Stille Nacht Akkorde Klavier
Geralyn
History has not always been kind to Alma Mahler. Upon reading her obituary in December, 1964, the politically-incorrect songwriter Tom Lehrer penned these words about her relationship with Gustav Mahler:
In light of such lyrics, redeeming Alma might seem a formidable task. Companion, lover, and muse to Vienna's best and brightest in the early twentieth century, Alma inspired symphonies, paintings, and poems. Thanks to scholarship that began before her death, we know that she, too, had a creative spirit. Nevertheless, when I presented portions of this essay at the 2002 Annual Meeting of The College Music Society, I discovered that a number of my colleagues were unaware of her work. Thus, another look at Alma is warranted.
A composition student of Zemlinsky, Alma Schindler's music defined her early life. Upon her marriage to Mahler, however, she stopped composing at his insistence. Few of her works survive; fourteen songs have been published and recorded. "Die stille Stadt" is representative of her work and is examined in this essay.
I first became intrigued with Alma Mahler while preparing a recital of songs by women composers. In order to understand her music, I needed to know more about the woman. Why is Alma's published output limited to fourteen songs? After all, unlike many other aspiring women composers of her time, she had access to musical training. This study of Alma begins with an overview of her life. For a more extensive inquiry, I refer the reader to Keegan's work, cited earlier. Keegan's monograph is a study of Alma's life and work and draws on original sources, such as Alma's handwritten diary, housed at the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania. Keegan provides her own translations and sheds light on the contradictions between the diary, recorded contemporaneously, and Alma's memoirs, in which she portrays herself in the most flattering light possible. As Keegan points out, this was, of course, Alma's perfect right.3
To understand Alma, it is necessary to invoke the atmosphere of fin-de-sicle Vienna. Marked by the Weltschmerz that accompanied the decline of Romanticism, this was the era of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays and Dr. Freud's theories of sexuality. Writer Stefan Zweig described Vienna as "sticky, perfumed, sultry, unhealthy."4 It was in this hothouse that Alma Schindler came of age.
The daughter of landscape painter Emil Schindler, Alma spent hours in her father's studio, where he often sang to her. Perhaps inspired by his voice, she began composing songs at age nine. Sometime between 1897 and 1900, the year Alma turned twenty-one, Alexander von Zemlinsky became her composition teacher. They shared an infatuation with Wagner, and Zemlinsky became one of her many suitors.
In 1901, mutual friends introduced her to Gustav Mahler. In a lengthy letter to her upon their engagement, Gustav made it clear that she was to live for his music, not hers. He called the idea of a husband and wife team of composers, such as Robert and Clara Schumann, "ridiculous" and "degrading" and insisted that Alma stop composing.5 Somewhat melodramatically, Alma agreed to give up everything for him, to "live only for him."6 She had dated a succession of older men, perhaps hoping to replace the father she had lost at age twelve. Gustav was nearly twenty years her senior, and she had a keen appreciation of his artistic status, so it is not surprising that she deferred to him. She became his copyist, but this vicarious form of composition did not satisfy her. The resentment spilled over into their daily lives and threatened the marriage.
Alma and Gustav were married in 1902, and later that year, daughter Maria was born. Daughter Anna followed in 1904. Maria's death from scarlet fever in 1907 drove Alma and Gustav apart, and the marriage reached a crisis in 1910 when Alma had an affair with architect Walter Gropius. Gustav began to understand that in preventing his wife from composing, he was inflicting a grievous wound on her and on their relationship. He retrieved her songs and played them. She must have been pleased to hear her music again after many years of silence. He insisted that she polish the songs and prepare them for publication. Fnf Lieder were published in 1910, and in March, 1911, Frances Alda premiered "Laue Sommernacht" in New York.
After Gustav's death in May, 1911, Alma began a relationship with Oskar Kokoschka, who painted her several times. In "Die Windsbraut" ("The Tempest," 1914), the two of them lie, partially clothed and intertwined, in a stormy Expressionistic sea of broad brush strokes and bold color.7 In a letter sent on her 70th birthday, Kokoschka called her a "wild thing," saying, "We'll always be on the stage of life, we two, when disgusting banality, the trivial visage of the contemporary world, will yield to a passion-born splendour. . . ."8
A second set of Alma's songs, Vier Lieder, was published in 1915, the same year as Alma's marriage to Walter Gropius. Their daughter, Manon, was born in 1916. Gropius served as an officer at the front during World War I, and his absences put a strain on the marriage. Alma and Gropius divorced in 1920. Manon died of polio in 1935; Alban Berg's Violin Concerto is dedicated to her.
