Charakteristischen ins Parodistische, womit er der Rolle und sich den Garaus machte-denn ich werde ihm sofort wieder ktindigen. Er ist schon zu sehr durch den Theaterschlendrian verdorben. Das Argste an ihm ist das Mauscheln. Obwohl ich tiberzeugt bin, dalt diese Gestalt die leibhaftige, von Wagner gewollte Persiflage eines Juden ist (in allen Zilgen, mit denen er sie ausstattete: der kleinlichen Gescheitheit, Habsucht und dem ganzen musikalisch wie textlich vortrefflichen Jargon), so darf das hier um Gottes willen nicht Obertrieben und so dick aufgetragen werden, wie Spielmann es tat-noch dazu in Wien, an der 'k.k. Hofoper', ist es ja die helle Licherlichkeit und den Wienern ein willkommener Skandal!

Ich weif~ nur einen Mime (wir sahen gespannt auf ihn): und der bin ich! Da solltet ihr staunen, was alles in der Rolle liegt und wie ich es zutage fbrdern wollte!" (Bauer-Lechner 122)

Bauer-Lechner's memoirs show that Mahler had no illusions about the anti- semitic stereotypes personified by Mime in Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen; in fact, he had no problem admitting that Mime could represent him. But the ease with which Mahler, armed with that knowledge, turns Wagner's anti-semitism against the singer Spielmann is astonishing. It is Mahler who chides Spielmann for his "Mauscheln," thereby using one of the dominant stereotypes about Jews.8 Also surprising is the way in which Mahler turns the insight that he himself is a target of Wagner's anti-semitism into something he seems to perceive as an opportunity-namely that he, Gustav Mahler, would be the ideal performer in the role of Mime. The quotation from Bauer- Lechner's memoirs makes clear in which way Mahler did not wish to deal with the anti-semitic agenda underlying Wagner's art. Exposing this agenda in all its details would be counterproductive, and when Spielmann attempts to do just this, it means professional suicide. Nevertheless, it would be incor- rect to say that Mahler represses this aspect of the cultural environment in which he works. This raises the question, though, of how Mahler as a composer addresses the rampant anti-semitism of his time in the music he creates, albeit in a subtle and differentiated manner.

German Romanticism is one of the areas in which Mahler distinguishes himself from Wagner. For both Wagner and Mahler, German literary and philosophical Romanticism seems to have functioned as a catalyst, particularly the Romantic notion of a "new mythology" as a form of art that not


only has its origins among the (German) people (Frank 1982, 218), but that is also written and composed for the (German) people. The "new mythology" of the Romantics was supposed to provide a new collective symbolism and in turn a new sense of community with nature as its foundation.9 For them, this "new mythology" had a normative function, legitimizing certain ways of living and the concomitant social institutions.10 For a late Romantic like Richard Wagner, the "new mythology" was closely tied to the idea of a national community. Secondary literature on Wagner's theoretical writings has shown that the idea of a "new mythology" plays an important role in his thinking.11

Wagner's theoretical oeuvre is, however, but one of the sources where Mahler may have encountered traces of a Romantic search for a "new mythology." Another source is the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, which also makes frequent reference to the concept and relates it to Wagner. In his first lengthy and uncritical text about Wagner - the essay "Richard Wagner in

Bayreuth," in section four of the Unzeitgemaf-e Betrachtungen (1874) - Nie- tzsche touches upon a number of themes central to the Romantic philosophy of a "new mythology." Like the Romantics, Nietzsche bases his philosophy of art on a fundamental paradox. Wagner's work represents for Nie- tzsche a new form of art that is simultaneously a return to an older form, or to an older and more original way of creating art.12 It is significant that nature plays a central role in the creation of this higher form of art. Wagner's music articulates for Nietzsche a return to nature that breaks down all artificial alienation and lack of understanding among humans (cf. Nietzsche 1: 456). He sees Wagner's art as intended for the general population rather than for intellectuals (ibid. 485). Finally, Nietzsche emphasizes the post-metaphysical aspect of Wagner's art, whereby myth is not the product or articulation of one specific idea; rather, myth is a form of thinking in itself (ibid.). According to Nietzsche, Wagner does not believe in an eternal, ideal order of

things; consequently, he offers no utopia (ibid. 506). Such skepticism is also a feature of the Romantic program. It is not only an expression of the Ro- mantics' doubts regarding Enlightenment ideals, but also a direct conse-

quence of their radical philosophical insight into the subjective nature of all knowledge.

Without exaggeration, Nietzsche could be called a key figure in Gustav Mahler's intellectual development.'3 As a student, Mahler was a member of what was informally known as the "Nietzsche Society" of Vienna. This same group supplied Mahler (who in his student days was not exactly well off) with a piano that enabled him to work on his compositions. At the same time, though, Mahler was obliged to accompany the society's frequent per- formances of nationalistic songs (McGrath 1997, 226). While this gift was clearly a mixed blessing, one should not dismiss Mahler's participation in this very nationalistic student group as a purely opportunistic move. He


very well may have been attracted to the society's Nietzschean cultural criticism (cf. McGrath 1974, 55), which at times may have superseded its nationalistic tendencies.

