-- Neville Cardus, from his "Appreciation of Mahler's Third" (1967),
reproduced in the High Performance CD reissue of the Leinsdorf-BSO M3
reproduced in the High Performance CD reissue of the Leinsdorf-BSO M3
Neville Cardus (Apr. 2, 1888 – Feb. 28, 1975; from 1967, Sir Neville), longtime music critic of the Manchester Guardian, had a passion for Mahler which found full expression in his 1965 book Gustav Mahler: His Mind and His Music. His "Appreciation of Mahler's Third," which graced RCA's original LP issue of its 1966 Leinsdorf-Boston Symphony recording, is happily retained in the booklet for the 1999 High Performance CD edition.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D:
i. Kräftig. Entschieden. (Strong. Decisive.)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, Munich, May 1967
[NOTE: We'll hear this performance deconstructed, then re-constructed]
TO RETURN TO PART 1 OF THE POST, CLICK HERE
INTRODUCTION
by Ken
"Such a movement defies conventional analysis." -- N.C.As I explained in Part 1 of this post, the key to our attempt in this double post to make our way through the gigantic first movement of the Mahler Third Symphony is guidance from Mahler super-enthusiast Neville Cardus, which is the first -- and principal -- order of business here in Part 2.
[More text follows his commentary on the first movement of M3]
My way into Mahler 3 was one that would hardly have occurred to composers of Mahler's or earlier times, or, really, for several decades after his time: repeated hearings -- via, yes, a sprinkling of live performances, but even more broadcasts, and mostly through recordings.
CASE IN POINT: The earliest Mahler 3 recording is a November 1947 BBC studio job by Sir Adrian BoultThere's so much repertory I can't imagine myself having ever assimilated, made part of me, without heavy exposure through recordings. It still boggles my mind to think, for example, of Richard Wagner toiling those 20-plus years over his Ring of the Nibelung tetralogy -- first creating the texts, then embedding them in that fantastic web of music, all that while imagining that a music drama in which every note, every syllable, is the concentrated product of so many intricate layers of imagining and executing, that such a creation could comprehended in the course of a single live performance, or even two or three performances.
That's a half-century after Mahler triumphantly completed the symphony in that summer of 1896 which Jack Diether evoked so vividly in his account of the summons the 19-year-old Bruno Walter, then Mahler's assistant at the Hamburg Opera, received to his boss's summer mountain retreat, where the composer was on the verge of completing the Third, which he then played on the piano for his stupefieed young assistant.)
Boult made that 1947 Mahler 3 recording, not for commercial issue, but for broadcast -- as part of a remarkable 1947-48 BBC Mahler symphony cycle, using existing recordings or broadcast performances where possible, which left gaps to be filled by Sir Adrian (then still chief conductor of the BBC Symphony). Between November 1947 and February 1948 he recorded the three least performed and most challenging Mahler symphonies, Nos. 3, 7, and (in English) 8, and the hardly-a-cinch No. 5 -- all in BBC's Maida Vale Studio No. 1 except for No. 8, a live broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall.
The Boult-BBC Mahler 3, with Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953) sounding radiant in the contralto solos (some readers will recall that I'm not the greatest enthusiast of K.F.'s recordings), was eventually issued in 2008(!) by Testament (you can hear it on YouTube); the sound isn't great, but we get a strong, surprisingly recognizable image of the symphony. The other performances, I'm happy to say, can be heard -- and they're all well worth hearing -- on the Music Preserved website -- No. 5, No. 7, and No. 8 -- in digital refurbishings-slash-remasterings from privately recorded 78s by magicianly remasterer Mark Obert-Thorn for Pristine Classical (available by FLAC or mp3 download or in a three-CD set).
The first commercial recording of Mahler 3 wasn't made till April 1952, with an assemblage of Viennese forces marshaled into another surprsingly strong representation -- this one in quite listenable mono sound -- by conductor F. Charles Adler for the SPA (Society of Participating Artists) label, co-founded by Adler, with another fine soloist (from the lighter-weight mezzo direction, but quite lovely) in the 31-year-old Hilde Rössl-Majdan (1921-2010), who would be such a ubiquitous presence in 1950s and '60s recordings of German-language repertory.