In 1947, Alma traveled to Europe but found her former home destroyed and her manuscripts burned. Returning to America, she continued her high-profile life in New York, publishing And the Bridge is Love in 1959 and Mein Leben in 1960. Alma died in New York in 1964 at the age of 85.
In the course of her long life, Alma befriended almost everybody who was anybody in the artistic life of the first half of the twentieth century. In addition to her famous husbands and lovers, a few of the illustrious names that filled her address book were Theodor Adorno, Enrico Caruso, Thomas Mann, Darius Milhaud, Giacomo Puccini, Bruno Walter, and Thornton Wilder.
A colleague of mine, researching Zemlinsky's songs, interviewed Zemlinsky's widow prior to her death. Mrs. Zemlinsky reportedly said that Alexander never got over Alma.10 What manner of woman inspired such feelings? The answer lies in her songs. For the reader unfamiliar with her work, and to contextualize the song featured in this essay, Table 1 lists the published songs.
Alma's songs are chromatic, dramatic, and erotic, but every musical gesture is in service of the text. An exquisite sensitivity to the poetry is on display at all times. Alma was drawn to mysticism and the contemplation of the inner life.11 For her texts, she frequently chose her contemporaries, including the Symbolist poets. Prevailing themes are night versus light, loneliness and love, and sexual union as spiritual communion. Alma's provocative music is an apt vehicle for the vivid imagery of this poetry.
Formally speaking, ideas are varied and developed as they are exchanged between voice and piano. The beginning of a song may be repeated at the end, thus rounding out the form, or an ending may occur on an unresolved harmony. Fermatas and caesuras delineate smaller sections. Frequent tempo fluctuations add expressiveness.
It is not known how much of Gustav appears in the published version of Alma's songs. As a conductor, he was "re-creative rather than interpretative," and he may not have been able to resist making some changes of his own.12 Nevertheless, he probably did not want to risk further damage to the marriage by imposing his will on her music. Absent her manuscripts, the evidence is problematical, but there are compelling differences in their compositional styles.13 For example, Gustav wrote only one love song, "Liebst du um Schnheit," composed for Alma in 1903.14 It contains none of the passionate outpourings of Alma's music; the setting of this same text by Clara Schumann is more amorous than Gustav's effort. Alma's writing is more chromatic than her husband's, and her piano parts are much heavier. In short, these are fundamentally Alma's songs.
"In meines Vaters Garten" from the first set, Fnf Lieder, may recall the time Alma spent in the company of her beloved father. At slightly over six minutes, it is the longest of any of Alma's songs. Enharmonic equivalents permit unexpected shifts between keys a tritone apart. The last two songs in this set, "Bei dir ist es traut" and "Ich wandle unter Blumen," are more conventional than the first three and may have been written before Zemlinsky exerted his influence on her writing. The dating of her songs is open to question, and scholars differ on the year when Zemlinsky became her teacher, making any comparison of her pre- and post-Zemlinsky compositions problematical.15
"Licht in der Nacht" opens the second set, Vier Lieder. Major and minor seconds between the voice and piano create dissonant clashes that reflect the darkness of the poetry. The piano parts in this set are fantasia-like, a fitting accompaniment to these fervent texts.
The setting of Werfel's poem, "Der Erkennende," appears in the last set, Fnf Gesnge. It is possible this is the last piece she wrote. If so, there is a certain poignancy to the final lines of text: "One thing is clear: Nothing is ever mine. My only possession is to know this."16
A close reading of one of her songs deepens our understanding of Alma as it illustrates her technique. The intent here is to provide the means to an informed, effective performance of her music as well as an analytical and interpretive guide that can be used for studying her other songs. I chose "Die stille Stadt" for my recital, primarily because it best accommodates my lyric soprano voice. Many of Alma's songs require a dramatic instrument and a range more commonly associated with a mezzo-soprano, Alma's fach.17
Richard Dehmel wrote the poetry for "Die stille Stadt." Dehmel was a radical, and radicals have always had an appeal for young intellectuals like Alma.18 She used four of his texts, more than any other single poet. Other composers who set Dehmel include Pfitzner, Schoenberg, Strauss, and Webern.19 Dehmel's Verklrte Nacht inspired Schoenberg's string sextet of the same name. The text and translation of "Die stille Stadt" are in Table 2.20
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