Mahler XVII Symphony - second time live in Lodz

Seven years ago I had a chance to listen to Mahler's VII Symphony live in my town. It was a performance of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of famous Zubin Mehta. That was the event that triggered my almost narcotic clinging to Mahler's music. See these posts.

Today I had a chance to relive this incredible music again. We had the chance to listen to Deutsches Symphonie Orchester (DSO) from Berlin under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher, here in Lodz.

This was great performance. Ingo Metzmacher was passionate and energetic. He conducted in most like Bernstein's style - and the result was astonishing.

Mahler's VII Symphony is a special piece of symphonic art. I once called it "No programme - sheer beauty" Symphony - and this seems to be true - for all of this piece performances.

Mahler tells us some story - "shaken" and disturbing story - yet the story of immense beauty...

If you have a chance to listen it - I strongly recommend it....

Unheard yet unheard-of

Mahler did not live up even to listen his IX. For him, it existed in his imagination only. Yet, it is one of the most incredible of his composition. Very intense, deep and thick - moves on a brink of tonality and so-called "classical" sonority, getting close to atonality of new-music-to-come. Mahler must have been in a difficult part of his life when writing it. We must remember, that formally his "Das Lied Von Der Erde" is his 9th Symphony. However, in addition of his attempt to avoid "The curse of the 9th" with "Das Liede..." it was also such different from all his other symphonies, that the real "Symphony No 9" deserves to be his true IXth.

Mahler drives us from slow Andante Comodo, where joy & sorrow of the music is tightly linked, through grotesque Scherzo and very intense, very "mahlerian" Rondo to incredible Adagio (Finale). In this last part we witness a thick, intense, almost "stony", music that , at the end, recedes into sorrowful slow tones that finalize the Symphony. It is in this last part, we hear the low tones of basses and - separated by several octaves - violins. The effect is incredible - one can feel goose bumps...

If you want to hear this passage go to minute 4 of the following recording:




The very fact that Mahler did not listen to his IX is remarkable. This great music, truly unheard-of, was also really unheard by the composer.

After listening to IX, it is natural to listen to the parts of unfinished Xth. However, Bernastein only performed Adagio from that, last of Mahler's compositions.
It is also very "Mahlerian" in its sonorities - in some parts it's so intense that it gets quite close to dissonances of atonality. However, the ultimate meaning of Xth is for me - the mature joyfulness, the appreciation of life and readiness for death - death with which Mahler seems to be finally reconciled. Needless to say, I, with many "Mahler lovers" await with great hope the finalization of years-long project of Yoel Gamzou, aimed in complete restoration and recreation of missing parts of Mahler's Xth... Read this.

There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving

Mahler's VIII Symphony was written for thousands musicians. "The Symphony of a Thousand" is its second name.

Huge orchestra, with off-stage brass section and three choirs of more than 800 singers, form the setting of one of the most unusual pieces of music that I ever listened to.

See the size of the orchestra on this video:



When performed first in 1910 in Munich, evoked such emotions that it was later called "one of the greatest triumphs in the history of music". But - what makes it even greater - it is far from any kind of pathos or musical hubris so typical to similar acts of Wagner or other composers of late romantic era in the Viennese-German culture of the XIX century.

Mahler selects two, at first glance, totally distant texts. First, Latin, Catholic "Veni Creator Spiritus", and second - the final scene of Goethe's "Faust". Both - deeply spiritual texts form a program for the symphony, that - because of their distance is hard to fully grasp.

Mahler, when talked about the composition process of VIII used to say about "signs from 'out there', a kind of mystical annunciations". And there is something like that.
One of the most moving moment comes at Adagio in II part, exactly when the men chorus starts to sing dark Goethe text ending in "Tame about us - The holy shrine of Love".

And my last word is that Mahler's VIII is not the symphony you listen to once and grasp its gist. It is impossible. Before I watched it, conducted by Leonard Bernstein:



I listened to Antoni Wit performance many times. And still have desire to come back to it - just to discover new emotions, new affections, new spiritual reflections....

For those who live in US. You have great chance in 2009 with Mahler's and his VIII. Open THIS link.

Mahler's no programme pure music - 7th Symphony

Mahler's 7th was the first ever symphony I was happy to experience and it was live...

Today I listened to Bernstein's incredible interpretation of this unusual symphony.
What makes it so unusual then? First, that it has no "programme" characteristic to other symphonies. Mahler vigorously opposed to label it as "Lied der Nacht" (The Song of the Night).
There are no singers, no choir. Pure musical experience. How powerful, though !

