Mahler in a New Key Genre and the Resurrection Finale

7/23/2019 Mahler in a New Key Genre and the Resurrection Finale

1/19

Mahler in a New Key: Genre and the "Resurrection" FinaleAuthor(s): Thomas BaumanSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer, 2006), pp. 468-485Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4138379

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2/19

468

Mahler

in

a

New

Key:

Genre and the

"Resurrection"

Finale

THOMAS

BAUMAN

In

1847,

when Berlioz

published

the

piano-vocal

score of his

"symphonie

dramatique"

Romeo

etJuliette,

he

began

his

pref-

ace with

the remark

"No one can

possibly

mistake the

genre

of this

work."'

For

Berlioz,

this was

as

good

as

saying

that he was

certain

peo-

ple

very likely

would

mistake it.

By insisting

that his new work be heard

as

essentially

symphonic,

he lent

implicit

credibility

to the belief

that

generic

misapprehension

courts aesthetic confusion.

In

English,

Berlioz's words

have a familiar

ring,

especially

to those

acquainted

with

E. D. Hirsch's

Validity

in

Interpretation.

Through

a

rigid

calculus that sets

meaning

equal

to authorial intent, Hirsch had derived

the notion

of an

"intrinsic

genre,"

defined

as "that sense

of

the whole

by

means

of which an

interpreter

can

correctly

understand

any part

in

its

determinacy."

A

reader who

responds

with

a

generic

sense

other

than the one the

author intended

has substituted an

extrinsic

genre

for

an

intrinsic one.

"An extrinsic

genre

is a

wrong guess,

an

intrinsic

genre

a

correct one."2

The idea that

a musical listener

might

make a similar

generic

mis-

take echoes

in

much

current critical

writing

about

g9th-century

instru-

mental

music,

especially

if a

category

like the

symphony

is understood

broadly-in

the

spirit,

say,

of

Tzvetan Todorov's

definition of

genre

'

"On ne

se

meprendra

pas

sans

doute sur le

genre

de cet

ouvrage."

The next

sen-

tence will also

be

important

in our discussion:

"Bien

que

les voix

y

soient

employees,

ce

n'est

ni

un

opera

de

concert,

ni une

cantate,

mais

une

symphonie

avec

chururs."

E. D.

Hirsch,

Validity

n

Interpretation

New

Haven: Yale Univ.

Press,

1967),

86,

88-89.

The

journal

of

Musicologv,

VOl.

23,

Issue

3,

PP-

468-485,

ISSN

0277-9269, electronic

ISSN

1533-8347.

?

2oo6

by

the

Regents

of

the

University

of California.

All

rights

reserved. Please

direct all

requests

for

permission

to

photocopy

or

reproduce

article content

through

the

University

of California Press's

Rights

and

Permissions

website,

at

http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.


3/19

BAUMAN

(literary,

musical,

or

otherwise)

as

a "codification of discursive

proper-

ties.":

In

order to

uphold

the

exemplary

status tradition had

conferred

on

the instrumental

canon

of

the

so-called common

practice period,

critics

and

analysts

have

sought

in

one

way

or

another

to

normalize the

potentially entropic process

of

decoding

a

musical

artwork's

discursive

properties.

Their

preferred

tactic has been

to

assign

this

task to a

"com-

petent

listener." The

most

serious

problem

with

this

construct is not its

fictive

ontological

status

nor the

circularity

that

justifying "competence"

necessarily

entails,

but rather

the

imputation

that the

genres,

forms,

or

conventions involved

in

the aesthetic

responses

of

any

listener,

compe-

tent or

otherwise,

are

immanent

in

the work.

If

genres

are not work-immanent but

context-sensitive, one cannot

assume that a

composer

and a

listener

separated

from each

other

in

time or

space

share an identical

generic

conception

of a

work even

if

both use the same label to

name that

conception.

The

early

reception

history

of Berlioz's Romeo

et

Juliette

offers an

example

of

nominal

generic agreement

masking

fundamental

differences

of

apprehension.

The

same

year

that Berlioz's

score

appeared,

the Berlin critic

Adolf

Bernhard Marx

dealt

it a

glancing

critical blow

in

an

essay

on

sym-

phonies

that

incorporate

choral

music.,

He

agreed readily

enough

with

Berlioz that despite its choral commentaries, Rom'o et.uliette was just

what the

composer

claimed

it to

be,

a work

conceived in

essentially

symphonic

terms. At the same

time,

the

"very necessary"

explanatory

choral

portions notwithstanding,

Marx

still

found that as a

symphony

the

work

was

just

as

"peculiar"

and

"unintelligible"

as

the

composer's

wholly

instrumental

compositions.

