mahler songs and symphonies of life and death
TRANSCRIPT
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Review: Songs and Symphonies of Life and Death
Author(s): John WilliamsonSource: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 113, No. 2 (1988), pp. 350-359Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/766369
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350
REVIEWS
soloists but often
a much
larger
orchestra
than
for an
opera);
and both
were
given
with
elaborate
'staging'
but without dramatic
action.
As
entertainments, oratorios in Italy were often indistinguishable from
serenatas,1
and
from
what
Smither
tells us about
performances
at the
Ajuda
Palace
in
Lisbon
in
the 1770s and
1780s,
it
seems that oratorios
were
used
there
in
place
of
serenatas
to celebrate
royal
birthdays
and
name-days.
Did the oratorio
similarly
usurp
the function of
the
serenata
in
Italy?
Or
did
the
two
genres
fall into
decline
together?
In
the
preface
to his first
volume,
Professor Smither
optimistically
stated that 'volume 3
will follow
the
history
of the
oratorio
from
the
Baroque
era
to the
present'.
In
volume 3 he
makes
no
similar
prediction
but,
whether
it
takes
another volume or
several,
the
completion
of
this
monumental
study
will be awaited with keen
interest.
Malcolm
Boyd
'
See
Thomas E.
Griffin,
'The Late
Baroque
Serenata
in Rome and
Naples'
(dissertation,
University
of
California,
Los
Angeles,
1983),
esp. pp.
38-53.
Songs and Symphonies of Life and Death
Donald
Mitchell,
Gustav
Mahler,
ongs
nd
Symphonies
f Life
andDeath:
nterpreta-
tions
nd
Annotations.
ondon,
Faber,
1986.659
pp.
ISBN 0
571
13634
6.
Donald Mitchell's
work
on Mahler over
a
period
of
30
years
has
been
less
a
study
than
a
biographical,
critical
and
documentary
adventure
in
numerous
instalments.
Few
writers
on
Mahler
have
Mitchell's
ability
to
involve the reader
in a
continuing
process
of
discovery
in
which
false
leads, wrong turnings
and tentative
speculations
are
constantly
proposed,
examined
and discarded
or
confirmed
according
to
the
researches
of Mitchell
and the numerous excellent
Mahler
scholars
who haunt his
pages.
As
a
result
the reader
cannot
ignore
the
various
editions
which his books
on
Mahler
have
gone
through.
In
its
second
edition,
The
Early
Yearsboasted
much new
material,
principally
the work of David Matthews
and Paul
Banks,
who
are
mentioned
in
numerous
places
in
the
latest
volume as authors
of individual
perceptions
and
suggestions.'
Even Mitchell's
edition of Alma's
memoirs
of her husband has
acquired
several
revisions,
additions
and
prefaces,
most of which contain at least one bit of new information or
speculation.
In
a
sense,
Mitchell
should have
been
editing
a
yearbook
or
journal
devoted to
the
dissemination
of
Mahler
research.
The
Wunderhornears ame close
to
realizing
such
a
notion
in
excelsis.2
As
a
'
Donald
Mitchell,
Gustav
Mahler:
The
Early
Years,
rev.
edn,
ed. Paul Banks
and David
Matthews
(London,
1980).
2
Donald
Mitchell,
Gustav
Mahler:
The
Wunderhorn
Years
(London,
1975).
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SONGS AND SYMPHONIES OF LIFE
AND DEATH 351
result
it had a somewhat
mixed
reception.
Critics worried
over its
peculiar organization,
students
found it difficult to
read,
and it
became the property of specialists who have seldom failed to use
and
quote
it,
or,
most
valuable
of
all,
follow
up
its
many
leads
and
suggestions.
The
motivation
of
the
change
from standard 'Life and
Works'
to
'Chronicles
and
Commentaries'
and now
'Interpretations
and Annotations'
is
no
secret;
the monumental
biography
of
Mahler
by
Henry-Louis
de
La
Grange
is now
complete
in
three
volumes.3
If
La
Grange
became Mahler's
Thayer,
Mitchell has become the
Notte-
bohm
of Mahler
scholarship,
seldom
happier
than when
excavating
the
sources.
