Mahler Quoting Mahler
frank forman
Deryk Barker <dba...@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
[snip]
>Which reminds me: Slatkin claims that Mahler never quoted from one
>symphony in another; leaving aside the fact that 3 & 4 share a common
>genesis, there's still the trumpet call from 4 (i) which opens 5, and
>- depending how long a 'quote' has to be - I can hear references to
>the 3rd in the 8th, to the 1st in the 9th....
For many, many years (7th-11th grades) the only Mahler I knew was the
First symphony, but I knew it inside-out. In the 11th grade, my high
school English teacher invited me and a friend to his apartment to hear
the Second and the Fourth. I heard Mahler quoting himself over and over
again! This was an experience I'll never be able to recapture, since I
know all his symphonies well, in fact all-too-well. It's too bad, in a
way, that teenagers have far bigger allowances (in terms of records, at
any rate, than I had--I was born in 1944), for if we like one Mahler
symphony, well, we'll just go out an buy them all and never be able to
have the wonderful experience I had.
Frank
Deryk Barker
: In article <4iqj2i$2...@daria.cdnow.com>,
: Deryk Barker <dba...@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
: [snip]
: >Which reminds me: Slatkin claims that Mahler never quoted from one
: >symphony in another; leaving aside the fact that 3 & 4 share a common
: >genesis, there's still the trumpet call from 4 (i) which opens 5, and
: >- depending how long a 'quote' has to be - I can hear references to
: >the 3rd in the 8th, to the 1st in the 9th....
: If my ears didn't deceive me, isn't this trumpet call that Mahler uses in
: 4 & 5 actually a pretty close quote from one that Haydn uses in one of his
: London symphonies (102 maybe)? A quote of a quote of a quote.
Second movement of 100, the 'Military'.
--
Deryk.
===========================================================================
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Across the pale parabola of Joy |
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada | |
|email: dba...@camosun.bc.ca | Ralston McTodd |
|phone: +1 604 370 4452 | (Songs of Squalor). |
===========================================================================
Tobocman
>symphony in another
This inter-symphonic quoting is one of the most endearing traits of
Mahler, and also, IMO, one of the most modern aspects of his symphonic
style. Not only inter-symphonic, but within one symphony, there is often
quoting with variation of previous movements of the same symphony (i.e.,
the 5th symphony's finale). Actually, it's a post-modern trait, where the
payoff is in the mind of the listener (similar to the cubist movement in
visual art). Mahler's practice of incorporating these quotes, as well as
disparate elements of high and low art in the same symphony point the way
beyond modernism to concepts of non-linear time and other tenets of
post-modernism.
David
Los Angeles
Pultroon
[snip]
>Which reminds me: Slatkin claims that Mahler never quoted from one
>symphony in another; leaving aside the fact that 3 & 4 share a common
>genesis, there's still the trumpet call from 4 (i) which opens 5, and
>- depending how long a 'quote' has to be - I can hear references to
>the 3rd in the 8th, to the 1st in the 9th....
If my ears didn't deceive me, isn't this trumpet call that Mahler uses in
4 & 5 actually a pretty close quote from one that Haydn uses in one of his
London symphonies (102 maybe)? A quote of a quote of a quote.
Andy
Jose Marques
>This inter-symphonic quoting is one of the most endearing traits of
>Mahler, and also, IMO, one of the most modern aspects of his symphonic
>style. Not only inter-symphonic, but within one symphony, there is often
>quoting with variation of previous movements of the same symphony (i.e.,
>the 5th symphony's finale).
Mahler has also something that I believe originated with him:
*anticipation* of the Finale in previous movements of the symphony.
Examples:
Sym #1 I/305-357 anticipate IV/574-628
Sym #2, I/270-294 anticipate V/289-313
Sym #3 I/347-368, and 857-862 anticipate VI
Sym #5 II/464-519 anticipate V/711-748
Jose Marques
jmar...@super.zippo.com
August Helmbright
>Pultroon (pult...@aol.com) wrote:
>: In article <4iqj2i$2...@daria.cdnow.com>,
>: Deryk Barker <dba...@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
>Second movement of 100, the 'Military'.
I had never made the connection, but it does sound very similar. I had
always assumed that the trumpet fanfare was a dark rendering of the
opening of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
Dream music.