It is tempting to see a connection between Mahler's interest in the Romantic songs collected under the title Des Knaben Wunderhorn and some of the statements Nietzsche made about them. In Die Geburt der Tragddie (1872), Nietzsche reflects upon folk songs and explicitly mentions the col- lection Des Knaben Wunderhorn as a prototype and modern example of the Dionysian art that he considers far superior to the Apollonian epic forms of literature. One way of differentiating Apollonian from Dionysian art concerns their relation to nature. Apollonian art, according to Nietzsche, has lost its bond to nature and has become subjugated to random, man-made and therefore artificial rules. Dionysian art, however, has not lost its ties with nature. It is unmediated expression of both nature and a mirror of human nature. Folk songs exemplify this model because they privilege melody over text which in turn generates strong and rich images.14 In folk songs, according to Nietzsche, language seeks to mimic music rather than the world. Accordingly, language in folk songs is a direct and unmediated expression of nature itself, and not the product of the subject's attempt to recapture a lost experience in words. Nietzsche calls this the only possible relation between poetry and music (Nietzsche 1: 49).

From Mahler's comments to friends which document the origins of his Third Symphony, it is clear that he follows the aesthetic program outlined by Nietzsche in Die Geburt der Tragddie. Mahler originally intended to use natural imagery in the titles of the individual movements of the Third Sym- phony just as he had done previously in the First, pursuing the generative principle to which Nietzsche alludes. On a separate sheet together with a letter to Friedrich L*hr on August 29, 1895, Mahler outlines the following structure for the Third Symphony:

Symphonie Nro. III. >DIE FROHLICHE WISSENSCHAFT<

EIN SOMMERMORGENTRAUM

I. Der Sommer marschiert ein. II. Was mir die Blumen auf der Wiese erzdhlen.

III. Was mir die Tiere im Walde erzdhlen. IV Was mir die Nacht erzdhlt. (Altsolo). V Was mir die Morgenglocken erzahlen.

(Frauenchor mit Altsolo). VI. Was mir die Liebe erzthlt.

Motto: >Vater sieh an die Wunden mein! Kein Wesen lafi verloren sein<!


(Aus des Knaben Wunderhorn) VII. Das himmlische Leben.

(Sopransolo, humoristisch)15

Mahler's Third was clearly conceived to be an immediate expression of the sounds of nature itself. Elsewhere, Mahler refers to the Third as "immer und tiberall Naturlaut" (Mahler 203; see also Eggebrecht 127ff.). The first five movements of Mahler's sketch in particular look like a straightforward real- ization of Nietzsche's program.

A number of other factors support the claim that Mahler was heavily influenced by Nietzsche while composing his Third Symphony. Mahler is said to have read Nietzsche particularly intensively during the composition pe- riod for the Third (McGrath 1974, 121). The clearest indication of that is the choice of title, namely Die fr'hliche Wissenschaft. Clearly, Mahler saw his symphony - at least at some point in its development - as a fulfillment of the programmatic statements in Nietzsche's eponymous text. Mahler's student membership in a society of Nietzsche enthusiasts finds its reflection in the Third Symphony. A last-minute insertion into the symphony's first movement shows strong similarities to a student song protesting the Aus- trian government's decision to dissolve the very same "Nietzsche Society."16 Additionally, Mahler is known to have visited Siegfried Lipiner, his old ac- quaintance from student days and one of the leading figures in Vienna's Nietzsche Society immediately after finishing the Third.

Mahler was doubtlessly interested in Nietzsche's philosophy per se, but he must have been intrigued specifically by Nietzsche's view of Wagner. Wagner was, of course, a catalyst for Nietzsche's thinking. Particularly in his later writings, Wagner represented for Nietzsche that which was wrong with German culture. After Nietzsche had proclaimed the death of God, it is Wagner who claims that God still exists. In other words, Wagner does not dare to draw the ultimate consequences of living in a post-metaphysical world. Nietzsche also fiercely criticizes the German nationalistic agenda that informs Wagner's later musical works and essays. This is especially clear in Nietzsche's summary of "Der Fall Wagner" in Ecce Homo (Nietzsche 6: 357-64). Additionally, Nietzsche takes issue with Wagner's anti-semitic agenda. Interestingly, recent Nietzsche scholarship has distanced itself sharply from the anti-semitic image of Nietzsche that dominated the reception of his work during the Third Reich. Some scholars argue that Nie- tzsche's attitude toward Jews is in essence a positive one.07 Others, like Sander Gilman, point out that Nietzsche's thinking uses racial categories, but that Nietzsche himself takes the position of an anti-anti-semite - that is, of someone who opposes anti-semitism because of the political use certain nationalist groups make of it for their own benefit.'8

Other passages in Nietzsche's work indicate that he views Wagner's


problematic side as an outgrowth of the ambiguities that mark German Ro- manticism itself.

-Was Goethe Uber Wagner gedacht haben wirde? - Goethe hat sich einmal die Frage vorgelegt, was die Gefahr sei, die Uber allen Romantikern schwebe: das Ro- mantiker-Verhdngnis. Seine Antwort ist: "am Wiederkduen sittlicher und religi6- ser Absurditdten zu ersticken." Kirzer: Parsifal - (Nietzsche 6: 19)

This statement confirms Ernst Behler's observation that Nietzsche tends to identify Romanticism with its later proponents, for whom he has little sym- pathy, even though he recognizes the similarities between his own thinking and the writings of the Early Romantics, with whose agenda he could identify.19 One could read the above quotation as Nietzsche's commentary on the changes which the critical agenda of the Early Romantics underwent. The Ro- mantics' idea behind a "new mythology" was most certainly not, or at least not initially, "die Wiedereinf-ihrung des Aberglaubens" (Frank 1982, 189). The turn to more dogmatic forms of religion is a relatively late phenomenon in the development of German Romanticism. While Early Romanticism also in- cludes a religious dimension, it is far less dogmatic. Mahler's reception of Nietzsche in the context of the Third and Fourth Symphonies constitutes an attempt, as I will show, to integrate Nietzsche's critique of Wagner's turn to religion into his own art.