The
notes to
his volumes
are
a
fascinating
source of
Mahleriana,
many
of
which
are
worthy
of
being
pursued
at
article
length;
indeed
a note in the
present
volume on a
likely
misreading
in
'Der Abschied'
has
already
expanded
into
an
article.4
All
this
confirms the
continuing
interest
to
the
specialist
of
Mitchell's work
in
this
latest volume.
To what
extent,
though,
is it a unified
study
which can
be read
with
profit
and
pleasure
by
the
non-specialist?
The
answer
is
much
more
straightforward
than
with The
Wunderhorn
Years;
the volume has clear
themes
and
arguments,
if a
slightly
odd
chronology
whose
justi-
fication resides
more
in Mitchell's
subjective
preferences
concerning
Das Lied von der Erde and the Eighth Symphony (which this reviewer
happens
to
share)
than
in
any
particularly
striking argument.
This
is a
book about Das
Lied
approached
through
the
Riickert
songs,
to which
is
appended
a much
briefer
appraisal
of the
Eighth Symphony.
The
oddity
of
considering
the
Eighth
out
of
chronological
sequence
(and
the
lesser
oddity
of
considering
the vocal
works
outside
the
context of
the instrumental
symphonies)
is
probably
the
consequence
of Mitch-
ell's
preoccupations
with
strophic
form,
whose
relationship
with the
very
idiosyncratic approach
to
symphony
and
sonata
form
manifested
by the Eighth Symphony Mitchell may well still be considering.
Readers
of this
book, then,
should
bear
in mind the
history
of
Mitchell's
previous
publications;
there
may yet
be more
on
the
Eighth
in a
later
edition
or volume.5
All
this
tends
to make
Mitchell's Mahler
books
sound
like
a stream-of-consciousness
spread
over
many years.
Perhaps
he would
accept
this,
given
his
Freudian
preoccupations
elsewhere;
nor is
it
inappropriate
as a manifestation of structural
sympathy
with
the
object
of his
investigations
and
meditations.
Songs
and
Symphonies,
however,
has a
relatively
clear
and
traditional musico-
logical profile
in
that
it
unashamedly
addresses each work as a
diachronous
process
(digressions permitting)
in
strong
contrast to the
increasingly synchronous
view
of
modern
analytical techniques.
3
Henry-Louis
de
La
Grange,
Gustav
Mahler.:
Chronique
d'une
vie,
3
vols.
(Paris, 1979-84).
4
Donald
Mitchell,
'Mahler's
Abschied :
A
Wrong
Note
Righted',
The
Musical
Quarterly,
71
(1985),
200-4.
s
See also the remarks
by
Michael
Kennedy
in his review of the
present
volume,
The Musical
Times,
127
(1986),
153.
6
See,
for
example,
'Mahler and
Freud',
in Gustav Mahler: The Wunderhorn
Years,
70-8.
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352
REVIEWS
Analysis
is
a
word that Mitchell
avoids
in
his
subtitle.
'Interpreta-
tions and
Annotations' establishes
fairly
clearly
that such
analysis
as
Mitchell provides will be subservient to an essentially critical perspec-
tive.
Words, music,
and the
implications
of
their
interaction
are a
dominant
theme and
tend to
relegate
matters
relating
to a
more
general
Weltanschauung
o the
margins.7
On
numerous
occasions we
are
warned or reminded of
music's
ability
to
alter
and
transfigure
meaning
in
even the
most
unambiguous
of
texts,
to
the
extent
that the
composer
may
feel
obliged
to
alter the
text under
the
pressure
of
the
musical
invention
(see,
for
example,
p.
367).
Mahler's
tendency
to
treat his
texts as cannon-fodder for
his
musical
imagination
has
already
received
much
attention
in
recent
years.8
Mitchell
goes
back
beyond
this
stage
to
investigate
the
literary
sources of Das Lied and
reveals
an
intricate
picture
of
layer
upon layer
of
material
-
Chinese
originals,
French
translations
and German
variations
thereon
-
that
reveal
Bethge's
texts as
free
variations on
Chinese
texts
(whose
attribution
poses
many
problems)
rather than
as faithful
translations.