August
Montag
> >Slatkin claims that Mahler never quoted from one
> >symphony in another
>
> This inter-symphonic quoting is one of the most endearing traits of
> Mahler, and also, IMO, one of the most modern aspects of his symphonic
> style. Not only inter-symphonic, but within one symphony, there is often
> quoting with variation of previous movements of the same symphony (i.e.,
> the 5th symphony's finale). Actually, it's a post-modern trait, where the
> payoff is in the mind of the listener (similar to the cubist movement in
> visual art). Mahler's practice of incorporating these quotes, as well as
> disparate elements of high and low art in the same symphony point the way
> beyond modernism to concepts of non-linear time and other tenets of
> post-modernism.
Only being familiar with literature and to a lesser degree visual arts,
I'm not too knowledgeable on this point. Does classical music follow a
different ideological progressiont than these other art forms? I've seen
Mahler most often mentioned as a Post-Romanticist, if anything. If he
died, as I remember, in 1911, that would place him in the very center of
Modernist thought, or at least in its nascent stages.
In any case, non-linear time is _not_ a Post-modern concept. If
one finds non-linearity in anything Post-modern it is only because it has
been carried over from Modernism. Even if it is a Post-modern trait in
music, it is something chronologically that was begun by the other arts
and artists at the beginning of the century (Stein, Eliot, et.al.).
Also, I'm not really familiar with what you mean by the payoff
being in the mind of the listener.
Mark James
> >: If my ears didn't deceive me, isn't this trumpet call that Mahler uses in
> >: 4 & 5 actually a pretty close quote from one that Haydn uses in one of his
> >: London symphonies (102 maybe)? A quote of a quote of a quote.
>
> >Second movement of 100, the 'Military'.
>
> I had never made the connection, but it does sound very similar. I had
> always assumed that the trumpet fanfare was a dark rendering of the
> opening of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
> Dream music.
I'd always thought it was Mahler 5 paying homage to Beethoven 5.
X
Peter and Kathleen Greenstein
>: If my ears didn't deceive me, isn't this trumpet call that Mahler
uses in
>: 4 & 5 actually a pretty close quote from one that Haydn uses in one
of his
>: London symphonies (102 maybe)? A quote of a quote of a quote.
>
>Second movement of 100, the 'Military'.
>
>--
>Deryk.
>======================================================================
====
>|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. |
>======================================================================
====
Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture makes this a quote of a
quote of a quote of a quote?? - Peter
Tobocman
>> always assumed that the trumpet fanfare was a dark rendering of the
>>opening of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
>> Dream music.
>I'd always thought it was Mahler 5 paying homage to Beethoven 5.
I think the trumpet call in the 3rd is an homage to Beethoven's 5th (same
rhythm, different notes), and that all his other trumpet calls were a
reference to this origianl refence.
Chuck Ross
Barker) wrote:
> Tobocman (tobo...@aol.com) wrote:
> : >> I had never made the connection, but it does sound very similar. I had
> : >> always assumed that the trumpet fanfare was a dark rendering of the
> : >>opening of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
> : >> Dream music.
>
> : >I'd always thought it was Mahler 5 paying homage to Beethoven 5.
>
> : I think the trumpet call in the 3rd is an homage to Beethoven's 5th (same
> : rhythm, different notes),
>
> Nope. The opening of M5 uses triplets, whereas the opening of B5 most
> definitely does not - although many recordings and performances soud
> like it.
Mahler quotes Mahler quite a lot, in various symphonies, from songs to
symphony, and others, but he also quotes other composers.
I almost fell over when some liner notes pointed out to me his quoting of
Handel at the very end of the First Symphony; from the "Hallelujah
Chorus". If you haven't connected the two yet, just listen.
--
____________________________________________________________________
Chuck Ross KC9FL South Holland, IL ckr...@ais.net
Deryk Barker
: >> I had never made the connection, but it does sound very similar. I had
: >> always assumed that the trumpet fanfare was a dark rendering of the
: >>opening of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
: >> Dream music.
: >I'd always thought it was Mahler 5 paying homage to Beethoven 5.
: I think the trumpet call in the 3rd is an homage to Beethoven's 5th (same
: rhythm, different notes),
Nope. The opening of M5 uses triplets, whereas the opening of B5 most
definitely does not - although many recordings and performances soud
like it.
