Mahler: Embracing the World

Cowbells in a symphony! Brahms would have turned in his grave to hear Gustav Mahler’s 6^th symphony: no sound was inappropriate, no moment too personal for a Mahler symphony.

Despite being one of the leading orchestral conductors of his day (driven, even dicatatorial), Mahler’s time as a composer really came 50 years after his death, yet he was conscious of his own place as a symphonist and very aware of the spiritual message of his works....in an almost fairy-tale meeting with Sibelius (the other great symphonist of the early 20^th century but completely unlike,  in his laconic terseness), Mahler said,  “The symphony is  like the world, it must embrace everything.” No wonder then that in a work as serious as the 6^th symphony, he can depict the joys of a family vacation in the countryside, with actual cow bells jangling in the background. 

 Mahler was never afraid of exposing his innermost thoughts to his putative audience: if the 5^th symphony’s Adagietto is a passionate love-scene for his wife Alma, his 9^th symphony is an anguished cry for her love and understanding (Alma had numerous affairs and became alienated from him, though they did not actually separate). While another Viennese genius of Jewish origin was telling the world the meanings of its dreams and nightmares, Mahler was actually describing and analysing his own through his works (he did in fact attend psycholoanalysis sessions with Sigmund Freud).

Mahler’s angst was not of course, all about love and longing....his 5^th symphony and many other works have a Funeral March theme, which has been explained as being borne out of his deep, lasting grief at the death of an younger brother in childhood. Most tragic of all are his “Kindertotenlieder” (Songs on the Deaths of Children) and the finale of his 6^th (Tragic) symphony...the searing tragedy of his own elder daughter’s death is, in a bizarre fashion, foreshadowed and commemorated in these works (which were actually written in earlier, happier times!)

Even his heart ailment and the resulting cardiac neurosis find a place in his symphonies, the hushed, subdued , faltering beat of the opening movement of the 9^th symphony literally make us feel his pulse.

Does that make him a morbid or depressing composer to listen to? His obsession with death and resurrection was about defying and transcending, rather than bowing to the inevitable. What can be more exhilarating than the ending of his 2nd ("Resurrection") symphony?

Of course, Mahler’s compositional methods were not merely about expressing angst: his symphonies may be huge and intimidating at first acquaintance (most are 2 hours long!), but they are exquisitely constructed, his sense of orchestral colour, his intimate knowledge of just what sort of orchestral effect really “works” are all reasons for his popularity. 

He was also a  marvellous composer for the voice, and many of his works are really Lieder (German Romantic songs) accompanied by a vast symphony orchestra: “ The Songs of a Wayfarer”, “The Song of the Earth” and parts of the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 8^th symphonies (all of which have prominent roles for vocalists). Even his purely orchestral symphonies, like his 1^st (Titan) carry the themes of his songs (in this case, from “The Songs of a Wayfarer”).

One of the characteristic aspects of Mahler’s music, (and of great influence on the works of his great successors, Schoenberg, Berg and Shostakovich),  is his use of musical quotation: phrases and themes of many of his works are connected, like a diary of his emotional life...to the listener familiar with his works, these episodes are magically revealing.Of course, not all the quotations are from his own music...for me, his work as a conductor of both symphony and opera (he also prepared conducting editions of many works, like the symphonies of Beethoven and Schuman) is reflected by the fleeting aural “snapshots” and transformations of phrases and moods from composers as diverse as Verdi,Wagner and Tchaikovsky!

In the end, Mahler was able to embrace the world through his symphonies, as well as to express the everyday and exceptional joys and sorrows of living in that world; in his soundworld, these are heightened by his ability to juxtapose the happy and the sad, the sublime and the grotesque. Even if his life sometimes reads like  a tragedy (his works, after all, were hardly performed in his lifetime, while his beloved Alma was lost to him for much of their marriage), he did lead a full, productive life and that is why his symphonies, far from being anaemic miserable dirges, are so rich and fresh to our ears even today.

The Rock of Gibraltar

I can remember the time I first started to listen to Mahler in earnest (in my teens) ; Shostakovich came later on, when I was just into adulthood. But I can’t remember a time when I didn’t listen to or love Brahms...he has been there forever, my rock of Gibraltar!

Brahms (1833-1897) may be the very representation of classical music, along with Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, but his life, his music and the world’s opinion of him are all full of contradictions.

He came from stolid German stock, the city of Hamburg to be precise and yet, spent much of his maturity in Vienna, the veritable centre of European culture. His upbringing was modest and his teens were spent accompanying a violinist friend on the piano in shady bars on the waterfront, yet in his old age, he was a living legend, mourned by thousands when he died.

He had to struggle mightily to establish himself, first as a performer, then as a composer, literally dragging himself up by the bootstraps, expanding his horizons in music and literature by sheer application and hard work. Yet he was also blessed to have the committed help and support of his seniors: first, his teacher Eduard Marxsen, who literally convinced his parents to allow the young Johannes to devote his life to music and then of course, Robert Schumann (1810-1856), great composer and influential music critic, who announced his arrival to the musical world with a series of glowing articles in 1852.