The first major difference between Mahler's and Wagner's interpretation of the legacy of German Romanticism concerns the concept of community. One of the few attempts to give a cultural-historical reading of Mahler's Third Symphony rather than a purely musicological one emphasizes that Mahler created "a Nietzschean framework to convey an idea of community that is expanded to embrace not only all of humanity but all lev- els of being in the world of nature" (McGrath 1997, 218). This is in itself al- ready a critique of Wagner's ultra-nationalistic interpretation of the idea of a "new mythology." Friedrich Schlegel's notion of community, as formulated in his Rede liber die Mythologie (1800), transcended such a narrow and nationalistic vision. Instead, similar to Lessing, Schlegel, or Marx, he evokes the image of a mythology beyond the national, one which is truly universal (cf. Frank 1988, 209). Mahler is significantly closer to Schlegel's notion of community than to Wagner's.

My own ideas about Mahler's vision of a new mythology tend, however, in a somewhat different direction. In my view, Mahler intends to offer a vision of community while simultaneously questioning that very same notion. It is, for instance, significant that Mahler took the text for the fourth movement of his Third Symphony from the final section of the last part of Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra (cf. Nietzsche 4: 404). Manfred Frank has pointed out that Nietzsche's text has been understood (by Heidegger, among others) as an exemplary text for a "new mythology" (Frank 1988, 22). Indeed, Zarathustra presents a complex and highly symbolic language whose


purpose is to create a new type of community. Appropriately, much of Zara- thustra has the form of a sermon. Zarathustra speaks to his fellow citizens in order to enlighten them about his post-metaphysical agenda, and to unify them in the name of his philosophy of life. But Also sprach Zarathustra contains a darker side, too. It is, in a sense, a document of desperation, a text in which Zarathustra/Nietzsche acknowledges his feelings of isolation and loneliness. As such, it increasingly turns into a conversation of Zarathustra with himself, rather than a sermon.

A primary example of this darker side of Also sprach Zarathustra is "Zara- thustras Mitternachtslied" ["Zarathustra's Midnight Song"], which Mahler chooses for the fourth movement of his Third Symphony (cf. Nietzsche 4: 404).

Oh Mensch! Gib Acht! Zarathustras Mitternachtslied

ALT Oh Mensch! Gib Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? Ich schlief! Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht! Die Welt ist tief! Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht! Tief ist ihr Weh! Lust tiefer noch als Herzeleid! Weh spricht: Vergeh! Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit, Will tiefe tiefe Ewigkeit.

As elsewhere in the Third and Fourth Symphonies, Mahler's use of text is consciously discontinuous and fragmentary. The "Mitternachtslied" set to music illustrates a somber frame of mind. In contrast, the fifth movement of the same symphony, with text excerpted from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is lighthearted. This juxtaposition of musical moods was a subject of controversy among Mahler's contemporaries. Alphons Diepenbrock, a Dutch composer and conductor who in later years was Mahler's friend, initially responded quite critically to the idea of pairing a text by Nietzsche with lyrics from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (cf. de la Grange 1995, 642; Franklin 28). In Schiller's ter-

minology, Nietzsche's text is clearly "sentimental" and points to the problematic nature of all sentimental poetry. The narrator has just woken up, and he desires to return to his previous state of sleep and dream. The Wunderhorn-text of the fifth movement, on the other hand, would be classified by Schiller's meta-poetics as "naive," as an unbroken and unmediated expression of the subject's desire. Musicologist Peter Franklin summarizes the differences between the fourth and the fifth movements of the Third Symphony as follows:


"The elaborate artifice of the previous [i.e., fourth] movement's song of indi- viduated inwardness is now replaced by a public celebration-a musical party to which everyone has been invited, from the local church choir to the village band." (70) Thus, Mahler's combination of lyrics and music produces a diverse, discontinuous, and fragmentary work. For the Romantics, the fragment was not merely an important literary form, but the key element of their worldview. For Early Romantics like Schlegel and Novalis, a fragmentary way of thinking and writing was the only appropriate response to the metaphysical and political crises of their time, crises that materialized in the philosophical Idealism of Kant and Fichte and the French Revolution. Consequently, the fragment becomes the embodiment of modernity (cf. Lacoue-Labarthe/ Nancy 40).

Wagner not only suppresses this critical aspect of early Romanticism in favor of the later Romantics' turn toward nationalism and religion in a dogmatic sense (the Early Romantics' religious experience was highly undog- matic, and quite close to the Enlightenment's religious relativism). For Wagner, the fragmentary takes on a rather different interpretation. He views it as a Jewish trait in the music of his time. In "Das Judentum in der Musik," Wagner characterizes Mendelssohn as the prototype of the assimilated Jew cut off from his native culture. Paul Lawrence Rose summarizes Wagner's argument as follows:

In his new environment, the Jew can only mimic; but unfortunately for him the degeneration of German art into mere technique has made it easy for the mim- icking, formalistic Jewish artist to succeed. Thus Judaized, German art has been severed from its cultural roots and become "entirely loveless," a perfect reflection of Jewishness itself. Worse, even the 'cultivated' or converted Jew who has aban- doned Judaism is still, faute de mieux, forced back, for inspiration, on to this horri- ble tradition of synagogue music. The result is that his music has emerged as a confusion of styles, as chaotic formalism - cold indifferent and sterile - without genuine feeling or passion.20

"Chaotic formalism" and "confusion of styles" have indeed long been stereotypes used to dismiss Mahler's work.21 But the fragmentary and diverse char- acter of his texts and music is intentional, neither a sign of musical inferiority nor of an inability to compose a stylistically unified piece of music. Mahler intentionally foregrounds those characteristics in his music which Wagner deems Jewish.