Das
Lied
is,
in
this
light,
part
of
a
European
response
to a
half-
imagined
East,
and
Mahler's chinoiserie
belongs
with
various
related
manifestations
of
musical
orientalism in
the
hothouse of
art
nouveau,
with
Debussy's gamelan
(which
Mitchell
mentions)
and the
Japanese
and Chinese operas of Puccini (which he does not). Effectively
Mitchell
invites
us
to view Das Lied as a
technical
efflorescence of
the
Riickert
songs
evoked
by
an
emotional
landscape
communicated
by
Bethge
which
tied
in
with Mahler's
principal
themes,
the
evanescence
of
beauty,
the
transience
of
existence,
and his
framing
concepts,
the
possibility
of a
symphonic
art which
could embrace
the
external
world
(as
nature)
and
the internal
(as
sublimated
autobiography).
A
consequence
of
Mitchell's
essentially
critical
perspective
is his
frequent
reference to
Adorno,
whom
one
would
not have
thought,
from previous volumes, a kindred spirit. This is a relatively superficial
matter,
however,
beside the
necessity
for a
rather
home-spun
vocabu-
lary,
the
consequence
of
the need to
embrace
mood and
emotional
experience
as well as musical
techniques.
We are a
long way
here from
the
highly
specialized
vocabulary
of the
Schenkerians.
Some
terms are
old
friends.
Comparison
with
Debussy
inevitably
raises the
question
of
how
far Das Lied
exhibits the
style
of
an
orchestral
Impressionism
(pp.
69-72);
Mitchell
heavily
qualifies
the term in
relation
to both
composers,
though
the need to
evaluate
degrees
of
clarity,
to
describe
the
extent to
which
Debussy employs
veiled
sonorities
and Mahler
unveiled,
accurately
reveals
Mitchell's
difficulties
in
conveying
the
7
Mahler's
Weltanschauung
has
been
exhaustively
considered in another
major
work
recently
completed:
Constantin
Floros,
Gustav
Mahler,
3
vols.
(Wiesbaden,
1977-85).
8
See, for
example,
Hans
Mayer,
'Musik und
Literatur',
in Gustav
Mahler
(Tiibingen,
1966),
142-56;
Arthur
Wenk,
'The
Composer
as Poet in Das Lied von
der
Erde',
19th
Century
Music,
1
(1977), 33-47;
Susanne
Vill,
Vermittlungsformen
erbalisierter und
musikalischer Inhalte
in der Musik
Gustav
Mahlers
(Tutzing,
1979).
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SONGS
AND
SYMPHONIES
OF LIFE
AND
DEATH
353
fine
distinctions
without
which
talk of
Impressionism
becomes rather
nebulous.
Expressionism,
by
contrast,
has the
advantage,
in
that
usage
has left it a
multiplicity
of
meanings
and
references;
here it
may
refer to a melodic
style
or to
an
'intensity
of
feeling' (pp.
199 and
451-2).
We must be
grateful
that the
old labels are
sparingly
employed.
Sometimes
the technical
discussion deals
with
perilously
general
matter.
In
particular,
the issue of direction as it refers
to
melodic
lines and
accompaniments
calls
for considerable tact
(pp.
179-80).
The issue
is raised
by
Mitchell
partly
as a
consequence
of
his
discussion
of
the
essentially
scalic
nature
of Mahler's melodic
thinking
(pp.
59-60).
More
purely
analytical
studies
of Mahler's
later
style
have tended
to confirm
this,
even
in the
middleground
of the
Schenkerians.9 Mitchell has a more
general
nettle to
grasp,
'a kind of
directional
architecture
in
its
own
right,
at times even
a directional
polyphony'
(p.
180).
This is
very
much on the
right
lines.
Contrary
motion,
above
all
mirror
forms,
fascinate
Mitchell
(who
is
particularly
interesting
on the
mirror world
of 'Von der
Jugend').