There are many beautiful reviews about it, so instead of another lengthy post, I rather humbly refer you to one of them - by Henry-Louis de La Grange.

My own amazement comes from several reasons: the music is clearly "out-of-its-time". I had impressions similar to that I have when listen to Britten or even Penderecki, though the musical language is quite different. Then, the instrumentation is surprising, and gives surprising sound: cow-bells, tubular bells, guitar (!!!), mandolin (!!!) and all sound really non-trivial.

Mahler uses a lot of citations - a waltz, a serenade, a march like rhythm ....

No programme - sheer beauty - however - we could read something between the notes: the great stress and tension of the author - confirmed by what we know of his life between 1904 and 1908...

Mahler's Hammer

Leonard Bernstein once said that Mahler's music foretold many cataclysms of the XX century....

And Mahler's VI Symphony is the best illustration of Mahler's incredible prophecies.
The symphony that starts in quite a usual, almost romantic climate, but ends with chaotic, hard to understand, quickly changing themes. No triumphal finale, no climax - just chaos....

And that hammer....

I'm sure that in addition to pure strange sonority of that huge hammer - Mahler's offered us a symbol of something - something powerful and fearful, but the most important - something out-of-blue, out-of-scene, something you never expected to happen....

And if this symbol, both musical and figurative, can be interpreted by us who know what would happen in Europe just 40 years later - what the hell is that birch twig percussion also used there? A metaphorical broom ?

There is a bad quality YouTube movie with the finale. A better idea is to buy this...

"There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all" - Mahler's 3rd Symphony

Readers of my blog know my fascination with Mahler's music. It started long time ago, with Zubin Mehta and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Mahler's VII symphony during the first "Festival of Four Cultures" in Lodz, Poland. This time I return to Bernstein's recording of Mahler's Third with Wiener Philharmoniker. Mahler's 3rd is the longest of all his symphonies, and one of the most beautiful. Mahler tried to provide some interpretation for this symphony, and it has a form of "messages" that we might receive: from Mythological God Pan, From Summer, from flowers on the meadow, from animals, Man, Angels and Love....

However, the sung parts of the Symphony, IV and V have amazing texts (corresponding to the messages from Man and Angels). Message from Man uses famous part of Nietzsche, "Thus spoke Zaratustra" called Zarathustra'a Roundeley, while The Message from Angels uses anonymous folk song, part of "The Youth's Magic Horn". Seemingly primitive text about St. Peter's sin and his redemption is surprising after deep and dark Nietzsche strophe. But when you dig deeper you find that all this is about the yearning for etehrnity, about fundamental discord with death, with vanishing life ...

Musically, the best are first and last part (at least to me). You will find a lot of amazing and surprising moments there. But you must immerse yourself into the music to enjoy it.
For me the most amazing was the imitation of bell sounds, first by a boy choir in V part, singing literally Bim-Bam, Bim-Bom and later, the same imitation played by big drums (timpani) in the VI part - finale.

I also found fantastic article about Bernstein Mahler's fascinations.
The article cites Bernstein saying: "There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all. (...) Every pianissimo is as intense as every forte. . . . Everything has to be done at full intensity."

You can here this words in the bonus to 3rd Symphony in this recording (Leonard Bernstein: The Mahler Symphonies (DVD))

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge

"The sun departs behind the mountains ..."

opens the last part of Gustav Mahler incredible symphony "The Song of the Earth". It is based on famous Chinese poetry of Li Tai-Po. The selection of particular poems made by Mahler reflects his message hidden in the music: the hidden farewell to life. It is quite amazing that he used Chinese poetry to express it - however - for a good reason - Chinese wisdom and its contemplation of earthly beauty along with expression of rootlessness and awareness of human fate is well known. See translations of the songs.

The music itself is almost mystical, the final movement "Der Abschied" can be listen again and again and again....

Last but not least - listening to Leonard Bernstein conducting this symphonic piece is worth waiting long into the night ....

See the song with translations. See the recording I listened to.

Leonard Bernstein and his wand ...

My blog readers might have read my posts about Mahler ("Justice and tribute to Mahler", "Ken Russell Mahler - More then controversial - just going to far" and Gustav Mahler enchantment). In some sense, Mahler music is connected in my mind with his ingenious interpreter and conductor Leonard Bernstein.

So this time it is all about Bernstein and his conductor's wand...
Over last couple of weeks I was enchanted by the 5 DVD edition: Leonard Bernstein: Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Franck, Milhaud, Mozart, called also as "Celebrating Lenny".
This set is probably one of the best sources reflecting Bernstein talent as conductor.