The same phenomenon can be observed in Mahler's use of the female voice. As Marc Weiner has discussed extensively, Wagner deploys voice as an "acoustical icon of race and nation" (Weiner 1997a, 105). In Wagner's musical works, men who sound or sing like women - such as Mime in Der Ring des Nibelungen - represent the degenerate opposites of the Germanic heroes. To secure his heroes' masculinity relative to the higher pitched, "degenerate" voices, Wagner even created "a new kind of singer, never before


heard on the operatic stage, the Heldentenor" (ibid. 164), who sings lower than a regular tenor. In contrast, the part of Zarathustra in the fourth movement and the part of Saint Peter in the fifth movement of Mahler's Third

Symphony are to be performed by a low female voice; they are written for contralto (Alt) rather than for a man's voice.22 Mahler himself was at least to some extent aware of a gendered agenda underlying this symphony. In a letter to Arnold Berliner written while composing the Third, Mahler poses a question doubtlessly intended in jest: whether Berliner still suffers from mi- sogyny, or whether Mahler's "Frbhliche Wissenschaft" - which was at that time the working title of the Third - has had its effect on him.23

The issue of voice is, however, more complex in Mahler's composition, as the "Armer Kinder Bettler-Lied" ["Poor Children's Begging-Song"] demon- strates. Mahler took the text for this song from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.24 It appears in the fifth movement of the Third Symphony:

"Armer Kinder Bettler-Lied"

KNABENCHOR Bimm bamm, bimm bamm ...

FRAUENCHOR Es sungen drei Engel einen sil fen Gesang, Mit Freuden es selig in den Himmel klang. Sie jauchzten frbhlich dabei, DaS Petrus sei von SUnden frei.

Und als der Herr Jesus zu Tische salf, Mit seinen zw6lf Ji~ngern das Abendmahl aOf, Da sprach der Herr Jesus: Was stehst du denn hier? Wenn ich dich anseh', so weinest du mir.

ALT Und sollt' ich nicht weinen, du gitiger Gott ...

FRAUENCHOR Du solist ja nicht weinen!

ALT Ich habe Obertreten die zehn Gebot; Ich gehe und weine ja bitterlich, Ach komm und erbarme dich Ober mich.

FRAUENCHOR Hast du denn Ubertreten die zehen Gebot, So fall auf die Knie und bete zu Gott! Liebe nur Gott in alle Zeit,


So wirst du erlangen die himmlische Freud!

Die himmlische Freud, die selige Stadt; Die himmlische Freud, die kein Ende mehr hat. Die himmlische Freude war Petro bereit' Durch Jesum und allen zur Seligkeit.

In spite of the differences between this movement with text from Des Kna- ben Wunderhorn and the previous one with text from Also sprach Zarathustra, there are also formal and thematic continuities established by the use of voice in both. For instance, the contralto from the fourth movement sings the part of Saint Peter in the fifth, and while the fourth movement thematizes Zarathustra's existential loneliness, the fifth movement offers him a sense of belonging. At first sight, the text of the fifth movement seems to articulate a straightforward religious message. He who has strayed from God, he who has sinned against the Ten Commandments, will always be welcomed back into the collective (represented by the women's choir), if he so desires. The text thus articulates a desire for a new community similar to the desire underlying the Romantic idea of a "new mythology." But why is the song entitled "Armer Kinder Bettler-Lied"? The text is also not just a dialogue between the contralto (Saint Peter) and the women's choir, but is accompanied by the "bimm bamm" sounds of a boys' choir. Is the text meant to be a dialogue between three part- ners? Or does the third party as represented by the boys' choir somehow supersede the other two- -do the other two parts act as figures in the imagination of the third?

These questions about the fifth movement of the Third Symphony may be answered more fully by first examining lyrics in the fourth movement of the Fourth Symphony. Mahler originally intended this movement to be the seventh and final part of the Third Symphony (as is clear from the initial sketch for the Third that accompanies his letter to Friedrich L6hr). Here, Mahler again borrows a text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and entitles it "Das himmlische Leben" ["The Heavenly Life"]25:

"Das himmlische Leben"

Wir geniefen die himmlischen Freuden, Drum tun wir das Irdische meiden, Kein weltlich Gettmmel H6rt man nicht im Himmel, Lebt alles in sanftester Ruh; Wir ft~hren ein englisches Leben, Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben, Wir tanzen und springen, Wir hopfen und singen,


Sankt Peter im Himmel sieht zu.

Johannes das iAmmlein auslasset, Der Metzger Herodes drauf passet, Wir fohren ein geduldigs, Unschuldigs, geduldigs, Ein liebliches Lammlein zum Tod. Sankt Lukas den Ochsen tut schlachten Ohn einigs Bedenken und Achten, Der Wein kost kein Heller Im himmlischen Keller, Die Engel, die backen das Brot.

