Today we think of Gustav Mahler as a composer, first and foremost. Occasionally we remember that his wife Alma was a major figure in the arts scene with her relationshipss - including while she was married to Mahler with the architect Walter Gropius - with a number of significant men.
We should also not forget that Mahler was considered one the greatest conductors of his time, completely reforming in just three short years, 1908-1911, two major New York City Cultural institutions, first the Metropolitan Opera, and then the New York Philharmonic.
Mahler Took Manhattan, an op ed in today's New York Times by classical music critic Peter G. Davis, explores the impact of those years, and the special relationship the Philharmonic still maintains with Mahler's music, with Davis offering some interesting words, with which I will begin below the fold, where I will also offer some of Mahler's music.
First the words of Davis:
Indeed, even some Philharmonic musicians acknowledge feeling an extra sense of commitment when they play a Mahler symphony today, simply because the composer had once lived and worked with their predecessors.
Bernstein certainly agreed. Perhaps more than any conductor of his generation, he strongly identified with Mahler and helped bring his music into the mainstream of the orchestral repertory. “I am Mahler,” Bernstein said on more than one occasion, implying not so much an actual reincarnation as a repository of his all-embracing musical spirit. Small wonder that Bernstein is buried with the score of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony placed over his heart.
Mahler's life overlapped that of many other significant musicians. While at the Vienna Conservatory he attended lectures by Anton Bruckner. Although he never formally studies with the older man, one can hear clear musical influences in Mahler's symphonies. He was close friend with Hugo Wolf, one of the great composers of Lieder - art songs - and the two men are among the greatest writers of music for the human voice. We know Tschaikovsky attended at least one performance conducted by Mahler.
It is interesting that in his own time Mahler was, like Bernstein, very much more honored as a conductor than as a composer, as great a composer as he was. Both men had to fit their composing in among their tasks as a conductor, which is why in Mahler's case is output is relatively slight for one of such importance - his symphonies, his songs, and one piano quartet. His symphonies were considered 'endless' and did firmly land in the repertory for than four decades after his death, in part because the Nazis prohibited their performance: Mahler was raised Jewish, but converted to Catholicism in the 1890s to obtain the position of director of the Vienna Court Opera in 1897. Still, his Jewish roots were more offensive to the Nazis than the strong influence German philosophy had on his composition. It was only after World War II that the world began again to rediscover the power and genius and beauty of Mahler's music. It is fair to say that Leonard Bernstein was one person who played an important role in that. So did one of Bernstein's mentors, Bruno Walter. Walter also played another creative role in explaining to Thomas Mann enough about music and Mahler to have had a strong influence in the creation of Death in Venice, published ironically the year after Mahler's death. The character of Gustav von Eschenbach is largely based on that of Mahler.
There are multiple sources online to learn about Mahler, including going to the webpage of the Gustav Mahler Society, founded in 1955.
I am trained as a musician from my earliest days. I was far more a performer than a conductor, and did very little composition. It is my experience of conducting that leads me to the last set of remarks I wish to offer, before turning to the music with which I will end this posting.
I have been fortunate to have performed under some very talented conductors. Of course I have also seen and heard the performances of many others, but it was the experience of rehearsal first and foremost that impressed. Much of this experience occurred in Interlochen Michigan, at what was then National Music Camp, which I attended from 1954-1960 and also in 1962. Some of the people under whom I performed will be people whose names you may not know. A Clyde Roller, Orien Dalley (whose son John was the long-time second violinist of the Guarneri Quartet), and Kenneth Jewell (beloved as a choral conductor and famous for the work with his professional chorale).
But first and foremost was the late Margaret Hillis, founder and first director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and professor at Northwestern, who died in 1998. Soem conductors are tyrants. Others have a different approach, as did Hillis, who could be just as demanding as those of a more imperious temperament, but put so much of herself into what she was doing that she would sweat through her clothes at rehearsal.
At rehearsal is where the real work of conducting begins. One has to meld together a diverse group of musicians, perhaps of varying skill, into a common purpose. If also working with soloist one has to balance their version of the work with one's own, again to a common purpose. I have never experienced anyone who did it better than Hillis. Perhaps I can illustrate it by this: when we were rehearsing for a complete performance of the Messiah, at the end of every rehearsal the chorus and then later the orchestra would give her a standing ovation.