As Neville Cardus argues in the case of the first movement of M3:
Such a movement defies conventional analysis. Mahler's way of thinking in music did not easily conform to the rules of the symphonic scholars. He could not contain himself in the A B A divisions of symphonic form.And he continues as we read in the quote at the top of this post. The upshot is that I don't know of any convenient strategy for "wayfinding" through the movement -- and don't forget that in what Mahler designated as "Part 2" of the symphony there are, still to come, five more movements, admittedly all more readilly graspable, still to come!
Now, looking back on how I found my way through the first movement of M3, I don't doubt that there's a better way of taking in this half-hour-plus adventure in musical metamorphosis. All I can say is that the more I heard it, the more my brain "registered" bits small and large, and how they connected and intersected, and gradually I came to a point, more or less, where I could at least acknowledge the daring claim Neville C. makes as the culmination of that argument of his I've set atop this part of the post:
This gargantuan first movement of the Third Symphony is truly well shaped, with natural and inevitable sequences: Chaos at the beginning is changed to cosmos.Really? The first movement of M3 "truly well shaped"? "With natural and inevitable sequences"? "Chaos" giving way to "calm"? Well, yes.
A WAY INTO MAHLER 3: NEVILLE C.'S "APPRECIATION"
And this is going to be our "way into" the first movement -- N.C.'s text and musical examples, supplemented by the audio clips of N.C.'s music examples, so we can hear the examples, in nearly all cases with some surrounding musical context. I don't mean to suggest that N.C. has highlighted every bit of musical material he could have. Indeed in one case I've added an "example," on the ground that we really have to have it, don't we?, coming as it does as a major shift in tone from what's come before. Obviously there were limits to how many musical examples N.C. could pull out, and I think he did a bang-up job of showcasing musical motifs that figure prominently -- contrasting, mutating, overlapping, combining, and generally metamorphosing to create the unique musical journey on which we're about to set out.
Oh wait, as soon as we've taken care of some --
NOTES ON MY RENDERING OF N.C.'S PRESENTATIONTO RETURN TO PART 1 OF THE POST, CLICK HERE
Both the text and the music examples appear here more or less as they do in the LP and CD booklets. Anyway, they're as close, functionally, as I could get them. I've added the numbering of the musical clips, which I think helps us keep track of them, and also enables us to clarify N.C.'s occasional internal-text references. Also, importantly, the numbers give us cue points when we get to the stitched-back-together version of the Kubelik-Bavarian Radio Symphony first movement. They may be a tad approximate, but they should enable you to locate any of the examples in their native musical habitat, by scrolling down to the complete-movement audio clip and cuing up any musical example.
In addition to the clip that, as noted above, I've added, I've taken the liberty of flip-floppping Ex. 7 and 8 (adjusting the text accordingly), to reflect that what is now Ex. 7 is a direct continuation of Ex. 6, which by the way, as I've noted in place, is the "Stage 3" metamorphosis of the noble principal theme of the finale of the Brahms First Symphony we tracked in Part 1.
AT THIS POINT LET'S TURN THE FLOOR OVER TO SIR NEVILLE!
from: "An Appreciation of Mahler's Third"
by Neville Cardus
It may not be true that Mahler said, "A symphony means to me the building of an imaginary world with the aid of every resource of musical technique." But as a description for the Third Symphony this statement by implication is fitting enough. In no other of his symphonies did Mahler's imagination range as widely as in the Third.
The work, written in 1895-96, consists of six movements; the first plan of it contained a seventh, which, on second thoughts, Mahler used as the nucleus of his Fourth Symphony, ending that enchanting masterpiece with it. The transition of style and and conception from the Third to the Fourth is one of the most Protean in the history of symphonic composition. The Fourth is a fount of melody, with Mahler's own remembrances of childhood. There is a throwback to youth's Wunderhorn in the Third, but as a whole the scope now is of spaciousness and variety, which sometimes place symphonic form and procedure under a severe strain.
