I. Mahler’s place in history
“We cannot yet fathom today where Mahler is to be placed historically” PAUL BEKKER (1921)2
With none of the major German composers of the late Romantic period has the question about his historic classification evoked such violent controversy as in the case of Gustav Mahler. While the historical positions of Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf, Hans Pfitzner or Max Reger were fixed long ago, the classification of Mahler's still remains problematic. Among the reasons that explain this paradox it can initially only be said that the contemporaries of Mahler cited above contributed to their historical classification with their own corresponding clear statements. The symphony composer Richard Strauss saw himself as the successor of the program music of Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt.3 Hugo Wolf committed himself passionately to Richard Wagner’s progressive party.4 Hans Pfitzner defended in his polemical writings the cause of absolute music.5 Max Reger was dedicated to Brahms and Bach and he considered the programs of Berlioz and Liszt to be failures.6 But Gustav Mahler? Mahler, in spite of his later polemics against program music, did not express himself so clearly. What is more – his statements were contradictory.7 Therefore one has to search for other clues.
1. Eclectic or original genius?
Already in his lifetime two theories arose with respect to Mahler's music- historical position. Both of them attracted equally convinced supporters and bitter opponents. Of each theory, there is a positive and a negative variation. (In this respect, one could also distinguish four theories.) According to the first theory Mahler is an eclectic composer. His symphonic music was thought to be that of a “Kapellmeister” with all the advantages and disadvantages of this type - skillfully orchestrated and beautifully interwoven, yet evoking a “veil of reminiscences”. To this conclusion came no less an authority than Romain Rolland, a certainly unbiased critic, after he had heard the Fifth Symphony under Mahler's direction in 1905 at the Strasbourg Music Festival:8
“Mahler's case is really rather curious. When one studies his works one feels convinced that he is one of those rare types in modern Germany – an egoist who feels with sincerity. Perhaps his emotions and his ideas do not succeed in expressing themselves in a really sincere and personal way; for they reach us through a cloud of reminiscences and an atmosphere of classicism. I cannot help thinking that Mahler's
5 position as director of the Opera, and his consequent saturation in the music that his calling condemned him to study, is the cause of this. There is nothing more fatal to a creative spirit than too much reading, above all when it is not undertaken at will but rather involves being forced to absorb an excessive amount of nourishment, the larger part of which is indigestible.”
According to Rolland Mahler’s First united the style of Bach, Schubert and Mendelssohn with Wagner and Bruckner. Rolland was not alone with his assessment of Mahler. Rudolf Louis9, Hugo Riemann10 and many others11 also shared his opinion. Several statements by Mahler help us understand that the charge of eclecticism hurt him very much. He felt it to be unjust and he vigorously objected to the position taken against him. This was done in his name by Richard Specht.12 In his small monograph authorized by Mahler himself the following responses are set forth: “As a student Mahler – alone from reasons of thrift – had little opportunity to learn about opera and music literature from performances. Even as he later acquire a huge advantage in his development as both a composer and as a conductor, it was clear that neither his work nor his interpretation of other works came under any outside influences.”13 Specht is also the one who handed down in his biography of Mahler14 this most memorable statement.
“He [Mahler] always denied that any great composer had a vital influence on his development (except in external things - such as Berlioz and Bizet with respect to some problems of instrumentation and rhythms).”
Mahler’s understandable defense against the stigma of eclecticism contributed significantly to the emergence of a counter-theory - mirabile dictu - that his historical development was without precedent. Desiring to come to terms with suggestions of eclecticism, Guido Adler15 in 1914 took a position against such accusations in that he emphasized Mahler's “own style” by distinguishing “certain” idiomatic expressions which could be followed from the first symphony on. Later researchers distanced themselves from such a balanced viewpoint and literally reversed these accusations into their complete opposite. Mahler was proclaimed to be historically without precedent and they choose not to ask questions about Mahler’s own relationship with his artistic environment. The result was that Mahler's oeuvre came to be viewed in a hermetically sealed environment and he was to be ‘honored’ purely in terms of his alleged uniqueness!