Contrary
motion
as
a
contrapuntal
ideal,
and
arches as
a melodic
norm,
however,
figure
prominently
in
most
manuals
of
composition;
they
are central
to
any
musical
pedagogics.
In
this
respect,
it
might
seem as
though
the ebb
and
flow of line and
arpeggio
in
'Das
Trinklied'
qualified
it as
the most
conventionally well-written movement of Das Lied von der Erde (though
try
telling
that to
the
tenor).
Mitchell's
subsequent
approach
to 'Der
Abschied',
with
its
emphasis
on a
dialectic
of
strict
and free
manners,
rather tends to
emphasize
this,
raising
the
question
as
to
how
the
directional theme
in the earlier
movements
of
Das
Lied
differs
from
direction
in
the
finale.
The
answer
for
Mitchell
seems to
lie
in Mahler's
highly
original
heterophony
(a
term
and
subject
that he
may
have known
from Guido
Adler,
whose
essay
'Heterophony'
is
printed
as
Appendix
C).
This is
a
subject that other writers have raised in dealing with Mahler's late
style,
but seldom
with
such
prominence
as Mitchell. What
is
perhaps
not
emphasized
is the
extent to
which
heterophony
in
Mahler at this
time
is
controlled
by
pedal
points,
as
in
Mitchell's
Example
4(c)
in
Part
I
('Es
ist
mir auch
gar
nichts daran
gelegen'
from
'Ich bin
der
Welt
abhanden
gekommen'),
or
in
that
most
hauntingly
irregular
of
Mahler's
polyphonic
complexes,
Figure
30 in 'Der Abschied'.
There
is
a
strong
case for
dealing
with
Mahler's
use of
pedal points
if
only
to
emphasize
the
even more
original
moments
in
the
outer movements
of
the
Ninth,
where
polyphony
and
heterophony
divorce
themselves
from
the
tyranny
of the
pedal
without
in
any way losing
the sense
of
stasis
peculiar
to Mahler's
late
style. Heterophony
in Mahler derives
9
V. Kofi
Agawu,
'The Musical
Language
of Kindertotenlieder
No.
2',
Journal
of Musicology,
2
(1983),
81-93;
Allen
Forte,
'Middleground
Motives
in the
Adagietto
of
Mahler's
Fifth
Sym-
phony',
19th
Century
Music,
8
(1984),
153-63;
John
Williamson,
'The
Structural Premises
of
Mahler's Introductions:
Prolegomena
to an
Analysis
of
the
First
Movement of
the
Seventh
Symphony',
Music
Analysis,
5
(1986),
29-57.
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354
REVIEWS
in
Mitchell's view
from the
all-pervasiveness
of
Mahler's
techniques
of
motivic
variation,
and
he is
right
to
emphasize
the extent
to which
certain passages in Das Lied seem saturated by motivic reference.
There
is
also
a case for a
study
of
heterophony
and
polyphony
in
Mahler motivated
by
a
harmonic
approach
(which
would,
one
hopes,
be
more
sophisticated
than the views
of
Hans
Tischler).'o
Such
a
study
would
of
necessity
be more
purely analytical
than Mitchell's
volume,
but would be a valuable
appendix
to its more
traditional
motivic
standpoint.
'Freedom',
as Mitchell defines
it,
has a formal
dimension, too,
that
renders 'Der
Abschied'
unique
within
Das
Lied:
If symmetry (and the disruption of symmetry) were indeed the principal
factor
regulating
the
strophic
forms of movements
1-5,
then it
is
unprofit-
able
to
attempt
to
identify
the same
compositional process
at work
in
'Der
Abschied'. It is
precisely
here,
one
finds,
that Mahler abandons
it,
or at
least the
systematic
strophic
method
he has used
hitherto.
Yet,
as
we
shall
see,
he
found
a
way
of
brilliantly
preserving
in
'Der Abschied'
the
dichotomous
principle
that had served the forms of the
preceding
five
movements,
while
also
introducing
the
strophe
itself into
the
subsidiary
architecture of the movement
(pp.
340-1).
