Rotational form, teleological genesis, and fantasy-projection in the slow movement of Mahler's Sixth Symphony

Nineteenth Century Music

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 49-74

  Darcy, Warren ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61449170244     PISSN: 01482076     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/ncm.2001.25.1.49     Document Type: Review

References (75)

1. For example, Dika Newlin writes: "But there can be no doubt that even at the time he composed {the Sixth Symphony} Mahler felt that its tragedy held some special personal significance for him. " See Dika Newlin, Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg (New York, 1947; rev. edn. 1978), p. 181.
2. This notion appears to have originated with Alma Mahler, who wrote in her memoirs: "Not one of his works came so directly from his inmost heart as this one. We both wept that day {when Mahler played through the symphony at the piano}. The music and what it foretold touched us so deeply. The Sixth is the most completely personal of his works, and a prophetic one also. " As concerns the "domestic" aspect of the work, she wrote: "After he had drafted the first movement he came down from the wood to tell me he had tried to express me in a theme. . . . This is the great soaring {secondary} theme of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony. In the third movement he represented the arhythmic games of the two little children, tottering in zigzags over the sand. " As for the composer depicting his own downfall: "In the last movement he described himself and his downfall or, as he later said, that of his hero: 'It is the hero, on whom fall three blows of fate, the last of which fells him as a tree is felled. ' Those were his words. . . . In the Kindertotenlieder, as also in the Sixth, he anticipated his own life in music. On him too fell three blows of fate, and the last felled him" (Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters, rev. and ed. Donald Mitchell, trans. Basil Creighton {London, 1969}; orig. publ. as Gustav Mahler: Erinnerungen und Briefe {Amsterdam, 1940}, p. 70).
3. The finale of the First Symphony begins with an off-tonic sonata in the "Inferno" key of F minor, which is eventually overthrown or transcended by a D-major breakthrough (Durchbruch), allowing the movement to conclude in the "Paradise" key of D, the tonic of the symphony as a whole. The Second Symphony begins with the C-minor "Todtenfeier" movement; its finale launches an expansive F-minor sonata whose recapitulation articulates an enormous music flat signIII-V-I auxiliary cadence in the "resurrection" key of Emusic flat sign major. The Fifth Symphony begins in Cmusic sharp sign minor; apart from the central scherzo, which adumbrates the concluding key of the symphony, the work progresses by descending thirds (Cmusic sharp sign minor-A minor-F major-D major) to conclude in the key of D.
4. This is almost always the case with Mozart, whose minor-mode sonata-based movements invariably recapitulate off-tonic material from the exposition in the tonic minor rather than the tonic major.
5. The turn to A major occurs in the coda, not within sonata-space proper. From one point of view, the coda does not so much accomplish what the sonata mechanism has left undone as demonstrate that which it was unable to achieve.
6. In Mahler's original conception of the work, the scherzo followed the first movement and the Andante moderato preceded the finale; the movements occupy these positions in the first published edition of the score (C. F. Kahnt, 1906; rpt. Dover, 1991). Mahler, however, was apparently concerned that the openings of the first movement and the scherzo were too similar and decided to reverse their order for the Essen premiere (27 May 1906); this reordering was carried out in the second and third editions of the score (also 1906), the last of which (the second version of the symphony) exhibits many changes in orchestration against the first two. The Critical Edition (1963) is based on the second version, but restores Mahler's original ordering of movements. Although Norman Del Mar criticizes this editorial decision by Erwin Ratz as "wholly undocumented" (and indeed in his Revisionsbericht Ratz offers not a scrap of evidence in its support), Hans-Peter Jülg defends it on the basis of remarks by Paul Stefan and Willem Mengelberg, as well as the fact that, according to him, the composer conducted the work in this form at the Vienna premiere (4 January 1907). As David Matthews has pointed out, however, both the program for this concert as well as at least five reviews in the Vienna press confirm that the Andante moderato was played before the scherzo. Furthermore, Mengelberg's notation in his score that the original ordering represented Mahler's last wishes (a statement printed in the program notes for a performance on 5 October 1919 in which Mengelberg observed this original ordering, as he did again at the Amsterdam Mahler Festival in 1920) appears to have originated in a 1919 telegram from Alma Mahler, who could of course have been expressing her personal preference for Mahler's initial conception. It is thus impossible to be certain of Mahler's final wishes in this matter. See Norman Del Mar, Mahler's Sixth Symphony - A Study (London, 1980; rpt. New York, 1982), p. 91;
7. and Hans-Peter Jülg, Gustav Mahlers Sechste Symphonie, vol. 17 of Freiburger Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft (Munich, 1986), p. 39.