Gut Krauter von allerhand Arten, Die wachsen im himmlischen Garten, Gut Spargel, Fisolen, Und was wir nur wollen, Ganze Schissel voll sind uns bereit. Gut Apfel, gut Birn und gut Trauben, Die Gartner, die alles erlauben. Willst Rehbock, willst Hasen? Auf offner Straflen Zur Ktiche sie laufen herbei.

Sollt etwa ein Fasttag ankommen, Die Fische mit Freuden anschwommen, Da laufet Sankt Peter Mit Netz und mit Kbder Zum himmlischen Weiher hinein; Willst Karpfen, willst Hecht, willst Forellen, Gut Stockfisch und frische Sardellen? [Sankt Lorenz hat missen Sein Leben einbiiben,] Sankt Martha die K6chin mub sein.

Kein Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden, Die unsrer verglichen kann werden, Eilftausend Jungfrauen Zu tanzen sich trauen, Sankt Ursula selbst dazu lacht, Cicilia mit ihren Verwandten Sind treffliche Hofmusikanten, Die englischen Stimmen Ermuntern die Sinnen, DafB alles for Freuden erwacht!

In a bold move in his last recording of the Fourth, Leonard Bernstein replaced


the woman's voice for which the part was originally written with that of a child. One could argue that the text calls for this, as the narrative perspective in the song is clearly that of a child and the content a child's fantasy; Mahler himself apparently recommended that the soprano soloist sing the part as if it were performed by a child (cf. de la Grange 1995, 771). To emphasize this child-like perspective, Mahler even considered the title "Was mir das Kind er- ziahlt" (Mahler 150) for this movement.

Mahler scholars have proposed the term "irony" to describe the attitude behind the last movement of the Fourth Symphony.26 In the Romantic notion of "irony" according to Early Romantic philosophy, "[E]twas ironisch sagen heift, es durch die Weise, wie es gesagt ist, auch wieder zur ickneh- men" (Frank 1989, 373, and also 311, 345, 361, 364). This is exactly the case in "Das himmlische Leben." Mahler's instructions to use a child-like female voice raises the question of whether the utopian moment is intended seri- ously and whether the listeners were to consciously perceive it as a child's fantasy, or both at once. The expression of two diametrically opposed but equally valid feelings-another stylistic marker of early Romantic irony27- is clearly recognizable here in Mahler's Fourth. A telling moment with re- gard to this irony is the passage in the song when the child sings of the lamb's slaughter ("Wir ffthren ein geduldigs, / Unschuldigs, geduldigs, / Ein liebliches Ldmmlein zum Tod.").28 The seemingly happy atmosphere is at least briefly called into question by the words sung by the fantasizing child. Saint Lucas's killing of the ox is briefly mentioned, but while the voice sings of other heavenly delights ("Der Wein kost kein Heller / Im himmlischen Keller, / Die Engel, die backen das Brot"), the horns in the back of the orches- tra mimic the sounds of the dying ox.29 In sum, the idea of heaven and the concomitant notion of community in "Das himmlische Leben" are seri- ously called into question by the song's underlying irony.30

Another aspect in which Mahler follows Nietzsche's critique of Wagner is the emphasis on psychology to counter Wagner's use of myth, as indicated by the subtitle of Nietzsche contra Wagner which reads '"Aktenstocke eines Psycho- logen" (cf. Nietzsche 6: 415). By foregrounding that all of the religious imagery in the fourth movement of the Fourth Symphony is the product of a child's fantasy, Mahler comes remarkably close to insights that Freud would later develop in his essay "Der Dichter und das Phantasieren" (1908). Freud not only sees children's play as a precursor of poetic activity; he insists that it reveals something about the elementary compensatory function of fantasy - which is necessary but always deficient - in high art. Consequently, the study of the child's fantasy world teaches us about basic aspects of our own psychic life.31 Here, too, Mahler follows the aesthetic philosophy of the Jena Romantics. Within the program of Early Romanticism, irony was seen as an approach which allowed art to reflect its own constructedness.32

Recalling that the notion of a "new mythology" had a truly program-


matic meaning for the Early Romantics, as they desired to return to the origins of all art precisely in order to renew art, it is tempting to read the last movement of Mahler's Fourth Symphony as much more than the lighthearted conclusion of an individual's search for community, and to interpret it as a programmatic statement about the origins of art in general and its (psychological) functions for the individual. But Mahler's use of irony also illustrates Nietzsche's philosophical point that a return to religion, to the old mythologies, can only be illusory. Only children can hold such a belief, while adults will have to accept the conditions of a post-metaphysical age. In the end, Mahler decided not to use "Das himmlische Leben" for his Third Symphony, but rather included it in the Fourth. Bernstein's interpretation of the Fourth's final movement, however, sheds new light on the fifth movement of the Third. Following Bernstein's reading, the "bimm bamm" of the boys' choir accompanying that song is neither a simple ornament nor meant to evoke a certain atmosphere, but a means to articulate a fundamental ambivalence toward what initially seems to be the song's central message. Mahler constructs a rupture between sound and content, between music and text.33 In the end, sound prevails over text. "Voice" is the preferred medium in which Mahler expresses the ambiguities that are at the root of his art. Due to its indeterminate status between sound and text, "voice" is for Mahler the ultimate place of competing visions and ideologies. Rather than advocating a specific ideology, as Wagner intended to do with his "Hel- dentenor," Mahler uses women's and children's voices to destabilize belief systems. The Third Symphony doubtlessly critiques Wagner's explicit use of religious imagery in Parsifal (which Mahler, as mentioned earlier, quotes in the sixth and final movement of the Third). Furthermore, the ironic interpretation proposed here would also place Mahler's conversion to Catholi- cism, which occurred soon after he finished the Third, in a somewhat different light.