It is striking that Mitchell should thus seek to define formal differen-
ces and
characteristics
in
Das
Lied without the traditional
references to
sonata
form. Until this
volume,
the extent to
which
the work was
bound
to
the
strophe
was but
indifferently
recognized.
On the other
hand,
that
the
strophic
form of 'Das Trinklied' had sonata
aspects
had
been
noted,
suggesting
a
compromise
between two formal
prin-
ciples. '
There is no limit to the
way
in which
forms
may
be
crossbred,
at
least
in
the
eye
of the
analysts.
As an
example,
one
might
take the
Lorenzian idea of a
Reprisenbar,
definable as
AAB
with the
Abgesang
containing
a
reprise
of
A.'2
Was
Adorno
thinking
of
this
type
of Bar
when
discussing
'Das
Trinklied'?'3
If
so,
then Mitchell's
'sympho-
nic
or
sonata
parallel,
i.e.
exposition-repeat-development-
recapitulation'
is
already
to some
extent
present
in
the Lorenzian
ancestry
of
Adorno's
comments
(see
pp.
443-4).
The
'dichotomous
principle'
is,
of
course,
a notion
that
flourishes
in
sonata
terminology,
but
Mitchell is
curiously
resistant to
employing
it as
anything
other
than
a
parallel
or
occasionally
as
an
analytical
conceit,
as when he
describes the funeral march
in
'Der Abschied' as
'a
displaced expo-
sition'
(p.
397).
There is
unquestionably
good
reason
for
treating
1o
Hans Tischler,
'Mahler's Impact on the Crisis of Tonality', Music
Review, 12 (1951), 113-21.
Fritz Egon
Pamer, 'Gustav
Mahlers
Lieder',
Studien
zur
Musikwissenschaft,
16
(1929),
135.
12 Alfred
Lorenz, Das
Geheimnis der Form bei
Richard
Wagner,
4
vols.
(2nd edn,
Tutzing,
1966),
i,
107-8;
the substance
of
Lorenz's remarks here
and elsewhere is that the
layout
of a
Reprisenbar
will
resemble a
sonata
form
with
repeated exposition
if the Stollen have more than one theme. If
there
is no
exposition
repeat ('modern
sonata
form',
according
to
Lorenz),
then
sonata
form
resembles
Bogenform
(see,
for
example,
iii,
186).
'3
Theodor
Wiesengrund
Adorno,
Mahler:
Eine
musikalische
Physiognomik
(Frankfurt, 1962),
60-1.
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355
sonata
terminology
and its
underlying
concepts
with
some
restraint
in
later
Mahler.
To what
extent
do works like Das
Lied and
the
Eighth
Symphony
move
in
sonata
categories
or
merely
exhibit
the
ghosts
of
dead
forms
dimly
perceived
through
radically
new
polyphonic
and
structural modes of
perception?
In
the case
of
'Der
Abschied',
the
sonata
parallels
are
too obvious
to
cope
adequately
with
the task of
describing
the
movement
unless blended
with
elements
appropriated
from
elsewhere
to a
degree
that
offends
against
Occam's
razor.
'Free'
will
does
just
as well
in
that
it
clears the
mind of
several
conceptions.
For
Mitchell,
'freedom'
in
Mahler is bound
up
with
the
asymmetrical
in
'Der Abschied'
with the
rider that
asymmetry
is
to
be
equated
with
'the
idea
of the most
personal '
(p.
343),
an
important qualification
since the element of the
autobiographical
in the work
emerges
strongly
in
Mitchell's consideration
of
the texts and the
modifications
that
Mahler
made to them.
Das Lied von der
Erde,
then,
has
the
aspect
of
an internal
drama
in
Mitchell's
account,
moving
from the strict
(strophic,
symmetrical,
human,
transient)
to the
free
(dissolving
those
categories
into the
nirvana
of
the
'distant
horizon',
the endless C
major
of the
close with
its
undulating
echoes
of old motives
and
ostinati).
Drama as a musical
concept
is all
too often
linked with the
ubiquitous
sonata
principle,
both in real formal terms and in the metalanguage of the analysts.