8. For Matthews, see "The Sixth Symphony," in The Mahler Companion, ed. Donald Mitchell and Andrew Nicholson (Oxford, 1999), pp. 366-75, esp. pp. 370-74.
9. Although internal evidence can be adduced in favor of both versions, Adorno's tonal arguments are persuasive: "{Mahler's} last arrangement of the movements, with the Emusic flat sign-major Andante before the Finale, should be respected, if only for the modulation scheme; Emusic flat sign major is the relative of C minor, with which the Finale begins, only to decide, after long preparation, on A minor as its principal key" (Theodor W. Adorno, Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy, trans. Edmund Jephcott {Chicago, 1992}; orig. publ. as Mahler: Eine musikalische Physiognomik {Frankfurt, 1971}, p. 85). In other words, Mahler originally connected the Andante moderato and the finale through a chain of descending thirds: Emusic flat sign-c-a. On the other hand, one could argue that, although placing the Andante moderato before the scherzo disrupts this tonal scheme, it also emphasizes the movement's isolation from its surroundings. It seems best to conclude that there are really two versions of this symphony, depending on the order in which the inner two movements are performed. If we can deal with the fact that almost all the Bruckner symphonies have multiple versions, we can surely live with two versions of this one Mahler symphony.
10. Robert Samuels, Mahler's Sixth Symphony: A Study in Musical Semiotics (Cambridge, 1995), p. 18.
11. Del Mar, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, pp. 41-45;
12. Theodor Schmitt, Der langsame Symphoniesatz Gustav Mahlers, vol. 3 of Studien zur Musik (Munich, 1983), pp. 144-50, 157-63, and 177-88;
13. Constantin Floros, Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies, trans. Vernon and Jutta Wicker (Portland, Or., 1993;
14. orig. publ. as Gustav Mahler III: Die Symphonien {Wiesbaden, 1985}), pp. 176-79;
15. Jülg, Mahlers sechste Symphonie, pp. 97-113;
16. and Samuels, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, pp. 18-63.
17. Other writers who have discussed the structure of the Sixth Symphony as a whole include: Richard Specht, Gustav Mahler: sechste Symphonie (thematische Führer) (Leipzig, 1906);
18. Hermann Kretzschmar, Führer durch den Konzertsaal (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 808-10;
19. Karl Weigl, in Mahlers Symphonien, ed. Edgar Istel (Berlin, n. d.), pp. 103-24;
20. Paul Bekker, Gustav Mahlers Sinfonien (Berlin, 1921; rpt. Tutzing, 1969), pp. 207-33;
21. Hans Ferdinand Redlich, "Mahler's Enigmatic Sixth," in Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Walter Gerstenberg, Jan LaRue, and Wolfgang Rehm (Kassel, 1963), pp. 250-56;
22. Christopher Hailey, "Structure and Tonal Plan in Mahler's Sixth Symphony," in Gustav Mahler, ed. Hermann Danuser (Darmstadt, 1992), pp. 253-75;
23. and Henri-Louis De La Grange, Gustav Mahler, Volume 3, Vienna: Triumph and Disillusion (1904-1907) (Oxford, 1999);
24. rev., enl., updated, and trans. from the original French Gustav Mahler: L'âge d'or de Vienne 1900-1907 and Gustav Mahler: Le génie foudroyé 1907-1911 (Paris, 1983-84), pp. 808-41.