Brahms was sometimes called a misogynist and indeed never married (though he came close on two occasions); yet the most important influence on his life was a woman, Schumann’s wife Clara, to whom he was devoted till her death, a year before his own. In fact it was his tragedy that the love of his life was already married to another man, and his mentor to boot; what made it all the more difficult were the circumstances of Schumann’s last years, locked away in an asylum after a suicide attempt. Brahms was obviously torn between the two, yet managed to do right by both the Schumanns: he would visit his mentor regularly, while to Clara, he was a constant support (even if he could not be her  lover)... Schumann’s physicians had insisted that he not see Clara and so it fell to Johannes to tell her of his visits to her husband, in his letters, which he did with incredible sensitivity and tenderness for them both.

Tenderness and Brahms are not always words that go together. As a man he was known to be gruff and straightforwardly rude, while as a composer, his typical “big” symphonies and concertos would all end with 3 emphatic thumps, letting you know fair and square that it was over. Yet he could be playful and delicate, not least in the famous “Cradle Song” written for the infant son of his childhood sweeheart.

Most contradictory of all is the position of Brahms in the musical world. Early on in his life, he set himself up and was, in turn, set up by his followers as the representative of the conservative musical establishment, the heir of Beethoven, the writer of “absolute” music, as opposed to the programmatic spectacles of Liszt and Wagner. Yet, composers of later years, as extreme iconoclasts as the serialist composer Schoenberg would look to Brahms as a major inspiration, particularly in his fascinating ability to write variations on a theme. Writing variations for Brahms was both an expression of his musical scholarship and his passion: not mere note-spinning, but bases for entire works (eg the 4^th symphony).

As a devoted listener, I find it odd to think of Brahms as writer of “absolute” / abstract music: his early works are full of passion and rebellion. The 1^st piano concerto, which began life as a symphony around the traumatic time when he was living with the Schumanns, is a conflicted young artist's defiant journey from adversity into light, the very epitome of “programme” music. The 1st symphony is another epic struggle—it was a struggle not just spiritually but physically, by the way, as he was all of 40 when he could finally let it loose upon the world after 17 years of struggling to break free from Beethoven’s legacy. Despite the struggle, it was a success, though it received a somewhat backhanded compliment along the way, of being “Beethoven’s Tenth”—both because of its significance and because the theme of its Finale is so reminiscent of Beethoven’s Ninth!

Even the “late” Brahms is very emotional music for me—the autumnal glow of his late Intermezzos for piano hides (but not completely) a great melancholy; his Clarinet Quintet is heartbreakingly sad, even if it is strikingly beautiful. Life had been a struggle for him, till the end and despite his many close and devoted friends, perhaps old age was a particularly lonely time for this prickly soul.

Much as we may admire his muscular stoicism, I wish we could also revel in the emotional connect that his works have with us; his music is the very essence of what “classical” music should be, serious, noble, perfect in form, but I for one, also celebrate his ability to sublimate the pain and disappointments of life into his immortal masterpieces.

Moscow to Mysore: The Story of Nikolai Medtner

Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) was the third of a trio of Moscow Conservatory-trained composer-pianists of Late Romantic music.

The most celebrated was ,of course, Medtner’s good friend Sergei Rachmaninov and the second was Alexander Scriabin. While Rachmaninov’s heady mixture of swooning melodies have never stopped sweeping us off our feet, his melancholy, somewhat morbid personality, his tortured love for his Fatherland (he fled from Russia at the onset of the Revolution never to return, though his music was always popular in the USSR), his battle with depression—all make him a fascinating personality even today. Scriabin was the crazy one, his grandiose scheme to convert music into light, his view of himself as the Chosen One—you can love or hate his intensely passionate persona and oeuvre.

Medtner presents more of a dilemma. He was also an exile (to the UK), but there is no record of any psychological/ spiritual problem on par with that of his great contemporaries. He was an accomplished composer when he arrived in the UK, but, somewhat like Rachmaninov in his exile in the US, the compostions somehow dried up, away from his homeland; he became almost purely a performer and teacher.

 The Muscovite found the strangest of passionate patrons though: the Maharajah of Mysore, Prince Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur became a fan and benefactor, establishing the Medtner Society in London in 1949. It brought some fame and fortune at last to the neglected struggling composer, who was able to perform and record many of his important works ; no wonder then, that he dedicated his 3^rd piano concerto to his patron, a strangely quaint throwback to the age of Mozart and Haydn.

Though Medtner wrote much solo music for the piano, his most important works are his 3 piano concertos. These came into the limelight after long, in the 1990s, thanks to a fabulous award-winning recording by Nikolai Demidenko, yet another émigré Russian pianist! Medtner’s neglect earlier on, is understandable: after all, his works are few and far between; although he could write emotional tunes, his music sounds somewhat pallid and underpowered, almost watery beside that of Rachmaninov. But it is undoubtedly interesting and individualistic, especially in the understated narrative element: much of his work is based on and around old Russian folktales and legends. Its ephemerality, the lack of that really big emotional message, gives it a somewhat mercurial  character, like English weather, not dramatic but changeable!

