SYMPHONIC TEXTS AND THE CULTURAL IDEOLOGY OF MAHLER’S LIEDER A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Cassandra Lee Henry January 2009 © 2009 Cassandra Lee Henry SYMPHONIC TEXTS AND THE CULTURAL IDEOLOGY OF MAHLER’S LIEDER Cassandra Lee Henry, Ph. D. Cornell University 2009 Although Gustav Mahler has long been considered a crucial figure in the cultural world of the fin-de-siècle, the exact nature of his involvement in the social, political, and cultural philosophies of the era has remained largely undefined. The student radicalism of his youth has been taken as a leitmotif for the social and political activity of his entire life, while his compositions have been viewed as entirely separate from his biography, with most scholarship focusing on their place in the musical canon. This dissertation attempts to rectify the misplaced scholarly emphasis by examining Mahler’s vocal works in the context of their relationship to his social, political, and cultural thought. As Mahler used both the genre categorization of his music and the texts of his works as statements of his philosophy, my analysis focuses primarily on those pieces which evince significant change in these areas, namely Mahler’s songs and song-cycles – the Wunderhorn songs, the Kindertotenlieder, and Das Lied von der Erde – and his Eighth and Third Symphonies. Preliminary to this is a discussion of Mahler’s political, social, and cultural philosophies as concern his compositional and literary output, as well as an investigation of the changing definitions of the genres of song-cycle and symphony at the turn of the century and the role that Mahler played in such a metamorphosis. Through an examination of the texts of these central works in Mahler’s oeuvre, this study also seeks to locate Mahler within the political and social ideologies of his time, as one who was fully engaged in discussion with the dominant philosophical and aesthetic trends. Through his textual selection and editing, as well as the organization of his vocal compositions, Mahler offers indirect commentary on his social, political, and cultural milieu; the extraction of these commentaries is critical to situating the composer within the framework of his time. Mahler, as his works make clear, was neither a member of the aesthetic revolutionaries that comprised such groups as the Secession, but neither was he convinced by the conservative aesthetic tastes of the liberal bourgeoisie who sought in art a justification for their social existence. Rather, Mahler belonged to a more moderate camp, and sought through his works to remain culturally relevant and to make both social and cultural commentary that was simultaneously grounded and forward-looking. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Cassandra Henry completed her secondary education at Hopkins High School in Hopkins, Minnesota, in 1997. She received her BA in Comparative Literature summa cum laude and in German Studies magna cum laude in 2001 from Cornell University, and studied at the Universität Wien during the 1999-2000 academic year. She remained at Cornell for her graduate studies, and earned an MA in German Studies in 2005 and a PhD in German Studies in 2009. iii For G.E.B., who is always there. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people to thank who made this dissertation and all that it entailed possible: First, Professor Anette Schwarz, who has been available at all hours for questions, complaints, and general academic advice. Her support for the possibility of writing a dissertation, beginning a family, and maintaining sanity has been a wonderful help and inspiration throughout the process. Professor Art Groos, who has provided countless careful readings of my work over the years and who has always been ready to discuss my ideas and words for as long as it took until they were just right. Professor Peter Gilgen, who has provided support throughout my academic career thus far and has shown me the joy to be had in the close reading of a poetic text. I would like to thank all of the faculty and staff of Cornell’s Department of German Studies, who have supported me from the day I walked into the department as a college freshman, reading my often chaotic writing and ideas and giving their time, energy, and talents to help me along the way. Thank you to my family, who always thought that I could do this, and in a special way to my Granddad, who read every report card since kindergarten. I hope I’ve made you proud. Thank you to my husband, Rob. You’ve been there through this struggle like no one else, and believed that it would happen even when you knew like no one else what stood in the way of its completion. I could not have finished this without you. I love you. To Matthew, and to your little brother or sister on the way: when I was near tears over this you reminded me of what was truly important and helped me shred, v sometimes literally, in two-year-old fashion, what wasn’t. Thank you for giving me perspective. You and Daddy are my life. I am blessed. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS vii I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. SONGS AND SYMPHONIES 22 III. DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN 68 IV. KINDERTOTENLIEDER 101 V. SECOND, THIRD, AND EIGHTH SYMPHONIES 127 VI. DAS LIED VON DER ERDE 152 VII. CONCLUSION 189 APPENDIX 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY 256 vii I. INTRODUCTION The cultural revolution that took place in the German-speaking world around 1900 is made all the more complex by the fact that it resulted from multiple and widely differing causes. It was simultaneously a reaction to the values of the liberal- bourgeois generation that preceded it and a recoiling from the implications of its own philosophy, a premonitionary fear. It was a growing self-awareness that, paradoxically, often resulted in the perception of the self as artifice. Jens-Malte Fischer’s probing of the essence of the fin-de-siècle bears quoting in full here: Wie läßt sich diese Fin de siècle-Stimmung umrißhaft beschreiben? Es ist das Gefühl, sich nationaler Identifizierung entziehen zu müssen, ohne sich andererseits der in Opposition stehenden Sozialdemokratie anschließen zu sollen, ein Versuch, an dem bereits die Naturalisten gescheitert waren. Es ist das Gefühl der Verdrossenheit gegenüber staatlicher Macht und imperialer Kraftentfaltung, deren geistige Hohlheit man in den Repräsentanten des Staates (im Deutschen Reich verstärkt seit dem Sturz Bismarks) verkörpert sieht. Es ist das Gefühl der tiefgreifenden Skepsis gegenüber offiziöser Religiosität, gestärkt durch die für viele inakzeptablen Ergebnisse des Vatikanischen Konzils von 1870 und den Kulturkampf – ein Gefühl, das die Anfälligkeit gegenüber ersatzreligiösen Bestrebungen erheblich erhöht. Es ist die Fazination durch die Ichzerfaserung des Empiriokritizismus, die vor allem in der Literatur “Jung- Wiens” zu Krisen um die Ich-Identität führt. Es ist das Gefühl, mit dem gründerzeitlichen Erbe der Vätergeneration mehr belastet als gesegnet zu sein und nicht die Kraft zu haben, sich am eignen Zopf aus dem Sumpf zu ziehen. Es ist die Beobachtung, daß die Mikroskopierung der feinsten Seelenregungen eher in Mystizismus als in Selbsterkenntnis mündet. Es ist das gebrochene Selbstbewußtsein einer Dilettantengeneration, die zwar ihre Apperzeptionsorgane für den Kunstgenuß aufs äußerste verfeinert hat und auf die Banausen, die zu Wildenbruch ins Theater eilen, verächtlich herabblicken kann, jedoch nicht die Kraft zu den gewaltigen Entwürfen eines Balzac, eines Wagner oder Schopenhauer hat, sondern sich nach dem Vorbild der aphoristischen Philosophie 1 Nietzsches im Feuilleton, im “poème en prose”, im lyrischen Drama ausdrückt, wenn ihr überhaupt etwas gelingt. Es ist das Bedürfnis, der Widernatur der geistlosen, barbarischen Gegenwart mit Hilfe der Unnatur und der Künstlichkeit zu entfliehen. Es ist der Versuch, die düsteren Aussichten, die die damalige Vererbungslehre und Degenerations- bzw. Entartungsthese als Menetekel an die Wand malte, noch ins Positive umzumünzen, und, wenn schon nicht das kräftige Blut aufsteigender Generationen in den Adern rollte, dann wenigstens die zerfaserten Nervenenden an den europäischen Dekadenz-Strom anzupolen und unter den Zuckungen ungeahnter Sensationen unterzugehen mit der Würde, mit der die spätrömischen Kaiser die Barbarenströme erwartet hatten.1 We see here the tightrope that the fin-de-siècle walked. There is national and political conflict, religious and artistic conflict, philosophical and aesthetic conflict. It represents a schism not only between generations but between social classes, aesthetic schools of thought, and religions as well. While Fischer does an admirable job of probing the various facets of the fin- de-siècle, much of this can be condensed (albeit oversimplified) in what comprises the fin-de-siècle self-perception. In seeking self-knowledge, the period did not try to locate the self with respect to its physical body, its environment, or its thought processes. Rather, it looked quite literally to the origins of the self; that is to say, self- knowledge, for the fin-de-siècle required a knowledge of self-history both in a personal and global sense. While the angst of the period manifested itself in differing ways, at its basis was the uncertainty of the personal and social histories of its members, and a level of discomfort with that history as it began to reveal itself. Every cultural epoch results from a reaction to the era(s) before it, so claiming that the fin-de-siècle entailed a break from the beliefs and values of the preceding generation does not, in fact, say much about this time that differentiates it from any other. What makes the fin-de-siècle unique is its level of self-consciousness with 1 Jens Malte Fischer, Fin de siècle. Kommentar zu einer Epoche (Munich: Winkler Verlag, 1978) 86-7.