A reading of Mahler's approach as ironic is supported by documents from his correspondence and some of the other unpublished, private materials related to the Third and Fourth Symphonies. Initially, the sixth and last movement of the Third Symphony was intended to have a motto that now can only be found among the notes in Mahler's own score of the symphony (Franklin 72, 98) and in his correspondence with friends (cf. Mahler 151). The composer also took this motto from Des Knaben Wunderhorn: "Vater, sieh an die Wunden mein! / Kein Wesen lass verloren sein!"34 This is a remarkably dark statement following the lighthearted fifth movement, but it seems appropriate for the somber mood of the last movement of the Third Symphony in general. The motto indicates that Mahler had internalized one of the most persistent anti-semitic stereotypes - that of the wounded Jew- ish body. It also provokes a reassessment of Mahler's motivation to turn to religion (i.e., of his choice for Catholicism). At the root of Mahler's conver-


sion lay a deep feeling of woundedness and inferiority which points to a form of Jewish self-hatred at the core of Mahler's project. This discourse of self-hatred emerges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and has been interpreted by Sander Gilman as a side effect of an internalization of discourses that marginalize Jews in a culture in which they strive for assimilation (cf. Gilman 286-308). Mahler's ironic identification with the German cultural tradition may have come at a greater cost than a superficial reading of his work would suggest.

E n .

In the preceding pages, I have discussed the role of German Romanticism in the development of German nationalism in the nineteenth century. Ger- man Romanticism has been assigned some culpability for several ominous aspects of German political history, and rightfully so. But it is also a less monolithic movement than is often assumed. While its texts mediated a new national symbolism, Early German Romanticism in particular contra- dicts or at least questions those same nationalist tendencies. As a discursive formation, Romanticism supplied reactionary ideologies with an appropriate vocabulary (Frank 1982, 219), but it also helped Mahler to question such often racist and sexist political constructions.

These Romantic ambiguities are problematized and acted out, as I hope to have shown, in Mahler's critical engagement with the musical and theoretical legacy of Wagner. Instead of canonical mythical narratives, Mahler uses simple and unpretentious folk songs in his musical quest for a "new mythology." In opposition to Wagner's emphasis on nationalism, Mahler propagates a much broader concept of community, embracing all of humanity or even, as McGrath suggests, all forms of life. In contrast to Wagner's use of effeminate male voices in the service of racial stereotyping, Mahler conceives of "feminine" elements and the feminization of the male voice as something positive. While Wagner prefers continuous, uninterrupted narratives, Mahler uses diverse fragmentary narrative forms and simultaneously juxtaposes a variety of musical moods. Mahler counters Wagner's dogmatic use of religious imagery in later works with a fundamentally ironic attitude toward religion. It has often been suggested that Wagner's work is a response to the challenges of philosophical modernity, i.e., to the attempt to live in a world without metaphysical certainties. Nietzsche's early reflec- tions on Wagner, especially in

Unzeitgemdi'e Betrachtungen, certainly seem to suggest this. The same could be said of Mahler, who in the early stages of his work on the Third Symphony wanted to compose a programmatic Nietzschean piece. However, in the end, the two composers come up with fundamentally different responses to the modern condition. While Wagner, in his later works such as Parsifal, attempts to make his audience forget


about the uncertainties inherent in the modern condition, Mahler embraces these same uncertainties, and makes them a fundamental part of his aesthetic program.

Wagner actively sought the public sphere in order to present his latest thoughts and theories. As a Jew in fin-de-siecle Vienna, Mahler did not have that option. There is an uncanny discrepancy between the cultural-political implications of the material with which Mahler worked - as a conductor he performed Wagner's operas many times - and his public silence concerning these implications. There is no doubt that Mahler was heavily influenced by Wagner and that as a conductor he contributed much to the popularity of Wagner's music.35 Nevertheless, I believe, it would be wrong to claim that Mahler "repressed" the anti-semitic side of Wagner's music.36 While it is true that Mahler rarely addressed Wagner's anti-semitism directly and seemed remarkably unresentful toward Wagner, his own symphonies articulate positions of resistance against the nationalistic and racist aspects of Wagner's agenda. Mahler is highly critical of Wagner's efforts to turn art into a cult, the concert hall into a pilgrimage site, and to promote an attitude of submis- sion instead of critical reflection among the audience. With this, I do not wish to suggest that contemporary scholars should stop tracing the effects of Wagner's aesthetic-political agenda, including its gendered and racist as-

pects, on his art or on German cultural history in general. But the traces of this agenda are not exclusively visible in Wagner's own work and its reception. Mahler's music and the lyrics it contains also form an important part of the legacy of German Romanticism. Approaching Mahler's work from this perspective may ultimately lead to more complex and challenging read-

ings of the German cultural tradition.

Notes

1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (April 1999) and at the University of Illinois; I also had the opportunity to discuss it as part of the German Studies Workshop at Vanderbilt University. I would like to thank Laurie Johnson, Lutz Koepnick, and Meike Werner for their helpful comments.

2 David Levin points to the interesting paradox that the saga of the Nibelungs was both extremely popular and at the same time considered to be part of high culture. In the program book to his film on the Nibelungs, Fritz Lang problematized its elitist status in German culture (97).