--
Michael Haupt
: : >Which reminds me: Slatkin claims that Mahler never quoted from one
: : >symphony in another; leaving aside the fact that 3 & 4 share a common
: : >genesis, there's still the trumpet call from 4 (i) which opens 5, and
: : >- depending how long a 'quote' has to be - I can hear references to
: : >the 3rd in the 8th, to the 1st in the 9th....
: : 4 & 5 actually a pretty close quote from one that Haydn uses in one of his
: : London symphonies (102 maybe)? A quote of a quote of a quote.
Don't forget the beginning of the 3rd movement of the 9th symphony: There
are two quotes from the 5th. Mahler quotes the beginnings of the 2rd and 3rd
movements.
--
per aspera ad asthma, Michael
E-Mail: gl...@appl2.hrz.uni-siegen.de
or: ha...@wad.org
Haig Utidjian
This is _such_ an interesting thread! The Haydn did remind me of the Mahler
(I somehow became familiar with the Mahler earlier than with the Haydn!), but
the similarity with the opening of the Mendelssohn had not hiterto occurred
to me. Who knows whether Mahler made either of these connections in a conscious
way...!
My compliments, gentlemen, and best wishes!
Haig.
--
For my biography and details of my conducting engagements please refer
to URL http://www-control.eng.cam.ac.uk/hu/hu.html
Johannes Roehl
>
>This is _such_ an interesting thread! The Haydn did remind me of the Mahler
>(I somehow became familiar with the Mahler earlier than with the Haydn!), but
>the similarity with the opening of the Mendelssohn had not hiterto occurred
>to me. Who knows whether Mahler made either of these connections in a conscious
>way...!
>
I think one has to be a little careful there. It is definitely right that
Mahler quoted a lot, but these trumpet signals and march rythms occuring all
over the place, are IMHO not quotations, but almost like a figure in baroque
music theory, which is so common that everybody knows what it means and uses it
more or less without being conscious of it.
And as far as quotations are concerned Mahler was not the first:
Haydn The Seasons quote symph. No.94. II (originally a folksong theme afaik)
Mozart Don Giovanni 2. Act non piu vrai and other stuff by contemporaries
Beethoven (9th symph.) quates the first 3 mvmts and Bruckner quote himself
frequently (esp. 5 finale)
Who finds more (there certainly are more)
Have fun
Johannes
>My compliments, gentlemen, and best wishes!
>
>Haig.
>
>
>
>
>--
>
>
>For my biography and details of my conducting engagements please refer
>to URL http://www-control.eng.cam.ac.uk/hu/hu.html
--
===============================================================================
Johannes Roehl At night, they enter at Nepal
Department of Physics And pierce the lover and his lass
University of Washington From underneath the bed - you call
Email: ro...@u.washington.edu It wonderful; I call it crass
-John Updike
===============================================================================
Charles Ehrlich
August Helmbright <alhe...@icnet.net> wrote:
>dba...@camosun.bc.ca (Deryk Barker) wrote:
>
>>Pultroon (pult...@aol.com) wrote:
>>: In article <4iqj2i$2...@daria.cdnow.com>,
>>: Deryk Barker <dba...@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>>: 4 & 5 actually a pretty close quote from one that Haydn uses in one of his
>>: London symphonies (102 maybe)? A quote of a quote of a quote.
>
>
>always assumed that the trumpet fanfare was a dark rendering of the
>opening of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
>Dream music.
Actually, I've always taken Beethoven's 5th as the model for Mahler's 5th.
The pervading rhythm is short-short-short-long. There are other similarities.