Mahler was never one of the establishment, never a bourgeois conformist. An intriguing factor in his psychological makeup is that he had reverence for classic shape and tradition and at the same time was ready to rebel against and cock a snoop at tradition. Consider the way he begins the Third Symphony:
[Ex. 1]
[This is "Stage 2" of Part 1's "Brahms-Mahler metamorphosis"!]
Berlin Radio Symphony, Heinz Rögner, cond. Berlin Classics, recorded 1983
Bavarian Radio Symphony, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded May 1967
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded April 1993
The casual ear might easily think this tune was a near relation of the theme at the beginning of the fourth movement of Brahms' First Symphony. "Any fool could see that" -- "Das sieht jeder narr!" -- as Brahms himself retorted when somebody noted the likeness of his theme to that mighty one in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth.
As a fact, Mahler, having opened the multitudinous way of this Third with an obeisance to classic dignity, proceeds at once to plunge us into realms of vast and primeval creation -- a germinal subterranean bed of orchestration out of which come horn calls and invocations echoing over mountains yet to be thrown up after gigantic labor pains in a void of changing harmonies.
So, in the first few pages of the score Mahler announces his intention. Originally, he published the poetic burden, or argument, of the Third Symphony in a precise verbal "program," which more or less read as follows:
Mahler didn't wish to be thought of as a composer of "descriptive" music, so he used a "program" rather as a scaffolding of ideas necessary for the erecting of the symphonic edifice, then to be removed out of sight and mind once the building was up. The "program" of the Third Symphony, outlined above, liberated Mahler's imagination. But he transcended his basic literary conceptions.Symphony III1 Summer marches in
The Gay Science
A summer morning dream
2 What the flowers and meadows tell me
3 What the animals of the forest tell me
4 What the night tells me (alto solo)
5 What the morning bells tell me (women's choir and alto)
6 What love tells me
In the first movement, if "summer marches in" at all, it is a summer of no ordinary temperature or growth. It is rude and imperious, with gorgeously vulgar and "popular" tunes -- once the first movement has emerged from the nebulous earth-womb. We hear, immediately after the preliminary acknowledgment and obeisance to Brahms and the Old Order, sounds which only very faintly can be suggested in music notation:
[Ex. 2]
[Except as noted, all clips are from the DG Mahler 3 by Rafael Kubelik and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, recorded in the Herkulessaal, Munich, May 1967. It's remarkable how beautifully articulated each of these key moments is, yet with a full complement of expressive force. -- Ed.]
The swaying figure in the above quotation is an anticipation of the fourth movement, which tells of midnight's secret revelations.
Now, out of the protoplasmic abysm of orchestration comes the first call as the horns summon nature, rock and cavern and mountain range into life:
[Ex. 3]
You will probably be surprised -- and discover with delight -- that this call is derived from the seventh and eighth bars of the "Brahms" motif. A remote response is curiously mournful, as though the sleeping, inert world were wishing to be left in peace:
[Ex. 4]
These calls, horns and trumpets, persist some one hundred bars, while the orchestra remains a gurgling, bubbling lava of tonal texture. Nothing in 19th-century music resembles this longish introduction -- it is prophetic of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps. Mahler himself said, "There are terrible birth-pains which a creator of such a work must suffer before his conception is thought-out and put into order. . . ."
After a chromatic slither, the air is lightened. Woodwinds flutter like a breeze, dispersing gloom and sinister cloud rack --
[Ex. 4a] (Not included by N.C., but we can't not have it, can we?)
Flutes, Oboe, then [at 5:33] Solo Violin, et al.
A solo violin answers, quite birdlike and bucolic; a flick in the clarinets is actually coy, and a tread of drums seems to prepare for the marching-in of summer. But not yet. The menace of the beginning of things (Ex. 2) is heard again before the fanfares modulate to a more or less hopeful cadence, and summer now marches in -- but not with conventional pastoral endowments and pipings.