I want to tell you about three recordings from this set:

Darius Milhaud - La création du monde - incredible connection of classical and jazz music, with a programme reflecting upon African myths of the creation

Anton Bruckner - IX Symphony - The last, unfinished symphony of the humble genius - Anton Bruckner. It's second movement (Scherzo) is really shocking and deep. You can feel (intentional ?) relation of Bruckner thought to Beethoven symphonies, yet it remains completelt original and deeply moving.

Ludwig van Beethoven - IX Symphony. I guess, writing about this piece of music makes no sense. However, I use the occasion to say, that its second movement (Molto Vivace) is such incredible piece of music, that when I return to it after some weeks, I always, always have the feeling of G-d presence in music. Try it - you will see. Now, the Bernstein conducting is great, but it is this recording where we can feel coming fate - it was one of his last recordings - several months after he left our world... When you watch this movie, you see tired, old man - but the man that still jumps, rejoice and is just happy with his life. And last but not least - this piece of music, played that year (1989) is something very important - the freedom came to us ....

And with these words I will finish this post ...

Justice and tribute to Mahler

Leonard Bernstein Essay on Mahler "Little Drummer Boy" is this story about Mahler, you must see, if you want to know about the composer and his music. It is also far better story, than Ken Russell's one. Of course it is hard to compare the essay of famous conductor with a fiction of avant-garde film director. But, the "Little Drummer Boy" tells us the deep dramatic story of Mahler life, his internal struggle of his Jewishness, that he officially abandoned by converting to Catholicism, but that he also never had forgotten, and that is present in this way or another in his music. Bernstein shows, how this personal drama of Mahler - the drama of his pursuit of musical career to its top European heights of Vienna Opera, for which he sacrificed his religion - influenced his musical message - how this interplay between Judaism and Christianity stamped a tragic but also great mark on his life. Another fault line of Mahler's life marks the drama of life and death. Here Bernstein shows how important was Mahler's awareness of death - death of his beloved daughter, the death threat upon himself, death of many innocent people of his time.

What is great about "Little Drummer Boy" is the passion of Bernstein and his ability to show the meaning of Mahler music itself. He does not resort to music's "programme", but tries to explain the meaning of pure musical qualities. Strongly recommended movie.

Ken Russell Mahler - More then controversial - just going to far

Following my intereset in Gustaw Mahler, and his music, I ordered Ken Russell film about the Master. The film starts in a very interesting way - the entire action is set during a single train journey, as we can guess - a journey to home from the last of Maestro US trips. During the train journey with his wife Alma, Mahler goes through imaginative recollections of his life. The life, particularly the marriage with Alma, was not easy. First, he suppressed her musical talent, and initially, she gladly limited herself to loving housewife role. But over time, her disappointment grown into high level. We do not know if that was a reason of her fall into affair with Walter Gropius – but at least we can think it was... That affair, apparently well known to Mahler haunted him deeply over years.

However, I doubt that the way Ken Russell illustrates it, is justified. In one dream, Mahler is placed into a coffin with a window alive, and with absolute cynicism of his wife – is burned to ashes in crematorium. After the funeral his wife performs a perverse dance with Mahler head's marble statue...

This was quite obscene scene, I must say. We could find there a far reference to Strauss's Salome scenes with prophet's head - but it was filmed not in the way we could even try to accept as symbolic or artistic... And the facts of Alma “activity”, even after Mahler death, when she was really distorting his image – do not justify the imagery Ken Russell applied.

In the same way, the scenes of Mahler's dreams related to his conversion to Catholicism are going well too far. They suggest, that his conversion was a simple matter of business to become Vienna Court Opera director, what for a Jew was obviously difficult at that time. However, we are now sure, that Mahler's motives were much deeper and even if there was a tone of pragmatism in his decision - there was certainly no hostility to Judaism in it. The grotesque scenes in which he is hammering the Star of David into Germanic sword and play stupid games with Nazi-like perverse girl - are suggesting something that is just total falsification of Mahler's thinking, music and imagination. Even in so-called film-reality Mahler shows to Alma a rosary and calls it - "the key to opera" – it was just ridiculous. It's enough to recall that long after his conversion, he still suffered from anti-Semitism in Vienna and bore it with dignity...

The film could possibly be good, Ken Russell has a talent to underline some of Mahler's key attitudes to his music and to his life: in a dramatic scene of an argument with Alma over his "Songs on the Death of Childreen", he shouts out: "I do not choose what I compose - it chooses me".