25. Analytical treatments of individual movements include Peter Andraschke, "Struktur und Gehalt im ersten Satz von Gustav Mahlers Sechster Symphonie," Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 35 (1978), 275-96;
26. Erwin Ratz, "Zum Formproblem bei Gustav Mahler: Eine Analyse des Finales der VI. Symphonie," Die Musikforschung 9 (1956), 156-71
27. (trans. Paul Hamburger as "Musical Form in Gustav Mahler: An Analysis of the Finale of the Sixth Symphony," Music Review 29 {1968}, 34-48);
28. and Bernd Sponheuer, Logik des Zerfalls: Untersuchungen zum Finalproblem in den Symphonien Gustav Mahlers (Tutzing, 1978), pp. 281-352.
29. and Floros, The Symphonies, p. 178.
30. Schmitt interprets the movement as the alternation of an A theme with a "B-thematic field" (B-Themenfeld). The resultant A B A' B' A" B" Coda pattern, however, is broken up by the insertion of free episodes and "development sections" (Entwicklungsteilen), producing the following pattern: A B A' B' Dev-1 Ep-1 A" Ep-2 B" Dev-2 Coda. Schmitt divides each section except the "B-thematic fields" into several subsections. De La Grange reproduces Schmitt's analysis; see Gustav Mahler, p. 827.
31. Schmitt's first three sections (A B A') together make up the first A section in the analyses of Del Mar, Floros, and Samuels. See Schmitt, Der langsame Symphoniesatz, p. 144.
32. Jülg's analysis approaches that of the present author. He views the Verlaufskurve of the movement in four large sections, each beginning with a Hauptthema (main theme) and proceeding eventually to a Seitenthema (secondary theme); the four sections begin at mm. 1, 28, 100, and 173 respectively. He is reluctant, however, to consider the B-major Haupthemenvariante (m. 158) as a true restatement of the main theme, so he begins his fourth section with the return to the tonic Emusic flat sign major at m. 173. See Jülg, Gustav Mahlers sechste Symphonie, p. 99.
33. The concept of rotational form has been elaborated at some length by James Hepokoski and myself. See James Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 23-26;
34. "The Essence of Sibelius: Creation Myths and Rotational Cycles in Luonnotar" in The Sibelius Companion, ed. Glenda Dawn Goss (Westport, Conn., 1996), pp. 121-46;
35. and "Rotations, Sketches, and {Sibelius's} Sixth Symphony," in Sibelius Studies, ed. Timothy L. Jackson and Veijo Murtomaki (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 322-51.
36. See also Warren Darcy, "The Metaphysics of Annihilation: Wagner, Schopenhauer, and the Ending of the Ring," Music Theory Spectrum 16/1 (1994), 1-40;
37. and "Bruckner's Sonata Deformations," in Bruckner Studies, ed. Timothy L. Jackson and Paul Hawkshaw (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 256-77. The ways in which rotational form intersects with the sonata paradigm, as well as a grounding of the term itself in philosophy, literary theory, and the natural sciences, may be found in Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford, forthcoming).
38. Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5, p. 26.
39. See also Hepokoski, "Beethoven Reception: The Symphonic Tradition" in Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge, forthcoming), pp. 424-59.
40. For detailed treatments of teleological genesis in the music of Sibelius and Bruckner, see Hepokoski, "The Essence of Sibelius," pp. 129-44;
41. and Darcy, "Bruckner's Sonata Deformations," pp. 259-62.
42. In fig. 3, "essential expositional closure" (EEC) refers to the moment when the exposition achieves its essential tonal closure through a satisfactory perfect authentic cadence (PAC) - usually the first such cadence - in the nontonic key (here, F major). The analogous point in the recapitulation, the first satisfactory PAC in the tonic key, marks the movement's achievement of "essential structural closure" (ESC). In this movement, however, the recapitulation reaches a PAC in the nontonic key of D; the moment thus possesses the rhetoric of an ESC, but not its tonal function. Because the recapitulation closes in a nontonic key, it is a nonresolving recapitulation; the tonal ESC is deferred until well into the coda. For a discussion of EEC and ESC, see James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, "The Medial Caesura and Its Role in the Eighteenth-Century Sonata Exposition," Music Theory Spectrum 19/2 (1997), 115-54;
43. and Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory. For a discussion of the nonresolving recapitulation, see James Hepokoski, "Back and Forth from Egmont: Beethoven, Mozart, and the Nonresolving Recapitulation," this journal (forthcoming).
44. See n. 1 above. Assuming that it is the trio rather than the scherzo proper that was to represent the "arhythmic games of the two little children, " it is remarkable that the music associated with Mahler's children appears in the same sequence of keys as that representing their mother.
45. Mahler had already employed this procedure in the slow movements of his Third and Fourth Symphonies. It was of course not original with him, but was used by Beethoven in the slow movements of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies (where it is allied with the concept of double-variation, as it is in the slow movement of Mahler's Fourth), and by Bruckner in many of his Adagios.
46. Arnold Schoenberg's well-known discussion of this theme focuses entirely on the phrase expansions, which he considers "inspirations which escape the control of consciousness, inspirations which come only to the genius, who receives them unconsciously and formulates solutions without noticing that a problem has confronted him" (Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black {New York, 1975; rev. edn. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984}, p. 462).
47. In the course of his discussion, part of a lecture written in 1912 and revised in 1948, Schoenberg rewrites the theme in a manner similar to that of my ex. 5b. See Style and Idea, pp. 460-62.
48. As De La Grange remarks, "Several writers have noted that {the opening theme of the Andante moderato} still belongs to the world of the Kindertotenlieder. " In a note he adds: "{Hans Ferdinand} Redlich notes the resemblance between bar 9 of the Andante and the first Lied of the cycle, which concludes with the same strain" (De La Grange, Gustav Mahler, III, 828). The passage in question first occurs in mm. 14-15 of the Lied at the end of the line "als sei kein Unglück die Nacht gescheh'n!" (as if no misfortune had befallen in the night). It subsequently recurs associated with the text "Die Sonne, sie scheinet allgemein!" (The sun, it shines on everything!) and "Heil sei dem Freudenlicht der Welt!" (Hail to the joyous light of the world!). All three vocal lines cadence in D major, but the third statement is undercut by a subsequent collapse to D minor.
49. See William E. Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford, 1998), pp. 12-13 and 49-55. Caplin does not use the adjective "parallel," because for him there is no such thing as a "contrasting period"; a period by definition (Caplin's definition) comprises two parallel phrases. On pp. 55-57 Caplin discusses how a period can be expanded beyond its normative eight-measure length.
50. Mahler frequently uses a chord that combines the root-position Neapolitan with the leading tone as a dominant substitute; because it contains the same tritone as the dominant-seventh chord (4̂ and 7̂), it can resolve to the tonic chord. Here, however, the Neapolitan is sounded in first inversion, and the chord is clearly functioning as a tense predominant, not a dominant.
51. See Bekker, Gustav Mahlers Sinfonien, p. 220.
52. 1) melodic ascent. It is difficult to believe this similarity is fortuitous, especially as an earlier passage in the Brahms (mm. 11ff) bears a striking melodic similarity to Mahler's "spotlight" motive (mm. 39ff.).
53. Del Mar, Floros, and Samuels interpret this G-minor passage as the contrasting middle section of the first thematic block. For Schmitt it is Section B, for Jülg it is the Seitenthema.
54. The key in which a movement opens should be regarded as a provisional or proposed tonic, not a definitive one. The central musical process of any movement grounded in the major-minor tonal system may be understood as a formal procedure through which a given tonic is made fully present, realized, or called forth toward the end of its essential process. The specific formal procedure at work will depend on the generic paradigm with which the movement is in dialogue. Only at the point of essential structural closure (ESC) does the tonic proposed at the outset of the work come into full presence and attain concrete reality. See Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory.
55. Measure 56 begins Del Mar's First Episode and Floros's Section B, both of which extend to m. 99 and comprise both my B2 and FP1. My B2 is equivalent to Samuels's first B section and Jülg's Seitenthemenvariante. Schmitt labels mm. 56-64 as B' and interprets mm. 65-83 as the first Entwicklungsteil.
56. Example 8 suggests that the "spotlight" motive occupies mm. 73-75, whereupon it yields to, or is replaced by, the alte Weise motive in mm. 76-77. Literally, this is certainly true. Metaphorically, however, the spotlight continues to shine throughout mm. 76-77, imbuing the alte Weise with a luminosity it has not hitherto possessed.
57. This first fantasy-projection (mm. 84-99) is equivalent to Samuels's Section C, which he also labels as "Wagnerian pastoral (Naturlaut). " For Schmitt, it is Episode 1, for Jülg it is a Visionsfeld/Durchbruch.
58. See, for example, Adorno, Mahler, pp. 5-6, 10-13, 41-44.
59. See Sponheuer, Logik des Zerfalls, pp. 51-89;
60. and James Hepokoski, "Fiery-Pulsed Libertine or Domestic Hero? Strauss's Don Juan Reinvestigated," in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, ed. Bryan Gilliam (Durham, 1992), pp. 135-75. One further treatment of the topic might be mentioned, if only to set it aside as misguided. In "'Breakthrough' as Critique of Form: The Finale of Mahler's First Symphony," this journal 20 (1996), 125-43, James Buhler combines a fundamentally flawed understanding of the concept of the Durchbruch with an analysis of the finale of Mahler's First Symphony that is both naïve and indefensible. According to Buhler, "unless it is formulated in terms internal to sonata form, breakthrough must be posited as an alternative, transcendent formal procedure intruding on sonata form from outside" (p. 135). But Buhler misses the point, namely, that breakthrough as a deformational technique emphatically does constitute a transcendent critique of sonata form. In the finale of his First Symphony Mahler employs a D-major breakthrough in order to overthrow and transcend a "failed" F-minor sonata. In order to rescue breakthrough from the stigma of a transcendent critique, however, Buhler posits a D-major "breakthrough sonata," whose development overlaps with the recapitulation of the F-minor sonata. It would be charitable to pass over this fictive construction in silence were it not that this interpretation is typical of analysts for whom generic tradition counts as nothing; such an ad hoc coupling of two sonatas would have been unthinkable to a late-nineteenth-century symphonic composer. Still, one might note that, although Mahler's breakthrough is transcendent in terms of the finale, it is immanent in terms of the symphony as a whole - not, perhaps, in terms of sonata form (why should it be?), but in terms of the thematic/tonal processes set in motion by the first movement. This is the point of the analeptic references in the finale: to make sure that the listener "gets it" (although apparently Buhler did not).
61. 7 chord. In sc. 4 (p. 216, mm. 4-5) the sisters sing a chromatically altered version of this motive as they lament the loss of their gold.
62. 1 (to m. 159), and Samuels's second B-Section (to m. 145). Samuels's formal diagram, incidentally, gives the C major at m. 115 as Cmusic sharp sign major (and the Cmusic sharp sign minor at m. 146 as C minor).
63. This occurs at p. 194, mm. 8-9 of the Schirmer vocal score, at Erda's words "Ein düstrer Tag dämmert den Göttern" (A gloomy day dawns for the gods). The Götterdämmerung motive is a melodic inversion of the Nature/Erda motive that immediately precedes it (mm. 4-7), and which accompanies the goddess's prophecy "Alles was ist, endet!" (Everything that is, ends!).
64. The Curse harmony first enters in Das Rheingold, sc. 4 as Alberich lays his curse on the ring of power (Schirmer vocal score p. 175, m. 12); oriented around B minor, it superimposes a C-major Neapolitan triad over an Fmusic sharp sign dominant pedal. The harmony resolves to a dominant-ninth chord, but in Götterdämmerung, act II, sc. 3 (Hagen's rallying of the Gibichung vassals) it plays a nonfunctional, referential role, freed from all obligations to resolve (see the Schirmer vocal score of Götterdämmerung, p. 151, mm. 12ff.).
65. 3, completing the long ascent to the global Kopfton (Emusic flat sign: 3̂).
66. As in ex. 8, the metaphorical spotlight continues to shine throughout mm. 176-77, even though in those measures the spotlight motive proper is succeeded or replaced by the alte Weise.
67. We recall that Mahler connects the Andante moderato with the finale through a similar chain of descending thirds; see n. 5 above.
68. The present author is currently working on a large-scale project that examines how rotational form operates on multiple structural levels in the Mahler symphonies.
69. This is the stance taken by Raymond Knapp in his article "Suffering Children: Perspectives on Innocence and Vulnerability in Mahler's Fourth Symphony," this journal 22 (1999), 233-67.
70. Knapp claims that "not until Brahms's Fourth Symphony (1885) is a version of {sonata-rondo} used for the Urst movement of a major work. " Clearly, however, this Brahms movement is in dialogue with unmixed sonata structure, though obviously with precedents such as the Urst movement of Beethoven's op. 59, no. 1, in mind. The false-repeat effect begins at m. 145, dissolves into development, and proceeds rotationally, even incorporating material from the second half of the exposition. See Knapp, "Suffering Children," p. 244. Sonata-rondo does not appear to be a conceivable option in first-movement structures, and the concept should never be invoked casually in the analysis of a first-movement form - unless one is prepared to produce massive justification for such a seemingly unlikely phenomenon.
71. Among many analyses that could be cited is that of Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, who interprets the actual trio (m. 69) as Section B of an A B A song form that makes up the scherzo proper. According to Eggebrecht, the first posthorn episode (m. 256) is the trio proper; and the second posthorn episode (m. 482) is a "Trio-Einschub. " See Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, Die Musik Gustav Mahlers (Munich, 1982), p. 172. Floros rails against the two-trio interpretation, but does not advance our understanding of the movement much by analyzing it as a rondo, wherein the posthorn episodes become Parts C and C' of an overall A B A' B C D E B' C' Coda structure.
72. If we interpret the two posthorn episodes as fantasy-projections (FPl and FP2) interpolated into the alternation of Scherzo (S) and Trio (T), the overall rotational pattern becomes clear: S T S T {FPl} S T {FP2} Coda. Because the Coda is based on the incipit of S, it may be considered an incipient fourth rotation.
73. See James L. Zychowicz, Mahler's Fourth Symphony (Oxford, 2000), p. 16. Zychowicz inexplicably assigns the three Schellenkappe interludes a tonality of G major, although their open-fifth B/Fmusic sharp sign sonority surely implies the dominant of E minor, the parallel minor of the key in which the finale - and the symphony as a whole - concludes.
74. See Henri-Louis De La Grange, Gustav Mahler, Volume 2, Vienna: The Years of Challenge (1897-1904) (Oxford, 1995;
75. rev., enl., updated, and trans, from the original French Gustav Mahler: Vers la Gloire 1860-1900 and Gustav Mahler: L'âge d'or de Vienne 1900-1907 {Paris, 1983}), pp. 769-70. De La Grange also refers to the form of this movement as "strophic durchkomponiert" (strophic through-composed) a self-contradictory and meaningless formal label.