Either way, the  journey of Medtner’s music has been fascinating, taking in Moscow and London and even Mysore along the way...in a sense, Demidenko’s famous performances have brought him home to Russia at last...

Chopin: The (Non)Salon Composer

Hear the opening of Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise—is this music in keeping with the popular notion of Chopin (1810-1849)as the delicate consumptive composer-performer of tinkly little salon pieces?

What were salons by the way? These were small domestic gatherings of the rich and famous, the “beautiful people” at some stately home where music and poetry were performed and discussed; nothing wrong in that by the way, except that such occasions were pitifully small-scale and exclusive.

Of course Chopin was a darling of such groups and of course he wrote some of the most delicate music of all time for the piano (for many pianists, Chopin IS the piano!). Lion of the keyboard he was not, a la Liszt, the other great pianist-composer of the day: reminiscence tells us that Liszt had much the bigger sound and brassier personality, whereas Chopin was indeed, the quieter one. It is also true that he suffered from consumption (tuberculosis) for most of his adult life and his frail health would have failed him even earlier, had it not been for his dominating innamorata, George Sand (the French authoress).

But Chopin was not merely the delicate Francophile exile in Paris that he was perceived to be in the 19^th century: he was a Polish patriot, able to write “big” music for piano and orchestra, music that is as virile as it is tender. His music is full of his love and longing for his motherland...the Polonaises and Mazurkas are after all, magically transfigured Polish dance music, while in works like the “Revolutionary” Etude, he was asserting his anger and defiance at the failed Polish uprising against the occupying Russians.

While his most typical works are his intimate, ephemeral Nocturnes and Waltzes, he could also write in larger forms for the solo piano: his sonatas (especially the 2^nd “Funeral March” Sonata), Ballades and Scherzos are grand creations, containing a wealth of detail. 

Chopin could and did write, for instruments other than the piano..his cello works are particularly entrancing, while I love his 2 piano concertos.... for long dismissed as episodic and  lacking in understanding of the orchestra, these are miracles of balance, perhaps the most poetic of all the great Romantic piano concertos.

It is time to stop taking poor Fryderyk Franciszek for granted and explore the depth and complexity of his music.

Discovering, completing & realizing the masterpieces

What does one do with an unfinished utterance? Do you cobble together a complete version or leave it be?

Schubert’s “Unfinished” symphony is the archetype of the unfinished, but is unique in the sheer perfection of its two completed movements. One doubts whether Schubert or any other man, would have done better ...amidst the lyrical stoicism of his typical works, it is a majestically eloquent , searingly passionate statement.

The romantic notion of the work is that the composer’s early death prevented him from completing it: this is not absolutely true as it was written in 1822, some years before Schubert’s death (in 1828) and was succeeded by his other great symphony, the “Great” C major symphony (1826). On the other hand, if you look at someone like Brahms, who took as long as 17 years to complete his 1^st symphony, a composer can be allowed any amount of time to get things right! Beethoven too, would carry around themes for years before the finished product.

Of course, some works are left unfinished because the composer simply lost interest or inspiration or suffered some such jolt to his creative drive. Is it right to pluck these fragments from obscurity? To mention Brahms again, the great German composer was notoriously cagey about his attempted works, regularly destroying them, rather than allow the world at large to envision his creative struggles.In the case of the older composers, fragments and half-completed works abound: Mozart, Haydn, Schubert...not all of these were meant to reach the public.

Mind you, sometimes, it just doesn’t feel right to let a composer be the judge of his own works, sometimes his standards are set too high! Sibelius, for example, wrote 7 symphonies but one of the tantalising tales about him, is that he also wrote an 8^th, which disappointed him so much that it was consigned to the trash can.

There genuinely are, however, works which were left unfinished at a composer’s death: the finest (Mozart’s Requiem, Mahler’s 10^th symphony) are just so magnificent that they cry out for an audience, even for a completion.

Completion is what “realising” classical music is about...over the years, musicologists and musicians have strived to complete the incomplete works they were passionate about, either composing small portions by themselves (as did Mozart’s student Sussmayr in completing the Requiem), or using earlier material.

Schubert’s Unfinished used to be performed with the Finale of his 4^th symphony even in the 19^th century, while a later performing version was created using materials from his sketches for the later movements—none of this has really made audiences happy and conductors today leave well alone, only playing the 2 movements that Schubert himself wrote.

On the other hand, Deryck Cooke’s performing version of Mahler’s 10^th symphony (only the 1^st movement was complete when he died) is regularly performed and recorded, because, being a musicologist, Cooke was really able to get under Mahler’s skin.

Returning to Sibelius and his trash can, though one may wring one’s hands at the tale, sometimes masterpieces have actually been salvaged from similar oblivion. The two greatest stories of discovery in music were Mendelssohn’s unearthing of Bach’s St Matthew Passion from an obscure attic in Leipzig and Schumann’s discovery of Schubert’s “Great” C major symphony in a cupboard at the composer’s brother’s home in Vienna.

Just as one has to feel thankful that Max Brod disobeyed his friend Franz Kafka’s earnest request to destroy all his writings, so one has to breathe a sigh of relief that these immortal masterpieces could reach us despite the odds!