Charles Ehrlich
Wolfson College (Oxford)
Netscape User
like Friedrich Schlegel, who described "Romantic" art as "a progressive
and universal art," eventually claimed that Sophocles was a Romantic,
you post-modernists now want to claim that Mahler's music and, even more
astonishingly, cubism were proto-post-modernist art. In other words, if
any soi-disant post-modernist likes it, it's post-modern. Cubism was
the signal formalist movement of early modernist painting, so it is
particularly amazing to see it subsumed under the rubric of post
modernism. As for the mixture or "high" and "low" art in Mahler's
symphonies, that mixture was a goal of early Romanticism and Schumann
did much the same in such works as Carnaval and Davidsbuendlertaenze (on
which subject see the fascinating discussion in Charles Rosen' ROMANTIC
GENERATION). As for the inter-movement references in Mahler's
symphonies, they are not only not new to postmodernism, they are not new
to Mahler. The scherzo of the Mahler 6th is a parody of the first mvmt
of the same symphony - just as the scherzo of Beethoven's Hammerklavier
sonata is a parody of the first movement of that work. As for multiple
and non-linear time as evidence of postmodernism, have you not heard of
Richard Wagner, Balzac, and Alban Berg? The development of leitmotivs
in Wagner is intermittent, constantly interrupted only to be continued
later, etc, and they play a role analogous to the recurring characters
in Balzac's Comedie Humaine: there is no one definitive root through
the Human Comedy. Moreover, the phenomenon of "multiple and non-linear
time" in the late Beethoven Quartets was explored in articles in that
arch formalist journal of music analysis, PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC, in
the 1960's. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Post
modernism is only the final decadence of the enlightenment. (I can't
resist ending with a nasty swipe at post modernism made by the art
historian Henri Zerner, who said, when asked by a musician to define
postmodernism in painting: Once there were paintings that had a meaning
and a reference [that is, there was meaningful represenatational art].
Then there was painting that had a meaning but no reference [abstract
art]. Now there are paintings with reference that are completely
meaningless.]
TAN KAR GEE
: Sym #1 I/305-357 anticipate IV/574-628
: Sym #2, I/270-294 anticipate V/289-313
: Sym #3 I/347-368, and 857-862 anticipate VI
: Sym #5 II/464-519 anticipate V/711-748
What about Sym #3 First movt. and Sym #9 3rd movt.? You left it out.
Kar Gee
Fred Goldrich
Juan I. Cahis <jic...@ibm.net> wrote:
>
>... I strongly suspect that if a Conductor performs the opening
>of Beethoven's 5 as it is written ([Rest]-ta-TA-ta-TAAAN, I hope you
>understand me), many people in the audience will think: what is this
>Conductor doing?
I would certainly think that. Why are you so sure that
there ought to be a secondary accent on the second quarter of the
bar? Would you perform all appearances of the motive that way?
Would you conduct it 'in two' rather than 'in one,' as is
conventionally done? Note that, though the movement is in 2/4
time, Beethoven's own metronome mark specifies a half-note pulse.
-- Fred Goldrich
>Note: Please, forgive me for my bad English, I am trying to improve it!
Your English is very good!
--
Fred Goldrich
gold...@panix.com
Juan I. Cahis
dba...@camosun.bc.ca (Deryk Barker) wrote:
>The opening of Mahler's 5 uses triplets, whereas the opening of
>Beethoven's 5 most definitely does not - although many
>recordings and performances sound like it.
Yes, and I strongly suspect that if a Conductor performs the opening
of Beethoven's 5 as it is written ([Rest]-ta-TA-ta-TAAAN, I hope you
understand me), many people in the audience will think: what is this
Conductor doing?
Thanks
Juan I. Cahis
Santiago de Chile (South America)
Email: jic...@ibm.net
Note: Please, forgive me for my bad English, I am trying to improve it!
I hate to look at the Spanish-to-English dictionnary when I am writting!
Steve Lee
>
> : I think the trumpet call in the 3rd is an homage to Beethoven's 5th (same
> : rhythm, different notes),
>
> Nope. The opening of M5 uses triplets, whereas the opening of B5 most
> definitely does not - although many recordings and performances soud
> like it.
>
> --
> Deryk.
So Mahler is quoting the rhythm as often performed, not as notated.
sfms
I really hate these labels put on music....
>I'm not too knowledgeable on this point. Does classical music follow a
^^^^^^^^^
>different ideological progressiont than these other art forms? I've seen
>Mahler most often mentioned as a Post-Romanticist,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I try not to classify composers this way -- somehow it lessens the
impact of their work (to me, anyway); if forced I would call him a
late romantic.
>if anything. If he
>died, as I remember, in 1911, that would place him in the very center of
>Modernist thought, or at least in its nascent stages.
I was taught that paradigms in music were generally a little behind the
times when compared to other art forms. But then, how can anyone say
that the romantic era ended at any specific year, month or day; some
composers continue working in any style after it's era is 'over'. I
guess this is one of the reasons I don't like the terms "Classical",
"Romantic", "Neo-whatever", etc....
my two cents....