The march is actually "popular," the first "pop" music heard in a symphony, though Beethoven had years before hinted of it in no less solemn a temple of music than the finale of the "Choral" Symphony. Mahler even sets a "Beatle" beat --
[Ex. 5]
["Our" march at 0:32 -- Ed.]
with the main tune making a swaggering entrance:
[Ex. 6]
[This is "Stage 3" of Part 1's "Brahms-Mahler metamorphosis"!]
Bavarian Radio Symphony, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded May 1967
Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live, April 1972
BBC Symphony, Pierre Boulez, cond. Live performance, November 1974
It is none other than our "Brahms" theme changed to a brazen common strain, so that it shocked concert audiences shamelessly half a century and more ago -- and still does. With this opening march goes, as a "comrade," so to say, another impudently indecorous tune:
[Ex. 7]
The march continues -- Richard Strauss confessed that this part of the movement reminded him of the "proletarian" mob in procession along the Prater on May Day:
[Ex. 8]
Without too much exaggerating Mahler may be called the first composer really to eliminate classic and class destructions in the symphonic procedure and tradition. Obviously, a symphonic exhortation and glorification of nature's abundant growth and life could not possibly be too fastidious, too "choosy," about which themes or rhythms should be regarded as untouchable or outside the pale. Summer marches into Mahler's Third Symphony absolutely free of inhibitions. Its humor, gaiety and impudence are infectious. The astounding fact is that this unbuttoned, riotously and democratically human music was put into a symphony in the heyday -- the mid-1890s -- of symphonic dignity, when the Establishment was presided over by the most honored Masters and, as serious music was still regarded as the divine art, with Saint Cecilia the watchful patron.
More wonderful still, these "popular" elements are made to sound, by Mahler's genius, competely natural in the general context of this large-spanned first movement, a context which, as we have already noted, stirs imagination with solemn fundamental tones symbolical of the threatening unpredictable void of first instinctive creation.
The march rolls drunkenly down to an end, and eight horns again resound in the movement's engulfed spaces (Examples 3 and 4, transformed). A curious echo, in the first trombone, is marked "sentimental":
[Ex. 9]
It is affecting in a way hard to define -- as though Mahler has momentarily withdrawn from the main traffic and welter of the movement to a private chamber of reflection. An Ariel sort of fanciful atmosphere is evoked as the movement begins a second development section; soli violin and horn make a beautiful harmony as they play a variation of the genial descending phrase ending the first march episode. But Mahler is not yet out of breath, or in any way exhausted. Here comes Pan galumphing in on the double basses:
[Ex. 10]
[I've taken the liberty of backing us up a bit so we hear the transitioning to -- and, er, "harbinging" of -- "Pan galumphing" (at 0:18). Then I've let the clip run so we can hear Mahler developing this marching mode. -- Ed.]
Mahler on the Bummel -- Mahler on the spree! A gunfire of drums resurrects the "Brahms" theme, reverently called back in its original and well-bred guise. A superb and delicious stroke of Mahler's irony. The recapitulation has here to set in. Trombones remember old unhappy far-off things. The "Brahms" theme is once more drawn into the jubilant rabble. A glissando flourish, a volley of fanfares find the key of F major. The colossal movement, percussion cracking and the lower strings going in headlong semi-quavers, soars on high -- and is suddenly decapitated. By no other means, we can well suppose, could Mahler have brought his turbulent, germinal, teeming music to heel.
Such a movement defies conventional analysis. Mahler's way of thinking in music did not easily conform to the rules of the symphonic scholars. He could not contain himself in the A B A divisions of symphonic form. In this unique first movement he adapted large-scale sonata form to his own power of improvisation. He believed that music should continually grow, phrase by phrase, one section balancing another, by laws not only of musical form as usually obeyed but also by psychological and organic growth and the logic of contrast. This gargantuan first movement of the Third Symphony is truly well shaped, with natural and inevitable sequences: Chaos at the beginning is changed to cosmos. ◼️
TO RETURN TO PART 1 OF THE POST, CLICK HERE
THANKS, SIR NEVILLE!