Hence the need
in
Mitchell
for
heavy
qualification
of
drama. Here he
seems to be
tracing
a
historical
progression:
This
gradually
evolving change
in
method,
like all
the other
changes
in
Mahler's
music
that
developed
at
this
time,
may
be
attributed,
I
believe,
to
the
switch
from
the
outwardly
dramatic to the
lyrical
(and
the
ecstatic);
to
the
progressive
interiorization
of
a
dramatic
principle
that had
hitherto
been
made
programmatically
explicit;
and,
not
least,
to
the
basic
modifi-
cation of the nature
of the inner drama itself
(pp.
76-7).
How
such notions
as drama affect the
Eighth
Symphony
is an
interesting
case.
It is
precisely
the lack of
anything
dramatic
in
that
strange
work which makes its formal construction so difficult to
describe.
Mitchell does
not like the 'ancient
prop'
of Part
II
as
combined
Adagio,
Scherzo
and Finale
any
more than Redlich or
(implicitly)
Newlin;14
when
he hints at its role as
'positive impedi-
ment'
to
understanding,
one can
only
applaud (p.
533).
He is also
dubious
about the
utility
of sonata
concepts
in
'Veni Creator
Spiritus',
suggesting
that
they
offer less
to
the
understanding
than his
own
picture of it as a descendant of the Bachian motet. If the notion of
'Veni Creator
Spiritus'
as a sonata form is to be examined with
the
rigour
it
deserves,
there are two
possible starting-points.
The first
is
the
assumption
that here is a rather
special
kind of sonata
that
re-adjusts
our ideas of
thematic,
tonal and dramatic contrast and
'14
Dika
Newlin,
Bruckner-Mahler-Schoenberg
(New
York,
1947),
192-4;
Hans
Redlich,
Bruckner
and
Mahler (rev.
edn,
London,
1963),
216.
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356
REVIE\'WS
ultimately
comes
close
to
refining
them
out of
existence;
again
we
are
left with
the
ghosts
of forms and
processes
rather than their
sub-
stance. Mitchell's point of origin is to question their utility and seek
alternative modes
of
organization.
It is hard not to feel
that
in
this
sense there is a
lot more still
to
be
said. As someone who
has written
on
the
problems
of the first
method,'
I
tend to see Mitchell
as
someone
climbing
the same
mountain
from
the
opposite
side,
though
the
peak
remains
obstinately
invisible.
In
a
volume
of this size
and
importance,
it would be remarkable
if
there were
not
points
of
disagreement, questionable interpretations
and
errors.
In
fact
there are
remarkably
few of the last. Mitchell
comments on
p.
72:
He
wanted,
naturally,
to
have the wash of
silvery
colour
...
that the
celesta
supplies.
But
what other
composer
would have made sure we hear
exactly
where that
patch
of colour ends
by
having
the
harp lightly
strengthen
and
articulate
the
top
of the acciaccatura?
Here he seems to overlook the fact
that the
harp
and celesta
in
the first
bar
of 'Ich
atmet'
einen linden Duft' do not end on the same
upper
limit;
this
may
not be
quite
his
point,
but there seems to be an
ambiguity.
I
am not sure about
the
validity
of
implicitly
withholding
the description 'tonic' from Figure 16 of 'Das Trinklied' (p. 187); in
Mahler of
all
composers,
a
tonic
is a
tonic,
whatever the mode.
The
conceit of the
two-part
canon
on
p.
262
does not survive the fourth
bar. On
p.
279
there
is a reference
to bar
134
that should be
133.
The
joint
editor of Cosima
Wagner's
diaries seems
permanently
to have
become G.
(as
opposed
to
M.)
Gregor-Dellin
(p.
438
and
index,
p.
654).
The editor
of Mahler's letters
to
Oskar Fried is described as the
addressee on
p.
459.16
These
are minor matters. More
interesting
is
Mitchell's
interpretation
of a letter to Nina
Spiegler
of 18
August
1900:
Now,
I
must
admit,
it comes rather
hard to be here
[in Vienna]
again,
taking
up
the old
struggle;
I am
still
half
living
in
the world of
my
Fourth.