3 Cf. McGrath 1974, 159. 4 For a sophisticated and complex account of the psychological dimensions under-

lying Wagner research today see Weiner 2000, 342-62. 5 Hans Mayer, quoted in Eggebrecht 123. 6 See de la Grange (1995, 1999) for a detailed reconstruction of the many anti-se-

mitic incidents surrounding Mahler's tenure at the Vienna Hofoper from 1897-1907.


7 One should distinguish between the cultural analysis which I propose here and a purely musicological inquiry into the relationship between Mahler and Wagner. I do not exclude the possibility that Mahler's fascination with Wagner had musicological grounds. In comparison to the more traditionally oriented Brahms, Wagner's music was truly progressive, even if it represented a conservative ideological agenda. Cf. de la Grange (1973, 44, 45) for an overview of the musicological debates in Mahler's student days, and Mahler's position

vis-,-vis Wagner in the context of these debates.

8 Cf. Gilman 139: "[Mauscheln] is the use of altered syntax and bits of Hebrew vocabulary and a specific pattern of gestures to represent the spoken language of the Jews. What is stressed is the specifically "Jewish" intonation, the mode of articulation as well as the semantic context." Mahler's remarks also confirm Gilman's insight that "Mauscheln was a quality of language and discourse that Jews perceived as a major problem in their true and total acceptance within the German community" (ibid. 141).

9 Both the concept of "allgemeine Symbolik" and the idea of nature as the basis for collective symbolism were first articulated by Schelling (Frank 1982, 198 and 201).

10 Cf. Frank 1988, 16; see also Frank 1982, 207. 11 See Frank 1982, 217-31. 12 It is clear that Wagner's work here serves as illustration of what Nietzsche had

called "Dionysian" art inDie Geburt der Tragddie, the text Nietzsche published immediately before his Unzeitgemidn e Betrachtungen. Frank has pointed out many parallels between the Romantic concept of a "new mythology" and Nietzsche's ideas in this text; in fact, Die Geburt der TragYdie ends with Nietzsche's programmatic call for a rebirth of German myth, which he sees realized inWagner (cf. Nietzsche 1:147; Frank 1988,49).

13 An extensive analysis of Nietzsche's importance for Mahler, emphasizing especially the thematic affinities between both, can be found in Nikkels.

14 "Wer eine Sammlung von Volksliedern z.B. des Knaben Wunderhorn auf diese Theorie hin ansieht, der wird unzahlige Beispiele finden, wie die fortwdhrend gebd- rende Melodie Bilderfunken um sich aussprfiht: die in ihrer Buntheit, ihrem j~hen Wechsel, ja ihrem tollen Sichtberstirzen eine dem epischen Scheine und seinem ruhigen Fortstrbmen wildfremde Kraft offenbaren." (Nietzsche 1: 49) At times, Nie- tzsche seems close to Friedrich Schiller's dichotomy between naive and sentimental forms of art, which had a great impact on the Romantic philosophy of art in general. To support his argument, Nietzsche claims that melody is "das bei weitem wichtigere und nothwendigere in der naiven Schdtzung des Volkes" (ibid. 48).

15 Mahler 151. Other versions of this structure of the Third Symphony can be found in other letters (ibid. 149,188,196), and in Bauer-Lechner'sErinnerungen (36, 38). Some of the titles of the individual movements can also been found in the original, unpublished score for the symphony; cf. "The 1896 manuscript and the first published score: Unpublished or subsequently omitted directions and annotations" (Franklin 91-99). Later Mahler severely questions the relevance of these titles, which may explain why he rejected them for the printed version: "Jene Titel waren von mir seinerzeit ein Versuch, eben fdr Nichtmusiker einen Anhaltspunkt und Wegweiser for den Gedan- ken- oder vielmehr Stimmungsgehalt der einzelnen Sdtze und ftir das Verstdndnis derselben zueinander und zum Ganzen zu geben. DaBf es mir nicht gelungen ist (wie es ja in der Tat nie gelingen kann) und bloBf zu Mifdeutungen schlimmster Sorte geftihrt hat, ist mir leider allzubald klar geworden" (Mahler 297).

16 Cf. McGrath 1997, 229f. and Franklin 81.


17Cf. Jacob Golomb (ed.), Nietzsche andJewish Culture, and especially the contribution of Weaver Santaniello, "A Post-Holocaust Re-Examination of Nietzsche and the Jews: Vis-a-vis Christendom and Nazism," ibid. 21-54.

18Cf. Gilman, "Heine, Nietzsche, and the Idea of the Jew" 79, in Golomb, 76-100. Like Gilman, Marc Weiner points to Nietzsche's ambiguous attitude toward Jews (Weiner 1997b, 258). Gilman's observation concerning Nietzsche's anti-anti-semitism can be supported by looking at Nietzsche's writings on Wagner. In Nietzsche contra Wagner, Nietzsche summarizes concisely what led to his break with Wagner: "Schon im Sommer, mitten in der Zeit der ersten Festspiele, nahm ich bei mir von Wagnern Abschied. Ich vertrage nichts Zweideutiges; seitdem Wagner in Deutschland war, condescendirte er Schritt fOr Schritt zu Allem, was ich verachte-selbst zum Anti- semitismus ... Es war in der That damals die h6chste Zeit, Abschied zu nehmen: alsbald schon bekam ich den Beweis dafor. Richard Wagner, scheinbar der Siegreichste, in Wahrheit ein morsch gewordner verzweifelter d6cadent, sank pl6tzlich, hOlflos und zerbrochen, vor dem christlichen Kreuze nieder ..." (Nietzsche 6: 431f.). All three elements identified above: Wagner's return to Christianity, his identification with Ger- man nationalism, and anti-semitism, are contained in this segment.