6 2. Bruckner-Successor or Bruckner-Antipode?
According to the second theory Mahler’s symphonies are derived directly from Anton Bruckner. The rumor that Mahler was Bruckner’s student, the fact that Mahler respected Bruckner and campaigned for performances of his works16 as well as the well-founded acknowledgement that Mahler and Bruckner symphonies shared several common traits strengthened the perception that the symphony composer Mahler could and should be regarded as Bruckner’s successor. Hugo Riemann was one of the first historians who held this view. Already in 1901 he classified Mahler as an “energetic advocate of the path taken by A. Bruckner (the application of Wagner’s style to the field of absolute music)”.17 In 1905 the Königsberg Mahler-admirer Otto Nodnagel18 expressed the opinion that Mahler's art could be traced “directly” back to Bruckner. Felix Weingartner19 expressively stated in 1909 that Mahler was Bruckner’s pupil and successor. A universal dissemination of the Bruckner theory occurred after 1921 with the publication of a thorough examination of Mahler in a book by Paul Bekker. 20 Bekker lauded Mahler as having brought a specifically Austrian symphonic tradition derived from Schubert and Bruckner to its culmination. Bekker focused on the architectural aspects of Mahler’s symphonies – the weight and positioning of the movements and in particular on the design and interpretation of the finale. He perceived the “problem of the symphonic form” to be imbedded in the subordinate role of the finale of the classical symphony as the denouement of the work. Consequently he evaluated the historical significance of individual composers on their role in the development of the symphonic genre primarily on the basis of their attempts to bring this problem closer to a solution. Both Beethoven and Bruckner had recognized the problem to its full extent and had contributed to its solution – Beethoven by creating a new type, the final apotheosis, Bruckner by extending the middle movements, and by shifting the emphasis from the first movement to the Adagio. Mahler succeeded in finding a convincing solution to the problem with his conception of the “finale symphony”. He was the first to conceive of the finale as the principal movement of a symphony. The “content of the finale in his symphonies determined the arrangement of the whole, the number of movements, their characters, their relationships to one another”. Bekker believed that all of the symphonies of Mahler were “finale symphonies”. All of their last movements – up to the Ninth – set the tone for the entire work. They were the centers which tied up all the threads of the previous movements and from which they unfolded.
Bekker’s ‘finale theory’ certainly highlighted a significant architectural charac- ter of Mahler's symphonies and is fundamentally correct. Bekker’s attempt to
7 highlight Mahler’s leading role is however one-sided in that he concentrated only on this one aspect. Moreover, one cannot conceal the fact that Bekker, in his understandable endeavor to give Mahler a broader perspective, did not always recognize the importance of the major symphonic composers before Mahler and therefore he sometimes arrived at some almost absurd conclusions.21 To cite some examples – it is understandable, given Bekker’s perspective, that the symphonic works of Schubert were viewed with respect to Schubert’s approach to the “problem of the finale”. Thus Bekker considered the great C major Symphony – a work whose pioneering role cannot be sufficiently emphasized (see chapter VII) – to be a return to “the old classical symphonic form”. Despite its massive scope, any involvement with the “problem of the symphony” is not evident. Bekker saw a proof of his thesis in the B minor Symphony (1822). Schubert had left the work unfinished, because he recognized for the first time the problem of the finale, i.e. he recognized his inability to deal with the problem properly. One of course should be aware that the question of why Schubert left the B minor Symphony unfinished is still unclear.22 Bekker’s appreciation of Bruckner's achievements with respect to symphonic architecture is based on either a misconception or it is biased. Bekker says Bruckner shifted the focus of the symphony from the first movement to the Adagio: “He wanted to emphasize the finale, but he was fascinated with the Adagio and ended up playing around with it while the finale was left lying in the distance”. This claim is simply a false judgment. It is strange that Bekker ignored the fundamental discussions of Max Morold23 with respect to the development of