I also learned a lot from the late William Heartt Reese, long time conductor at Haverford College, who had after his own graduation from Amherst simultaneously obtained a doctorate from the U of Berlin and certification as a conductor from the Hochschule fur Music. Reese was somewhat more temperamental, but he never lost sight of the fact that he was NOT working with professionals, so that he had to challenge us, hold us back, tantalize us, then give us a taste of what we could do just before the performance so that he could - especially for the untrained voices of the choruses in which I sang under him - carry ourselves through partially on adrenaline.
I conducted a capella choruses in Orthodox Churches for more than a decade. I have served as the person who prepared the musical direction and the singers for performances of Three Penny Opera at Haverford (actually conducted by Reese, who paid me the great compliment of telling the pit orchestra that I knew the music better than he did and he was following my ideas) and of Seussical and Little Shop of Horrors at the school at which I now teach. In each case the work is done painstakingly in rehearsal. Sometimes one has to take apart a section, or even a complete movement or piece, and then put it back together. You have to teach your musicians to listen. With singers and yes even with instrumentalists you have to have them grasp the idea of what they are expressing, of how to enunciate words, how to make entrances, or come off notes.
I am not a trained conductor. I am good because I am a teacher, and as a long-time musician I can hear and translate what I hear to the perceptions of those I am leading, to help them hear and understand their role in the ensemble importance. It is a highly skilled task, one that enables the conception of the creator to come alive.
But it pales when compared to the actual creative task, particularly of works as massive as the symphonies of Mahler. I think Mahler's symphonies work better than those of Bruckner in part because he understood as well the task of the conductor - one can if so able to look through the scores of the symphonies and realize the immensity of the task before one, and yet clearly see how to put it together. I find as a result that Mahler's symphonies have a far greater depth and emotional impact than those of Bruckner.
I would expect that the influence went both ways - that having conducted works as varied as operas from Mozart through Wagner and later, of symphonic works of the complete repertoire, that Mahler was able to conceive in his mind how to put together the remarkable orchestration in his symphonies.
It is ironic that Mahler never composed an opera, given that he was one of the greatest operatic conductors ever. He clearly understood the human voice - that is clear in both his symphonies and his songs. We will have to cherish what he did leave behind.
And now, to the music.
First, here is the ending of his one piece of chamber music, the Piano Quartet:
A selection from his song, his fifth Rucker Lieder, performed by the late, great, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who like me attended Interlochen, although I did not know her there. It is unfortunate that she died in her early 50s:
And now to the symphonies. There are so many selections I could offer. I will be brief, and encourage you to explore on your own.
First, the beginning of the massive (which is why it is known as the Symphony of a Thousand) 8th Symphony:
And in a different performance, the ending of the same Symphony, conducted by Simon Rattle, one of the most gifted of the current conductors:
The 2nd movement of the Fourth Symphony, conducted by Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic:
I mentioned that Bruno Walter was an advocate of Mahler. Here is a live recording from 1948 of the beginning of the 2nd Symphony, the Resurrection:
My wife asked me to include this, the slow 6th movement of the 3rd symphony. This is the first part - if you can, you might want to find an occasion to simply sit and listen to the entire movement - my wife considers this perhaps as sublime as any movement he wrote:
Bernstein as a conductor may have been most associated with the 2nd Symphony. There is a famous performance with the NY Philharmonic that inspired composer Luciano Berio to compose his own magnificent Sinfonia. Let me offer just a small taste of what that conductor could do with this composer, with the ending of that symphony in a performance with the London Symphony:
The Adagietto of the 5th Symphony is perhaps as well known as any music by Mahler. It appropriately plays in a role in the filmed version of Mann's Death in Venice. Here is a performance by the Chicago Symphony, conducted by Daniel Barenboim:
I am going to trust my wife's taste, and return to that incredible movement of the 3rd Symphony, now the ending. This version is conducted by Bernstein, and i strongly suggest if you really want to understand the genius of Mahler you do nothing but listen -- and if you want, watch - for the next few moments. And let me now end my words, because there is nothing I can add after this most sublime music, so I now wish you Peace: