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According to
the definitive numbering,
Mahler composed nine
symphonies, and the one on
this record is the last. But
if we include The Song
of the Earth
(subtitled ‘A Symphony for
Voices and Orchestra’) and
the full-length draft of the
Tenth, the complete tally,
as Mahler’s biographer
Richard Specht pointed out
as early as 1913, is eleven,
of which ‘No. 9’ is the last
but one. But in tact, this
total symphonic output
resolves itself into three
trilogies - early,
middle-period, and late -
separated from one another
by two single works. Specht
pointed out the first two:
to Mahler’s early period of
soaring philosophical
idealism belongs the first
trilogy, Nos. 1 to 3; then,
after the idyllic interlude
of No. 4, comes the stark,
realistic middle-period
trilogy, Nos. 5 to 7. And
finally, we may add, after
the colossal No. 8 - the
socalled ‘Symphony of a
Thousand’, which stands
apart-there is the dark
‘farewell’ trilogy of the
death-haunted last years. The
Song of the Earth, No.
9 and No. 10.
The reason why
this last-period trilogy is
so urgently concerned with
death is that in 1907, after
completing the ‘Symphony of
a Thousand’ as the titanic
affirmation of a man in the
prime of life, Mahler was
told by his doctor that he
was suffering from a fatal
heart-disease. He was in
fact to die only four years
later, at the age of fifty,
without having heard either
The Song of the Earth
or No. 9, and without even
having elaborated his
full-length draft of No. 10
into its final
full-orchestral form. No. 9,
completed in 1910, a year
before his death, received
its first performance in
1912, in Vienna, under Bruno
Walter.
The work has
for long been regarded as
Mahler’s despairing
swansong; but since we have
come to know the nature and
character of No. 10, we can
now understand No. 9 more
clearly as the central work
in the last-period trilogy.
Like its equivalents in the
two earlier trilogies - the
tormented death - and
resurrection No. 2, and the
stoic
death-without-resurrection
No.6 - it plunges into a
darkness which represents
the spiritual nadir of its
period; but in this final
trilogy, everything is on a
much more desperate plane
than before. The Ninth
Symphony marks Mahler’s
furthermost descent into the
hell of emptiness that
confronted him when he
received the death-sentence
from his doctor and found
his hard-sought faith too
insecure to exorcise the
spectre of a
swiftly-approaching
premature extinction. The
preceding Song of the
Earth, unutterably
poignant though it is,
evokes the shadow of death,
and utters a farewell to
life, in purely poetic
terms; the succeeding Tenth,
though it too plumbs the
depths, eventually rises
above the fear of death, and
the drama of leave-taking,
to a calm and transfigured
acceptance; but in the
Ninth, death is real and
omnipotent, and the farewell
is a heartbroken one. This
work is, in truth, Mahler’s
‘dark night of the soul’,
and it is all the more
moving in that there is no
easy yielding to despair.
Through all the horror and
hopelessness shines Mahler’s
unquenched belief in life:
the symphony stands as a
musical equivalent of the
poet Rilke’s ’dennoch
preisen‘ - ‘praising life nevertheless’.
Musically
speaking, the work stands
between two worlds, showing
Mahler as both the most
intensely romantic of the
late-romantics and the most
prophetic of modern
developments. There is no
paradox here: like all the
romantics, he was interested
in technical innovation not
for its own sake but for the
sake of emotional
expression. Just as Wagner’s
obsession with the
psychological conflict in
romantic love produced the
revolutionary chromaticism
of Tristan, so
Mahler’s own inner conflict
produced the breakdown of
tonality which is pervasive
in his Ninth Symphony. In
asserting his unquenched
vitality and praise of life,
he raised the passionate,
yearning element in the
romantic musical language to
its highest intensity; but
at the same time, in giving
vent to the bitterness and
irony in his soul, he
stepped up the tensions in
the more anguished type of
romantic expressionism until
it exploded into the
dissonance of our own time.
The towering
stature of the symphony,
however, lies in its
masterly formal
organisation, unifying the
two seemingly contradictory
styles; it is this which
transforms a subjective
personal document into an
objective universal
statement. But the work’s
length (strictly
proportionate to its
profusion of material) and
its complexity (integral
down to the last detail) are
such that the following
analysis can be no more than
a bare outline.
The four
movements follow an unusual
sequence, ending with a slow
movement, as in
Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’
and Haydn’s ‘Farewell` -
which are also ‘valedictory’
works. In fact, the
‘Pathetique’ was probably
Mahler’s overall model,
conscious or unconscious: in
that work, as in the Ninth,
the first movement is
followed by a steady dance,
a very fast march, and a
very slow finale. Mahler’s
four movements also follow
one of his favourite
procedures, a use of
‘progressive tonality’ to
emphasise the overall
emotional progression of the
work: the first movement is
in D major, but after the
two central movements, in C
major and A minor, the
finale does not return to
the bright key of D, but
moves down a semitone into
the darker key of D flat,
thereby emphasising the
final mood of farewell. Each
of the movements is
constructed on an individual
plan of Mahler’s own - a
kind of fusion of sonata
and/or rondo form with
variation form: various
sections of material
alternate, each returning in
varied form, and they are
subtly interwoven, each
taking in and varying
elements of the others. So
that where, in the following
analysis, one speaks of a
section returning, or of
sections alternating, it is
in this very special sense.
The opening Andante
Comodo - a
wide-ranging synthesis of
sonata and rondo forms which
is probably Mahler’s
greatest single achievement
- is an all-out battle
between three strongly
contrasted themes. But
first, a brief atmospheric
introduction (prophetic of
Webern in its sparseness of
texture and intangible
orchestration) sets forth
four basic ideas: these are
to permeate the movement,
and two of them are to
strike in devastatingly at
focal points in the
movement’s structure. Never
did a great symphony grow
out of more reticent
beginnings: the four ideas
are a halting rhythm like a
faltering heart-beat (Ex.
1a), a knell - like bell -
figure on the harp (Ex. 1b),
a sad phrase for muted horn
(Ex. 1c), and a fluttering
or palpitation on the violas
(Ex. 1d). Then, against this
mysterious background, the
second violins steal in with
the movement’s main theme,
based on two nostalgic
falling seconds (Ex. 1e).
This D major
violin theme is warm and
singing, redolent of the
Austrian summer which had
been for Mahler the constant
setting of his life as a
composer; it is filled with
a deep, tender longing,
which is too full of love of
life to be called Weltschmerz.
This is in fact the germinal
theme of the whole symphony;
and it has been pointed out
that,whether consciously or
unconsciously on Mahler’s
part, a version of it which
occurs later in the movement
(Ex. 2a) is a slow and sad
transformation of one of the
most ebullient of Johann
Strauss’s waltz-themes (Ex.
2b) - entitled,
significantly and
ironically, Freut euch
des Lebens (Enjoy
Life).
What is almost
certainly intentional is
that the main theme’s
falling seconds (Ex. 1e)
refer to the ‘farewell’
figure of Beethoven’s Les
Adieux piano sonata
(Ex. 3a). The reference is
made explicit later in the
movement, when the phrase
becomes identical with
Beethoven’s, and undergoes
the same kind of dissonant
canonic treatment-though the
dissonance is of course much
more acute with Mahler (Exs.
3b and c).
The initial
basis of the movement is a
conflict between the first D
major theme and the second,
jagged, upthrusting D minor
theme (Ex. 4), also for
violins, which is set on its
course by a sforzando
trombone chord and rises to
a high pitch of agitation.
This second
theme makes at first only a
brief appearance, as a
contrasting strain of the
first theme: it soon works
up to a climax, which is
surmounted by a broad
trumpet fanfare (Ex. 5).
The fanfare,
as can be seen and heard, is
a tragic transformation of
the two nostalgic falling
seconds of the main theme
(Ex. 1e); and immediately
the main theme takes over
again, its falling seconds
now expanded into great
downward-swooping ninths of
defiant joy.
After this,
the second theme emerges on
its own, with a quickening
of the tempo; it again
reaches a desperate climax,
but this time jubilation is
wrung out of torment as a
new B flat major theme of
potent exultation enters the
conflict (Ex. 6).
 This theme,
which acts as the true
‘second subject’ of the
sonata pattern, is clearly a
vigorous transformation of
the tragic trumpet fanfare
(Ex. 5) and thus of the
original nostalgic falling
seconds of the main theme
(Ex. 1e). Its climactic
entry achieves something
like a triumph, and the
exposition ends boldly. Yet
this ending sounds insecure;
and indeed, it is
immediately contradicted by
ominous, distorted
references to the ideas of
the introduction (Ex. 1),
which now open the
development. The main theme
emerges out of these shadows
(crossing the sonata pattern
with a rondo one, a
structural procedure which
continues throughout); but
this time it is interrupted
by agitated allegro
material based on the
trumpet fanfare (Ex. 5).
Again there is a desperate
climax, and again the
exultant theme (Ex. 6)
breaks through, but it goes
over into a sudden collapse,
followed by grotesque
mutterings in the depths of
the orchestra. The second
theme (Ex. 4) now takes
over, but it soon
disintegrates into extreme
dissonance (this is the
passage that includes the
explicit reference to the
theme of Beethoven’s Les
Adieux sonata, Ex. 3);
and again the main theme
steals back hopefully out of
the shadows. It soon gives
way, however, to the
exultant theme, and this now
sweeps everything before it;
it gradually rises to a
tremendous all-or-nothing
climax on the trumpets,
violins and high
woodwind-the peak of the
movement-only to go over
into a second, catastrophic
collapse, with the halting
rhythm and the knell-like
figure (Ex. 1a and b)
ringing out on trombone and
timpani like a dreadful
summons.
As Alban Berg
wrote: “The whole movement
is permeated with the
premonition of death, again
and again it crops up; all
the elements of worldly
dreaming culminate in it ...
most potently, of course, in
the colossal passage where
premonition becomes
certainty - where, in the
midst of the most profoundly
anguished joy in life, death
itself is announced ‘with
the greatest violence".
(‘With the greatest
violence’ is Mahler‘s
expressive marking against
the doom-laden
thundering-out of the
figures from the
introduction, which
interrupts the culminating
affirmation ofthe exultant
theme, marked by Mahler
‘with tremendous
intensity’.)
This point
marks the recapituiation
section of the sonata
pattern, but emotionally
speaking, the back of the
movement is now broken. As
so often with Mahler, the
size and emotional power of
the development section
makes possible only a
much-condensed restatement
of the material of the
exposition. As the
restatement of the
introduction continues,
mists obscure the scene, and
a funeral cortege passes by,
leading to the restatement
of the main theme for the
last time: as before, it
steals back, but now it
becomes shockingly
disfigured with extreme
dissonance. It merges into a
brief recurrence of the
second theme, which almost
immediately dissolves into a
shadowy, groping cadenza for
solo instruments.
Recapitulation has already
become coda: the
once-exultant theme is
referred to softly by a solo
horn, full of infinite
sadness, an echo of what
might have been; after
which, fragments of the main
theme slowly evaporate into
thin air.
Following the
emotional catastrophe of the
first movement, sardonic
mockery runs riot in the two
central ones. For his
scherzo movement, as so
often, Mahler used the
Ländler - the lilting
Austrian country waltz - as
a symbol of the dance of
life itself. But here the
lilt has vanished (Mahler’s
marking is ‘rather clumsy
and somewhat boorish’), and
the dance of life is seen as
something tawdry, cock-eyed,
and pointless. The main C
major Ländler theme (Ex. 7)
consists of fragments of
banal dance-tune, including
a sarcastic trivialisation
of the nostalgic falling
seconds of the first
movement’s main theme
(figure x): they are scored
with a grotesque dryness,
and made to trip over one
another awkwardly, in
country-bumpkin manner, in a
series of stumbling
repetitions.
The first of
the two trio-sections is a
crazy quick waltz, making
further sarcastic references
to the first movement’s
falling seconds; it
continues with brutally
vulgar trombone statements
of themes in the cheap
popular manner and includes
a brief scrambled reference
to the Ländler proper. Yet
in spite of this negative
vision, belief in life finds
its way back into the music:
the second trio-section,
following the first, is a
slower type of Ländler which
pleads for calm and
reflection by invoking the
first movement’s falling
seconds in their original
peaceful form on the violins
(Ex. 8).
This calmer
second trio-section is swept
away, however, by a violent
return of the first (Ex. 9);
and the movement now begins
to become a regular devils’
dance as this crazy music
treats the falling seconds
with ruthless irony,
involving them in a
disruptive modulatory
sequence (a chain of flat
submediant key-switches -
see figure y) and sneering
at them in an equivocal
phrase including a ‘Wagner
turn’ (figure z).
Both of these
features are to permeate the
rest of the symphony, with
the modulatory sequence
continually undermining the
tonal foundations of the
work. The rest of the
movement is an alternation
of the three different
elements; the end, as so
often with Mahler’s
scherzos, but here more
hollowly than ever, is an
eerie disintegration of the
main Ländler theme.
The Rondo
Burleske in A minor is the
most extraordinary movement
that Mahler ever composed,
and also the most modern,
continually foreshadowing
Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and
Hindemith, while remaining
pure Mahler nevertheless. He
marked it ‘very defiantly’,
and addressed it (privately)
‘to my brothers in Apollo’ -
by which he meant that it
represented a parody of the
clumsy counterpoint of those
fellow-composers who accused
him of having no
counterpoint at all. But
there is more than purely
musical animosity in this
music; the movement is an
outburst of malevolent
laughter at the apparent
futility of everything,
embodied in a fiendish
helter-skelter of dissonant,
disjointed counterpoint.
This contrived chaos is
built out of a myriad
fragments of theme, the most
important of which are shown
in Ex. 10.
The first
group is founded mainly on
10 a and b, which are
parodies, curiously enough
of the opening figures of
the third and second
movements of Mahler's own
Fifth Symphony (Ex. 11 a and
b).
This group
culminates in a madly
modulating march-tune based
on 10 c, but even this
movement of comparative
stability is soon submerged
in the general uproar. All
this alternates with a
second group, a kind of
trio-section based on 10 d,
which, as can be seen,
follows the same disruptive
modulatory sequence as the
waltz-theme of the second
movement (see Ex. 9). The
first group, on later
appearances, takes in new
material - 10 e and f, the
latter giving a vicious new
twist to the sneering phrase
with the ‘Wagner turn'
(figure z); the
trio-section, when it
recurs, throws in a scornful
parody of a cheerful
march-tune from the first
movement of Mahler’s own
Third Symphony (see Ex. 12 a
and b).
Yet once again
belief in life breaks
through: at last the
pandemonium is stilled by a
visionary interlude in D
major, looking back to the
key and the near-serenity of
the first movement’s main
theme. It is based on a
simple diatonic
transformation of the
grimacing Ex. 10 f on the
trumpet, which ennobles the
phrase with the ‘Wagner
turn’, and soon acquires a
supremely beautiful form on
the violins (Ex. 13).
But the first
group, after several
unavailing attempts, sweeps
this vision out of
existence, and ends the
movement in the nihilistic
mood in which it began.
As in
Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique‘,
this swift third movement is
equivalent to the normal
rondo-finale, but the actual
place and function of the
finale is usurped by an
Adagio. And in Mahler’s
Adagio-finale, the glimpse
of peace amidst the inferno
of the Ftondo Burleske
becomes reality. The
movement transforms
bitterness into acceptance
and final serenity, though
in a heartbroken mood of
farewell. The transformation
is musical as well as
emotional: the note of
farewell is struck
immediately by the tonality
of D flat major - a semitone
lower than the D major of
the first movement - but the
main string theme, like a
passionate hymn to the glory
of life, is a gathering
together of the threads of
the whole symphony, in a new
context of affirmation (Ex.
14).
This theme
begins by conclusively
ratifying the first
movement’s reference to the
theme of Beethoven`s Les
Adieux sonata (figure
y), and thereby sets right
the travesties which have
been made of the nostalgic
falling seconds in the two
central movements. Moreover,
as a whole, the theme is a
noble transformation of the
crazy waltz-theme of the
second movement, as a glance
at Ex. 9 will show; and in
fulfilling this function, it
gives a restored dignity to
the phrase with the ‘Wagner
turn’ (figure z), which is
to permeate the movement.
What the theme is unable to
get rid of is the disruptive
modulatory sequence, which
continually tries to
undermine its tonality (see
first bar of Ex. 14); but it
surges forward all the time,
riding the disruptions, and
always emerging: with its
tonality finally unscathed.
For its second paragraph,
this main string theme
refashions the tragic
fanfare of the first
movement (Ex. 5) as a kind
of brave insistence on joy
out of the midst of
suffering (Ex. 15).
 The second
group, extremely sparse in
texture, combines a few
wisps of disembodied theme,
utterly empty of feeling -
‘all passion spent’ (Ex.
16).
But passion
(the main theme) breaks in
again, alternating with the
second group in a
rondo-pattern, and ever
growing in intensity. It
undergoes many
transformations, including a
quiet episode based on the
visionary interlude of the
Rondo Burleske (Ex. 13) and
a heart-breaking climax on
the brass (a fortissimo
statement of Ex. 15); but at
last, it begins a slow,
lingering fadeout. It casts
back, as it were, a long,
steadfast, valedictory look
at life; the last long-drawn
line of the violins (Ex.
17a) refers, with great
poignancy, to the imagined
final dwelling of the dead
children in Mahler‘s own Kindertotenlieder
- ‘auf jenen Höh’n’ - ‘upon
those heights' (Ex. 17b).
© 1967, The
Decca Record Company
Limited, London
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