the symphonic finale from the classical period to Bruckner. It was in 1906 that Morold convincingly demonstrated that Bruckner's historic achievement in the symphonic field was not least the creation of a novel type of finale which crowned the whole symphony. Bekker believed that three types of design could be distinguished in Mahler's symphonies. The first is “that of a straight forward ascent to the final destination” (as in the First, Sixth and Eighth). The second type is an arrangement of movements which “approach the final core circularly”: “The finale is again the center but the previous movements do not directly lead up to it but rather accumulate around it by increasingly closer paraphrasing”. (This was supposedly true of the Second, Third, Fifth and Seventh). The third type unfolds in the middle between the other two. The final movements of the Fourth and Ninth do not reach a peak but their antecedents are neither circular nor are they arranged like a suite. In these cases “a fantastic architectural display passes through the air and any attempt to conceptualize the effect is doomed to failure”. It should be noted that Bekker does not seem even to think in categories of time, when he speaks of
8 the finale as the architectural “center”. Secondly, it is hard to take seriously the notion of an arrangement of movements which “encircle the final core”.
One does not necessarily require meticulous comparisons between the symphonic works of Bruckner and Mahler to recognize that the ‘Bruckner theory’ probably contains part of the truth, but never the whole truth. No wonder then that it was not accepted without reservations. Mahler himself was decidedly opposed to it. In a letter of 1902 to August Göllerich he had already declared:24
“I had never been Bruckner's student. The on dit likely originated from the fact that in my younger years in Vienna I was often seen with him and in any case I belonged to his first admirers and propagators. I think that I and my friend Krzyzanowsky (currently active in Weimar) were the only ones at that time. This was, I think, in the years 1875-81.”
In the same spirit Specht wrote in 1905:25
“But Mahler never studied with Bruckner and the older master of the symphony hardly had any influence on the younger composer other than a certain fondness for the pious beauty of rousing chorale-like passages which can be found in the works of both composers.”
During Mahler’s lifetime Rudolf Louis26 attempted to present a more nuanced assessment of the relationship. He included Mahler among Bruckner’s pupils and he recognized “a certain similarity” with Bruckner, especially “in the entire ductus of the formal line and in architectural design”. Mahler’s nature was however radically different from Bruckner’s according to Louis. It was so different “that actual influences must be considered to be purely superficial”. After Mahler's death Guido Adler was the first to speak out against the Bruckner theory. In an article published in 1924 (i.e. three years after the publication of Bekker's book) he said, in contrast to Bekker, that Mahler could be considered “only in very limited degree” as “perpetrating” Bruckner's symphonic work.27 Alder was convinced that “spiritually” there was a direct contrast between of the two symphonic composers.
“Already in the First Symphony Mahler strove for a spiritualization of the genre. In all his compositions Bruckner sought to express the sensations and emotions of his life, his worship of God and his enjoyment of earthly existence with all its cloudiness in as far as he saw it. His (Bruckner’s) occasional remarks about titles of individual movements are more playful than actually poetical. In no case, they do not contribute to increasing our understanding of the works.”28
9 Both composers had a “deep, genuine common ethos”. The existing deep spiritual contrast between them also manifested itself in another very important manner.
“Bruckner approached the symphony on a purely instrumental level and he even would not have known how to begin to incorporate texts. The addition of the Te Deum as the conclusion of his unfinished Ninth is probably more purely incidental – the subterfuge of a few of his first faithful apostles (the contrary assertion is known to me). In Mahler the connection between word and tone and the insertion of texts into his symphonic work is an act of spiritual necessity, an organic addition, an emanation of his spiritual intentions or more succinctly expressed, an expression of transformative spirituality – an expression of his poetical intentions in music and his most concentrated spiritual will.”