Ross
Deryk Barker
: In article <4ja3m0$p...@daria.cdnow.com>, dba...@camosun.bc.ca (Deryk
: Barker) wrote:
If Mahler had not himself been a conductor I might buy that....
Juan I. Cahis
gold...@panix.com (Fred Goldrich) wrote:
>In article <4jecps$33...@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>,
>Juan I. Cahis <jic...@ibm.net> wrote:
>>
>>... I strongly suspect that if a Conductor performs the opening
>>of Beethoven's 5 as it is written ([Rest]-ta-TA-ta-TAAAN, I hope you
>>understand me), many people in the audience will think: what is this
>>Conductor doing?
> I would certainly think that. Why are you so sure that
>there ought to be a secondary accent on the second quarter of the
>bar? Would you perform all appearances of the motive that way?
> Would you conduct it 'in two' rather than 'in one,' as is
>conventionally done? Note that, though the movement is in 2/4
>time, Beethoven's own metronome mark specifies a half-note pulse.
> -- Fred Goldrich
Sorry, but I am not a Conductor and I have not now the score with me,
but please check how most Conductors perform the *very beginning* of
the movement (in my opinion like a triplet) and the same motiv in the
rest of the movement (more or less as I said it before), and it is the
same rythmic pattern!!!
Gerry Seixas
>...as far as quotations are concerned Mahler was not the first:
>Haydn The Seasons quote symph. No.94. II (originally a folksong theme afaik)
>Mozart Don Giovanni 2. Act non piu vrai and other stuff by contemporaries
>Beethoven (9th symph.) quotes the first 3 mvmts
>Bruckner quotes himself frequently (esp. 5 finale)
>Who finds more (there certainly are more)
My own personal favorite is the "Poco meno presto" section (only
about 20 bars) of the scherzo of Brahms' 4th. Listen carefully.
Gerry
Jose Marques
No, I didn't. I am talking about anticipations of the Finale on the
early movements of *the same* symphony.
--
Jose Marques
jmar...@super.zippo.com
William H. Pittman
movement of Das Lied von der Erde, which is pretty universally considered
to be one of Mahler's symphonies.
William H. Pittman
Per Lundgren
might be the grotesque minor variation on
the traditional "Hoch soll er leben"-melody just
at (after the hammerblows) the climaxes in #6.
If this is an intentional quote, it is sooo good.
Per Lundgren, M.Sc.
Dept. Solid State Electronics
Chalmers University of Technology
S-412 96 Gothenburg
SWEDEN
Jose Marques
>Can you really call the use of a section of a piece for the finale of that
>same piece a quote or is it really just a compositional technique to
>resolve tensions that have been created?
If you read back the messages of this thread, you will see that in this
branch the subject moved from inter-symphonic quote to "quotes" within
the same symphony. I don't know if it is right to call this a quote, but
anyway I didn't use the term "quote", but referred to "anticipations"
of the Finale in earlier movements.
I proposed that this is an original contribution of Mahler to the
symphonic structure. It isn't the usual device of bringing back themes
of the former movements in the Finale, which Beethoven had already done
in the Ninth. What I mean is that, for example, in the first movement
of a symphony we have a small glimpse of what will be a large section in
the Finale. Look for the examples above and you will see what I mean.
--
Jose Marques
jmar...@super.zippo.com
Steve Lee
Barker) wrote:
> Steve Lee (sl...@sunbelt.net) wrote:
> : >
> : > Nope. The opening of M5 uses triplets, whereas the opening of B5 most
> : > definitely does not - although many recordings and performances soud
> : > like it.
> : >
> : > --
> : > Deryk.
>
>
> : So Mahler is quoting the rhythm as often performed, not as notated.
>
> If Mahler had not himself been a conductor I might buy that....
>
All the more reason that he would be aware of the difference in notation
from the usual performance. Whether he was making a conscious reference
to the Beethoven is still open to question. But he would not have to be
ignorant of Beethoven's notation in order to choose to make the reference
in triplets. I imagine he also knew that Frere Jacques was really in a
major key.
lanza
quoting themselves, what about Wagner quoting Tristan in Meistersinger,
when Sachs says he's had his share of passion? Or Sullivan quoting
from Pinafore in Utopia Ltd.?
********************************************************
"Any man who does not realize that he is half an animal
is only half a man." --Thornton Wilder
********************************************************