At this point we're set to take in the whole movement. And as promised, it's the Kubelik-DG Mahler 3, from which most of the "example" clips were extracted, that we're going to hear -- stitched back together!
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D:
i. Kräftig. Entschieden. (Strong. Decisive.)
[Ex. 1 at 0:01; Ex. 2 at 1:09; Ex. 3 at 2:28; Ex. 4 at 3:21;
Ex. 4a at 5:09; Ex. 5 at 9:38; Ex. 6 at 10:14; Ex. 7 at 10:26;
Ex. 8 at 11:35; Ex. 9 at 15:01; Ex. 10 at 18:41]
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, Munich, May 1967
NOW, JUST A COUPLE OF BITS OF BUSINESS TO TEND TO:
PROMISES TO KEEP -- OR TO DISCRETELY RESCHEDULE
Early in Part 1, you may recall, I offered a sneak peek at the end of the work we were attending to, clarifiying that "the reference was not to the end of the Mahler Third Symphony but to the end of the first movement." I added, though, that "as a matter of fact, in Part 2 of this post we are going to sneak-peek the end of the symphony." Which is just what we're going to do just that. But first --
HAVING TAKEN IN "PART 1" OF MAHLER 3 MORE
FULLY, MIGHTN'T WE WONDER WHAT COMES NEXT?
Knowing how fond Mahler was of giving us something we least expected, are we really surprised that the second movement of Mahler 3 seems so utterly different from the first? Maybe it shouldn't be surprising, then, that the performance that really popped out at me as engaging most intimately, most affectingly, most charmingly with the pastoral yet elegant, gracious yet pointed unworldliness of the second movement follows the performance of the first movement that back in the July 23 post had me so riveted with its turbulently passionate commitment to its earth-moving crazinesses?
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D:
i. Kräftig. Entschieden. (Strong. Decisive.)
Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. BBC Legends, recorded for broadcast in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, May 3, 1969, released in 1998
ii. Tempo di menuetto. Sehr mässig. (Tempo of a minuet. Very moderate [or reasonable])
[NOTE: To this Mahler adds, in italics: "Ja, nicht eilen" ("Yes, don't hurry") and Grazioso (Gracious)
A quick note from Jack Diether (again from his booklet essay for the Horenstein-Unicorn Mahler 3): The second movement, originally titled "What the flowers in the meadow tell me," became simply Tempo di menuetto, in A major. It was, Mahler said, "carefree" as only flowers are. "Here," writes Bruno Walter, "we might think of everything that endears itself to our soul by serene charm and gentle grace." It is composed for a much smaller orchestra than the first movement, and characterized by a particularly delicate use of percussion instruments (without drums), along with two harps.
Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. BBC Legends, recorded for broadcast in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, May 3, 1969, released 1978
OKAY, PEEKING AHEAD TO THE END OF MAHLER 3:
CAN THIS BE THE SAME SYMPHONY WE SET OUT IN?
i. Kräftig. Entschieden. (Strong. Decisive.)
vi. Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden. (Slow. Peaceful. Felt.)
Again, here's Jack D.: "Contrary to custom," the composer declared, "I have ended both my Second and Third Symphonies with an Adagio -- the higher form in which everything is resolved into quiet being. I could almost call the Third's finale 'What God tells me,' in the sense that God can only be understood as love. Yet there is a connection, which my listneres may scarcely notice, between the firs movement and the last. What was formerly rigid and lifeless has now reached the highest state of consciousness: inarticulate sound has atanied the highest degree of articulation."
Bruno Walter says of this D major finale: "In the last movement, words are stilled [ the fourth and fifth movements are both vocal settings -- Ed/] -- for what language can utter heavenly love more powerfully and forcefully than music itself? The Adagio, with its broad, solemn melodic line, is, as a whole -- and despite passages of burning pain -- eloquent of comfort and grace. It is a single sound of heartfelt and exalted feelings, in which the whole giant structure finds its musical culmination."
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA, recorded in Symphony Hall, Oct. 10-11, 1966
i. Kräftig. Entschieden. (Strong. Decisive.)
vi. Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden. (Slow. Peaceful. Felt.)
