Mahler:  Music and Musical Style

Mahler's importance to the evolution of modern music is very great;  the early works of Schoenberg and Berg show the influence of Mahler's concepts.

Better known as a conductor in his lifetime, he primarily composed vocal music and symphonic works.  He was inspired by

• the concept of universal art, like that of Bruckner which ultimately stemmed from Wagner;
• and the simple folk melodies of the Austrian countryside, that could also be heard in the pastoral sections of Beethoven's symphonies.

Mahler directed the Vienna Opera from 1897-1907 and the New York Philharmonic Society from 1909-1911.  He brought the Vienna Opera to greatness by:

• tightening its musical discipline
• raising performance standards
• collaborating with important visual artists

Style

Mahler was

• NOT an innovator in harmony,
• rather, he brought the Romantic era to a culmination
• by virtue of the expansiveness of his emotional expression
• and the grandiose design of his musical structures.

General style traits

• tendency toward constant variation - nothing recurs exactly (evolution of ideas)
• polyphonic textures
• motivic relationships set in a succession of episodes
• use of folksongs
• added extra beats to vary the traditional metric feel
• used drones and ostinati
• frequent modulations
• contrapuntally combined melodic lines with no regard for coincidental dissonance

Melodic style

• followed Viennese style
• tempered by affection for folksongs
• fit one of four basic categories
• Hungarian-Slavonic and German folk songs
• Brahms/Schubert-style Viennese melodies (expressively dissonant)
• Chorale or chant melodies
• Nature motives (bird-calls, cowbells, etc.)

Harmonic style

• tends toward linearity in instrumental music
• more traditional harmonic progressions in vocal music
• much diatonicism
• some chromaticism
• most often uses major triad at final cadence
• frequent modulations
• sometimes ends a work in a different key than it began
• Sym. 2 - C --> Eb
• Sym. 4 - G --> E
• Sym. 5 - C#min --> D
• Sym. 7 - D --> Db

Orchestration style

• large orchestral forces / palette of sounds
• used massive forces sparingly
• often thin, transparent texture
• preferred "higher" winds sound
• colorful
• use of voices - preferred women's voices
• occasional use of "scordatura"
• preferred color and variety over hugeness of sound

Formal Construction

• Movements of symphonies are usually in a traditional form
• Symphonies 1, 2, 3, and 4 utilized forms that resemble Sonata-Allegro
• Symphonies 5, 6, and 7 approach Classical forms but on a large, Romantic scale

Vocal Music

Mahler was very literary minded and wrote many vocal works.  Three important early works are:

• The Song of Lament (cantata, 1880)
• Songs of a Wayfarer (song cycle, 1885)
• The Youth's Magic Horn ("Wunderhorn") (song cycle, 1885)

Later:

• Kindertotenlieder (Children Death Songs)
• Song of the Earth (a huge song cycle, 1908)
• Das Lied von der Erde (song cycle for contralto or baritone and tenor with orchestra)

Mahler wrote NO OPERAS.

Symphonies

He wrote 9 symphonies (plus one incomplete).

• The first four had programs, which Mahler later dropped.
• They also incorporated material from his earlier songs.
• Symphonies 2, 3, and 4 all used voices.

Symphony No. 1 (1889) - "Titan"

• programmatic (the hero's progress through trials of life and death)
• material used from "Songs of a Wayfarer" in the 1st and last movements
• 3rd movement uses minor mode "Frere Jacques" melody as a funeral march

Symphony No. 2 (1888-94) - "Resurrection"

• the 1st movement began as a tone poem
• some use of "Wunderhorn" songs in other movements
• 2nd movement has the easy, slow waltz rhythm of the Austrian Ländler
• 4th movement is an alto solo
• finale (after an orchestral section depicting the day of resurrection) includes soloists, chorus, and orchestra (like Beethoven's 9th)

Symphony No. 3 (1896)

• huge orchestral requirements
• 6 movements

Symphony No. 4

• last movement is a soprano solo

Symphony No. 5 (1904)

Symphony No. 6 (1904)

Symphony No. 7 (1905)

Symphony No. 8 - "Symphony of a Thousand"

• a secular, Romantic approach to religion
• a monumental choral symphony in two parts
• "Veni, creator spiritus" (a Latin hymn)
• Goethe's "Faust"

Symphony No. 9 (1909)

Symphony No. 10 (1910) - unfinished