Adler concludes his remarks by saying that he knew about Mahler’s remarks with respect to his “independence” from Bruckner but he does not forget to add: “but this is not relevant for me because the artist himself often does not know about the derivation of his own works as evidenced by Mahler’s remarks”. Considering how highly Adler was regarded as an authority, it is not surprising that his views received a lot of attention. For example Alred Orel continued this approach by emphasizing the contrast between Bruckner and Mahler even more. According to Orel 29 , Mahler and Bruckner were fundamentally different in temperament. Mahler was like Brahms “a reflective artist conscious of the intellectual currents of the time”. Bruckner, however, was the prototype of the “pure musician”. They were also different in their religiosity
“Mahler lacked the peace of mind and solid self-assuredness of Bruckner. Mahler was a searcher who wrestled with the deep doubts that filled his spiritual life. Bruckner’s art was based on a feeling of oneness with the people and on the tenets of a naïve dogmatic Catholic faith very foreign to Mahler. Brahms’ self-assurance also remained out of Mahler’s reach.”
Orel attributed “the differing and contradictory contents” of their works to the quite differing personalities of Mahler and Bruckner. The overall artistic image conveyed by Mahler is distinguished “both by apparent affinity and at other times by opposition to Bruckner”. Mahler’s symphonic form could never have been realized without the pioneering efforts of Bruckner. In this respect an evolutionary line can be drawn from Bruckner to Mahler. Theodor W. Adorno30 also drew upon mainly psychological categories in dealing with Mahler’s relationship to Bruckner. Accordingly he considered a sense of “rupture” as being the spiritual core of the reflective Mahler. In contrast there was the clumsy Bruckner, a “more or less stubborn” nature which could be attributed to the fact “that in St. Florian Nietzsche was unknown”. What linked
10 Mahler to Schubert and Bruckner was the “epic impulse”. But while Mahler attempted “with his musical constructions to acquire potency for himself”, Bruckner, the respecter of authority, renounced “the idea of shaping his material in a deterministic manner”. Although Mahler never concealed his gratitude to Bruckner, Mahler modified Bruckner’s formative ideas. Adorno made no secret about his view that Mahler’s music was superior to Bruckner’s. It should be mentioned as well that recently Grant Park31 has offered his own opinion with respect to the ‘Bruckner theory’. He considers the pairing of names Mahler and Bruckner to be an unfounded cliché. A comparison of audio impressions and certain stylistic features led him to conclude that styles of Mahler and Bruckner are fundamentally different. Two things should be noted here. For one the catalogue of distinguishing characteristics of style prepared by Grant can be extended by several point. On the other hand a counter-catalogue of common stylistic features could easily be worked out. For this reason the issue of ‘Mahler’s relationship with Bruckner’ requires a comprehensive investigation. This much must already be stated at this point on this subject. Mahler’s symphonies fundamentally possess certain characteristics of their own which cannot be explained by recourse to Bruckner. They also revealed numerous and varied relationships with the music dramas of Wagner and with the program music of Berlioz and Liszt. That these relationships have not yet been investigated may seem strange, but it is comprehendible. Mahler covered his tracks with his own remarks. Mahler’s later but explicit wish that his symphonies were to be understood as absolute music and his assertions about the absence of precedents for his symphonies detracted attention from these traces. Guido Adler therefore wrote:32
“Whether it is with respect to the mastery of voice leading or to aesthetic attitude, it is a serious error to refer to Mahler as a follower of Berlioz from a stylistic point of view. Just as Mahler rejected the program, he never saw the tonal aspect as an end in itself and he used such techniques as a mere means to an end, although he admittedly learned about colorings from Berlioz.”
It is not our intention to replace the ‘Bruckner theory’ with a novel ‘theory of Berlioz and Liszt’. We are also fully aware that the precursors of Mahler’s symphonies are numerous. If we pursue in the following pages Mahler’s relationships with Berlioz and Liszt with especial interest, then it is because they might open up new avenues for the understanding of Mahler.
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