-
This one
[the Fifth]
is
quite
fundamentally
different
from
my
other
symphonies (pp.
131-2).
The German text is as follows:
Jetzt
kommt es
mir
allerdings
etwas
hart
an,
hier wieder
anzupacken;
so
halb
und
halb lebe
ich immer noch
in der
Welt
meiner IV.
-
Sie ist so
grundverschieden
von meinen
anderen
Symphonien.'7
The second set of brackets
in
Mitchell's version
(otherwise
the
translation of Wilkins and
Kaiser),18
amounts to a
reinterpretation
of
'
John
Williamson,
'Mahler
and
Veni Creator
Spiritus',
Music
Review,
44
(1983),
25-35.
'l
Gustav
Mahler:
Unbekannte
Briefe,
ed. Herta
Blaukopf
(Vienna
and
Hamburg,
1983),
47-59
(esp. p.
52).
'7
Gustav
Mahler:
Briefe,
ed. Herta
Blaukopf
(Vienna
and
Hamburg,
1982),
248.
'18
Selected Letters
of
Gustav
Mahler,
trans.
Eithne Wilkins and
Ernst Kaiser
(with
Bill
Hopkins),
ed.
Knud Martner
(London, 1979),
242.
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SONGS
AND SYMPHONIES OF LIFE AND DEATH
357
the
letter at odds
with Knud
Martner,
Kurt
Blaukopf19
and
others,
and
indeed with the traditional
(if
vague) chronology
of the
Fifth
Symphony. Why Mitchell should wish to do so is as yet unexplained
and
may
be a matter for his
next
volume.
By
comparison
with the Fifth
Symphony,
the
chronology
of
the
Eighth
has
always
seemed
straightforward;
in
spite
of
(or
because
of)
the
dearth
of sketch
material,
the traditional
picture given by
most
writers
(including
the editor of the work for the
complete
edition)20
has
been of a
work written
in
a
single
burst
in
summer 1906.
Mitchell
clouds this
picture
slightly
by
suggesting
(with
reason)
that
substan-
tial
preparation
went into
the work of
precisely
the
kind that
is
documented for other works
(pp. 523-6).
But he also
gives
1906-7 as
the date for the work's
composition,
which
adds a
new dimension
to
the
traditional
picture (p.
57).
This seems
misleading.
Such work
as
Mahler did on the
Eighth
in
1907 must have been
tidying
up,
perhaps
the
preparation
of a fair
copy. Quite
apart
from
the familiar
material
on
its
chronology,
there exist
more
recently
published
documents
such
as
the letter
to
Oskar Fried dated
by
Rudolf
Stephan
to
probably
August
1906,
with
its statement 'Meine
8.
ist
fertig.'21
Mahler
would
then
have written down the dedication of
the
sketch of
the
first
inspiration
to
Alma
presumably
on
completion
of
the
work
(p.
530).
Mitchell is not the
only
writer
recently
to ascribe the
Eighth
to
1906-7,22
leaving
the
suspicion
that the
chronology
of
the work
still
has
some research left
in
it.
As a footnote to
the
matter,
it should
be
observed
that La
Grange
deals with
this work of
1906
(as
he
accepts
it)
in
the
volume
of
his
biography
that
begins
with
1907.23
It
must
be said that Mitchell's
command of
sources is
impressive
in
the
extreme.
Occasionally
one
longs
for
consideration of
the
second-
ary
literature over small
points.
Perhaps
his
comments on
Mahler's
use
of
the tam-tam
(pp.
475-7)
could
have been
complemented by
reference to Floros's 'Tamtam als funebrales und makabres Klang-
symbol
bei
Mahler,
Wagner,
Liszt,
Strauss,
Tschaikovskij,
Sch6nberg
und
Berg'.24
But this is a
detail beside the
wealth of
new
material
pertaining
to
autograph
sources and the
Chinese
background
to
Das
Lied.
That
Bethge
knew no
Chinese
puts
his
role
in
new
perspective.
The
projected
use of
mandoline and
guitar
in
'Von
der
Sch6nheit' is a
fascinating
detail. As often with
Mitchell,
such
references
tend to
spill
beyond
the
immediate frame of
reference,
trailers for
the
next
volume
perhaps.