Marx,

as one

might expect,

was

measuring

Berlioz's choral

sym-

phony chiefly

against

Beethoven's Ninth. But

he

was

also

projecting

it

onto

a

wider

Central

European

cultural-institutional

world,

one not

only swept up in the flood-tide of German symphonic music but also

comfortable

enough

with

the

Romantic

metaphysics

of

instrumental

music to consider it

universally binding.

Berlioz's Parisian

world was

very

different.

Symphonic production

had

dropped

sharply

from

pre-

Revolutionary years,

concerts still consisted

mainly

of

vocal music and

overtures,

and

the

Opera

and

Opera

Comique

lorded

it over

public

musical life.5 Each man called

Romeo

et

Juliette

a

"symphony

with cho-

:

Tzvetan

Todorov,

"The

Origin

of

Genres,"

New

Literary

History

8

(1976/77):

162.

It will be relevant

for

our

subsequent

discussion of Adorno's

"material

categories"

to

remark that Todorov includes among a work's discursive properties both functional

(syntactic-semantic)

and material

(pragmatic-verbal) aspects (163).

4

Adolf

Bernhard

Marx,

"Ueber

die

Form der

Symphonie-Cantate.

Auf

Anlass

von

Beethoven's

neunter

Symphonie,"

Allgemeine

musikalische

Zeitung49

(1847): 489-51

1.

5

Barry

S. Brook calculates that between

1778

and

1789

there were

223 symphonies

and

symphonies-concertantes

written

in

France

(about

22

per

year);

in

the

years 1790

to

469


4/19

470

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

ruses,"

but

each meant

something

different. Berlioz's

preface

an-

nounced to

his

countrymen

that

although

his

new work

included

cho-

ruses, it was nonetheless a symphony; Marx's translation for his German

readers

said,

in

effect,

that

although

the

work

was

a

symphony,

it

nonetheless

included

choruses.6

Marx

preferred

another

designation

to

"choral

symphony,"

as

the

title he chose

for

his

essay

makes

clear: "On

the

Form of

the

Symphony-

Cantata,

with

Reference

to Beethoven's Ninth

Symphony."

How is

it,

he

asks,

that

this

great

work,

or

any

work

in

the

same

genre,

can

combine

instrumental

and

vocal music

yet

still retain

the

name and

character

of

a

symphony?

With Berlioz

marginalized,

there

were

few choral

sym-

phonies besides Beethoven's for Marx to talk about in 1847. The desig-

nation

"symphony-cantata"

he borrowed from

Mendelssohn,

who

had

used it for

his

"Lobgesang" Symphony

in

1840,

the

first work

in

the

German tradition

to be

modeled

directly

on

the

Ninth. But Marx

is

nearly

as dismissive

of

Mendelssohn as he is

of

Berlioz,

and he

even

banishes Beethoven's

own

Choral

Fantasy

from

the discussion

as

noth-

ing

more than

a

pale prelude

to the Ninth.

Today,

19th-century

studies cannot

proceed

with

such

dispatch.

Berlioz is no

longer

unintelligible.

Further,

after Marx's

essay

appeared,

the repertory of "symphony-cantatas" was significantly enlarged by the

likes

of Liszt

and,

above

all,

Mahler. Yet

despite

the

wider

scope

for

re-

flection

provided

by

later

works,

the

fundamental

question

touched on

by

Marx

remains the

same:

How,

if at

all,

does this

exceptional genre

reconcile the claims

of

instrumental

and

vocal

music?

This is

precisely

the

question

raised

by

Carl

Dahlhaus

in

his

analysis

of

the last

movement

of

Mahler's

Second,

which

appeared

in his

1970

study Analyse

und

Werturteil.7

Although

he

nowhere cites

Marx's

essay

(a

late work that

appears

to

be little known to

scholars),

Dahlhaus shares

several of its important premises, all of them originally designed by

18oo

this

dropped

to

82

(7-5

per year),

and in the

30 years

from

18o0

to

183o

it dwin-

dled

to

only

58

(or

less than

2

per year).

La

Symphonie francaise

dans la

seconde

moitie

du

XVIIPsiecle,

2

vols.

(Paris:

Institut de

musicologie

de

l'Universite de

Paris,

1962),

1:

468.

Wolfgang D6mling

observes

that Berlioz's most

productive

and successful

years,

from

1832

to

1842,

were

also the

years

of

triumph

for

Meyerbeer

at the

Opera

and Liszt and

Chopin

in

Parisian

salons and

concert halls.