However, I'm not very positive about the movie. I try to believe that it was not sheer stupidity or ignorance of Ken Russell, that made him to do the parts of the film in that way. I only hope, it was because in 1974, many artists pressingly tried to play the "avant-garde" to shock the audience by some “art for art's sake” - not by art for truth, for the deep meaning ....

Gustav Mahler enchantment

It may happen that, as time passes, I will be adding reviews of music I listen to this blog. Music plays important role in my life. I hardly can play, though. Of course, I "play" - I mean - I have fun to play several melodies on my alto- and bass- recorders, on Indian bass flute, or few tones on Jewish horn - Shofar - but it is even less than amateurish activity. However, my son, being realy amateurish guitarist, does it much better than I ever did !!!

On the other hand, we listen to music of many genres, ranging from ancient music, through Bach & Bethoveen, Mahler, Sibelius to Penderecki, Gorecki, Glass, Arvo Part, not to mention modern Jazz and ambitious rock & metal music. We literally live within music during our weekends and evenings.

This weekend I devoted to Mahler and his first three symphonies. Anyone who searches for the music deep in its meaning, with some dose of "programmatic" themes, which do end in banality - should listen to them:

• Symphony No. 1 - As Henry-Louis de La Grange writes it is a "mixture of sorrow and irony, the grotesque and the sublime, tragedy and humor" and that was the programme added by Mahler to the symphony
• Symphony No. 2 - With beautiful poem "Primeval Light" from "The Youth's Magic Horn" - collection of popular German folk poems, the symphony asks fundamental questions about life and death, depicts the importance of joyful times in our life, goes through despair of meaningless activities of life, to end in the true hope of our sould renewal. It's worth to read what Henry-Louis de La Grange wrote about 2-nd symphony
• Symphony No. 3 - One of the most imposing of all Mahler's symphonies. This is the act of creativity that caused Mahler to express: "The composer who writes 'a major work, literally reflecting the whole world, is himself only, as it were, an instrument played by the whole universe' ". The symphony programme was around the answers that composer gets from Nature, its glory and from man: Summer Marches In, What the Flowers on the Meadow Tell Me, What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me, What Man Tells Me, What the Angels Tell Me, What Love Tells Me. The best illustration of this incredible music is in Mahler's own words: "My symphony will be something the world has never heard before. In it Nature herself acquires a voice and tells secrets so profound that they are perhaps glimpsed only in dreams! I assure you, there are passages where I myself sometimes get an eerie feeling; it seems as though it were not I who composed them."
  Again, the best ever text about it is by Henry-Louis de La Grange.

Of great importance is of course, what performance do you listen to. I did to Bernstain's...
I'm not sure if there exists anything better than Bernstain recording of Mahler's symphonies. Needless to say, watching Bernstein profound dedication to music, his conductor's "body-language" is another incredible experience.

I must also say some bad words about an attempt to illustrate Mahler's music by computer graphics. I refer to "Vision Mahler" by Johannes Deutsch. The music performance (conductor Semyon Bychkov) is fine, but the illustration is primitive. I understand the need of interpretations other than the composer programme for the symphony, I understand the need for visual experiments with music, but to illustrate the glorious Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with phlegmatic shapes from XX century 90-ties computer 3D graphics was too much to me.
I hope, Johannes Deutsch, who is certainly good artist will come up with something better in the future !

At this moment it is good to remind Gustaw Mahler's words: "If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he would not bother trying to say it in music". And this equally applies to words as to images !!!

So, while I advice to listen to Bernstain's "The Symphonies", I certainly do not to "Vision Mahler" ...

Shocking interweaving of Music and Politics of XX century

Well, I planned to write a review when I finish this book completely, but I feel an urge to write now... I just finished Part II, that describes the period of 1933 to 1945 - the most tragic period of XX century. What is shocking is how close was music to politics of all sorts. The figures of Richard Strauss or Anton Webern on the one side and Shostakovich or Prokofiev, and their close relations to Nazis and communist regimes - is just horrifying. Honestly, before reading this incredible book I was unaware how abused was (maybe still is ....) music by politicians....

What is even more shocking is that some composers in US were also not very far from ideological streams. The book describes some ties, that great US composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger, had with
leftist Popular Front organisations.

I will write longer review when finished, but as for now, I can only write - it's a great book, but it shows something that I did not notice in my long life of music fascinations - how deep can sometimes be the link of art and dirty politics.... How it is today with great music ???