Thus the
Adagietto
of the
Fifth
Symphony
is
a
declaration
of
love
for Alma, a kind of love letter, according to a note in Mengel-
19
Kurt
Blaukopf,
Gustav
Mahler:
A
Documentary
Study,
trans. Paul
Baker et al.
(London,
1976),
224.
2
Gustav
Mahler:
Siimtliche
Werke, viii:
Symphonie
Nr.
8,
ed. Karl
Heinz
Fiissl
(Vienna,
1977),
Foreword.
21
Mahler:
ULnbekannte
riefe,
55.
22
See
David
B.
Greene,
Mahler:
Consciousnessand
Temporality
(New
York,
1984),
199.
23
La
Grange,
Gustav Mahler, iii,
1079.
24
Floros,
Gustav
Mahler,
ii,
311-17.
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MAHLER'S
UNKNOWN
LETTERS
Mahler's
Unknown
Letters
Mahler's
Unknown
Letters,
edited
by
Herta
Blaukopf,
translated
by
Richard
Stokes.
London,
Gollancz,
1986.
241
pp.
ISBN
0
575 03644 3.
One
thing
made
abundantly
clear
by
this volume is
that
a
complete
edition of Mahler's letters
is still
a
long way
off.
The fact that
the
subject
himself seems to
have
kept
incoming
correspondence only
as
long
as it took
for
him
to
reply
to it
poses
one set of
problems
for
any
editor. That Mahler's
own letters were
and
continue to be
scattered
haphazardly
across the
world
by
collectors,
dealers and
accident-
prone
exhibition
organizers
(letters
to Reznicek were lost
during
the
1960 Mahler exhibition in Vienna) poses another set. In her Introduc-
tion,
Herta
Blaukopf expresses
justifiable
pride
in
the
'years
of
groundwork
and
collecting
by
the International
Gustav Mahler
Society'
that
have facilitated
this collection.
Nevertheless,
the non-
scholarly
Mahler enthusiast
for whom this volume seems to
some
extent to have
been
designed
might
well be
disappointed
by
what
all
this
work has so
far
unearthed,
particularly
when the
commentary
on
four
letters
from Mahler to
his sister
Justine,
for
example,
reveals
that
nearly
100 more remain
inaccessible
in
a
Canadian
archive.
The policy of selection here is generally not particularly clear or
consistent. The
12
unknown
letters from Mahler to
Ludwig
Strecker,
for
example, published
in
1977
in
the
Archiv
fur
Musikwissenschaft
(34,
pp.
287-97),
might
at least have been included in the
English
edition,
whereas there is
nothing
in
this book to indicate their
existence.
Herta
Blaukopf
is
certainly
not
to be
blamed,
however,
for
otherwise
including many
short
and
relatively
insubstantial
communications,
written
almost
always
'in
Eile',
in
what
is
arranged
as
a
kind of
interim
supplement
to her
own
expanded
edition
(1982)
of Alma
Mahler's
first
1924
selection of her husband's letters or
Knud
Martner's revised
English
edition of
1979
-
although
we must also
remember
the letters
to
herself included
in
Alma's first
volume
of
autobiography
and,
now,
Herta
Blaukopf's
own
edition
of
the
composer's
correspondence
with
Richard Strauss
(1980;
English
edition,
1984).
The
letters are
grouped
in
this
new collection under the name
of
their
addressee,
the
groups
being organized
alphabetically,
each with an
introductory essay
by
a
scholar
knowledgeable
in
the relevant
period
or location of
Mahler's
activities.
There
are 15
'introducers'
to 17
groups
of
letters.
359
possibly
be a distant reflection of the battle
that
Mitchell,
Deryck
Cooke
and
others
had to
wage
on
Mahler's behalf.
Obviously
the
stylistic residue of such a battle may imply a defensiveness that may
not
be to
everyone's
taste.
But it cannot
detract from a
volume
that is
fundamental
and
illuminating
reading
for
anyone
interested
in
Mah-
ler's
music.
John
Williamson