WDR (West German Radio) Symphony Orchestra (Cologne), Semyon Bychkov, cond. Avie, based on live recordings from the Philharmonie, Cologne, January 2002
I thought we ought to hear a little of the Leinsdorf M3 for which Neville C. wrote his "Appreciation," and I thought an interesting contrast might be the broadly paced but well maintained Bychkov-WDR performance.
TO RETURN TO PART 1 OF THE POST, CLICK HERE
CAN WE PAUSE OVER MAHLER'S NOTION THAT HE
ENDED BOTH MAHLER 2 AND 3 WITH AN ADAGIO?
Okay, we have the concluding Adagio of Mahler 3 in our ears. By way of a refresher, here's the fifth and final movement of Mahler 3, the Resurrection Symphony. (Sorry, but since I was making a new file of the Mehta-Decca recording, I couldn't resist tacking on the fourth movement, one of Mahler's most haunting songs, the Des Knaben Wunderhorn setting "Urlicht" ("Primal Light" which nobody sings more beautifully than Christa Ludwig, especially here in her absolute vocal prime. As luck would have it, the Norman-Maazel "Urlicht" was already in the archive, so I plucked it out; entirely different kind of voice, dramatic soprano with a full-fledge contralto lower range, and nobody, not even Jessye N. sings "Urlicht" pretty darned beautifully too.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection):
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light"): Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Very solemn, but simple)
v. Im Tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the Scherzo [In gently flowing movement])
[You can find texts (first two stanzas by F. G. Klopstock,"The Resurrection," the rest by Mahler) and English translations here]
[v. at 5:23] Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano (in iv.-v.); Ileana Cotrubas, soprano (in v.); Vienna State Opera Chorus (in iv.), Vienna Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. Decca, recorded in the Sofiensaal, February 18=975
Jessye Norman, soprano (in iv.-v.); Eva Marton, soprano (in v.); Vienna State Opera Concert Chorus (in iv.), Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded in the Musikverein, Jan. 5-10, 1983
Two Adagios -- right! Like peas in a pod! Symphonies had theretofore almost always been constructed with fast outer movements -- i.e., normally in the 1. and positions, back when they customariy had four movements. And whatever else the finale of the Resurrection is, it's not a quick or even quickish finale bracketing the symphony with its quick or quickish opening movement. Nosiree, it sure isn't that!
ONE LAST PROMISE TO KEEP, OR NEGOTIATE
If you remember Sunday night's pre-post, "Coming momentarily (if not sooner): An adventure in musical metamorphosis -- presented in a pair of mutually accessible parts," in addition to the three sets of audio clips representing the three stages of the "metamorphosis" from the principal theme of the finale of the Brahms First Symphony to the opening of the Mahler Third Symphony to what Neville Cardus described as "our Brahms theme changed to a brazen common strain" (our Ex. 6), I added two unidentified clips, which I pointed out were clearly similar and just as clearly not the same.
The follow-up to that pair of clips was supposed to lead us into some considerations regarding this Brahms-to-Mahler axis, and the obvious fact that with the leap into the chaos of the first movement of the Mahler Third "we not in BrahmsWorld anymore." Well, Part 2 of this post, like Part 1, has grown into something already way too extended, and the last thing I wanted to do was stretch it into a three-parter. So instead the intended remainder is going to be spun off into a related but separate post, scheduled for Sunday, when I hope to begin returning to a regular weekly schedule.
The least I can do, though, is to identify those clips, and with the identification invite you to ponder them some more. So here they are again.
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68: ii. Andante sostenuto
Initial performing version
Published (final) version:
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. Telarc, recorded in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, January 1997
SO, THE SCHEDULE NOW LOOKS LIKE THIS
NEXT UP (this Sunday):
Are Brahms's and Mahler's worlds really that far apart?
AND AFTER THAT:
Filling out the journey from first to last movement of Mahler 3
TO RETURN TO PART 1 OF THE POST, CLICK HERE
#
No comments:
Post a Comment