19Cf. Behler 65ff. Azade Seyhan, according to whom Nietzsche is "a reluctant heir to Romantic Idealism yet represents in full measure the paradoxical and ironic vision of

early Romanticism," sees Nietzsche's work as a "Re-vision of Romanticism's Critical

Agenda"(136, 137); Seyhan is particularly interested in the destabilization of representation-the insight that every act of representation creates a reality of its own instead of referring to a world of represented objects-which characterizes both the philosophy of the Early Romantics and Nietzsche's thinking (137-52).

20Rose 82. See also Jens Malte Fischer's comprehensive introduction to Wagner's text in Richard Wagners "Das Judentum in der Musik. "

21Cf. Fischer, "Gustav Mahler und das >Judentum in der Musik<" 667, 668. Interest-

ingly, Fischer points out that these stereotypes regarding Mahler's music by no means

disappeared after 1945, even though the anti-semitic context was removed (ibid. 668). 22In so doing, Mahler helps reveal an ambiguity in Nietzsche's Also sprach Zara-

thustra, the text in which Nietzsche introduces the concept of the "Ubermensch." Zarathustra is often given a gendered and racial reading, but Mahler's work highlights those moments in Zarathustra in which such a masculine and/or racial ideal is ques- tioned. This strategy of revealing ambiguities in what initially appear to be the monolithic ideologies of Nietzsche/Wagner is a broader phenomenon, and not typical of Mahler alone; cf. Weiner 1997b.

23"Wirkt meine fr6hliche Wissenschaft, ein wenig nach bei Ihnen, oder sind Sie nach wie vor misogyn?" (Mahler 152).

24Arnim/Brentano 3: 77f. There are some minor differences between the version in Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Mahler's. Most importantly, Mahler adds the "bimm bamm" refrain and the line "Du sollst ja nicht weinen" (Frauenchor).

25Arnim/Brentano 1: 365f. In Des Knaben Wunderhorn the song is titled "Der Him- mel hdngt voll Geigen."

26Cf. Nowak 202, see also de la Grange 1995, 772. 27Frank 1989, 389. Interestingly, Frank illustrates his understanding of Romantic

"irony" extensively with musical examples, ibid. 391-97. In their musical adaptations of Early Romantic poetry, Mendelssohn and Brahms used the contrast between con-


tent on the one hand and voice and music on the other hand in order to express these poems' irony.

28 Mahler did suppress two lines (bracketed in my reproduction of the text) that would have emphasized the tragic aspect of the poem even more ("Sankt Lorenz hat mfissen / Sein Leben einbfilfen"). The fact that the song's fundamental ambiguity was important to Mahler is further clear from the emphasis on the word "Tod" in the lines "Wir ftihren ein geduldigs, / Geduldigs, unschuldigs, / Ein liebliches Lammlein zum Tod." The last word is emphasized through the suddenly sinking voice of the soprano.

29 This observation speaks in favor of a more modernistic approach to performing Mahler's symphonies which emphasizes contrasts, dissonance, polyphony and is favored by some younger conductors, rather than the Late Romantic approach favored by previous generations of conductors which aims for a harmonious, unitary sound.

30 Mahler's composition follows the basic rules of Romantic irony in other respects as well. The song's irony concerns absolute ideas and values (cf. Frank 1989, 301; Strohschneider-Kohrs 85). Irony is achieved by a conscious creation of an atmosphere of joy ("Heiterkeit") (Frank 1989, 336, 341, 344, 371). Romantic irony expresses para- doxes (ibid. 352).

31 Similarly, Nike Wagner (1998) argues that a re-reading of Wagner's work from the perspective of fin-de-siecle Vienna (Freud, Weininger) can indeed lead to an interesting and much more critical view of Wagner.

32 Cf. Strohschneider-Kohrs 87: "Die Ironie-so liSt sich mit knappem Hinweis ihr Gesamtsinn und ihre Funktion bestimmen und deuten-ist Mittel der Selbstrepri- sentation von Kunst."

33 Wagner, on the contrary, aimed for a unity of text and music, something he called "Wort-Tonsprache." Initially, he privileged text, later he privileged sound (cf. Meyer- Kalkus 173 and 188).

34 There is no exact match for this 'quotation' in Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Mahler most likely misremembered (or intentionally rewrote?) some lines from the poem "Erl6sung":

Erl6sung Maria Mein Kind, sieh an die Brfiste mein, Kein Sinder lafB verloren sein.

Christus Mutter, sieh an die Wunden, Die ich for dein Sfind trag alle Stunden. Vater, lafB dir die Wunden mein Ein Opfer for die Sfinde sein.

Vater Sohn, lieber Sohn mein, Alles was du begehrst, das soil seyn.

35 Cf. Susanne Vill 297, 300, 301, 302.


36In a response to Susanne Vill's paper, which was a contribution to a colloquium at Bayreuth on "Richard Wagner and the Jews" (August 6-11, 1998), Jens Malte Fischer claims that Mahler refused to acknowledge Wagner's hatred of Jews, and he proposes the psychological term "repression" ("Verdringung") to characterize Mahler's attitude (ibid. 309).

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