Hector

Berlioz: Die

symphonisch-dramatischen

Werke

(Stuttgart: Philipp

Reclam,

1979).

6

The cultural

distance

separating

these two

interpretations

of Berlioz's

expression

"symphonie

avec

chaeurs"

is

only

widened

by

the fact

that Marx had not

even

heard

Romdo tJuliettebut was relying for his brief remarks (which are relegated to a back-page

footnote)

on the

testimony

of a

third

party.

7

Carl

Dahlhaus,

Analyse

und

Werturteil,

Musikpadagogik,

Forschung

und

Lehre,

vol.

8

(Mainz:

B. Schott's

S6hne,

1970).

References are to the

English

translation

by

Sieg-

mund

Levarie,

Analysis

and

Value

judgment, Monographs

in

Musicology,

no.

i

(New

York:

Pendragon

Press,

1983).


5/19

BAUMAN

Marx

for

his discussion of

the

Ninth: the

necessity

of

treating

the vocal

portion

as the

goal

of

the instrumental

part,

the

countervailing

need

to

fashion the latter as something more than a mere introduction, and the

overriding problem

of

unity

that

this

creates

for

the

composer.

One

might

think that

in

such an

analysis,

appeals

would

be

made to

the

example

of

the

Ninth

at

every

turn. But Dahlhaus refuses to

do

so,

for he does not

believe that tradition authorizes

such a

comparison.

Instead,

the

symphony-cantata

represents

a

"genre

of

exceptions,"

a

disparate

collection

of

"single, historically

isolated,

and not

mutually

conditioned mediators between

symphony

and cantata"

(p.

79)-

What

might

it

be about

the

symphony-cantata

as a

genre

(if

that

is indeed

what it is) that led Dahlhaus to deny the historical legitimacy of affini-

ties

among

the artworks it

comprehends?

His

analysis

of

Mahler's Sec-

ond

suggests

one

answer-the

postulate

that

members

of

a

genre

must

be

governed

by

formal

norms in

order

for

us to relate them

in

a mean-

ingful way.

There

is

something

a little

suspect

about

looking

for norms

when

you

have

defined the

object

of

study

as a

"genre

of

exceptions,"

at least

to intellects trained

in

Anglo-American

empirical

traditions. Dahlhaus

appears by

contrast

to

delight

in

the

challenge

that

contradiction and

paradox offer to dialectical response, so much so that he at times cre-

ates

oppositions

without even

noticing.

Is

it

possible

to reconcile

the

notion

of

a

"genre

of

exceptions"

with

Dahlhaus's demand for

formal

norms?

Possibly

not,

but

his

genial

definition

of

this

problematic

cate-

gory

undeniably

touches

on

something

at the

very

heart of the

aesthetic

and historical

significance

of

Mahler's Second. Yet

in

order to skirt

the

impasse

Dahlhaus

faced,

we

need

to

question critically

the

adequacy

of

formal

analysis

both

to

Mahler's

symphony

and

to

its

genre.

In a

well

known

essay

on the finale

of Schumann's Second

Sym-

phony, published in 1984, Anthony Newcomb offered a provocative

challenge

to the

descriptive

formalism

regnant

at the time.

In

sympa-

thetic

response

to Schumann's

strong literary

bent,

Newcomb's

reading

of the finale

hypostatizes

its

themes,

so that

he can trace

their

evolution

across the

movement

as

if

they

were characters

in

a

narrative,

or

in

his

words,

in

an

archetypal plot:

an

ingenious gambit,

and

certainly

an im-

provement

on

a strained

reading

of the

movement as a "deformed"

rondo.8

Surprisingly,

however,

Newcomb still

insists on

construing

the

8

The term alludes to the concept of "sonata deformation" introduced into the dis-

course on the

fin-de-siecle

problematic

of

formal

disintegration

by

James

Hepokoski

in

his

essay "Fiery-Pulsed

Libertine

or Domestic

Hero? Strauss's Don

Juan

Reinvestigated,"

in

RichardStrauss:New

Perspectives

n the

Composer

nd His

Work,

d.

Bryan

Gilliam

(Durham:

Duke Univ.

Press,

1992), 135-75.

It

seems to me that

Mahler's

Second must

be located

well

beyond

the

point

at

which,

in

Richard Taruskin's

words,

"'deformation'

no

longer

471


6/19

472

THE

JOURNAL

OF MUSICOLOGY

archetypical plot

he

reads into Schumann's finale

in

formal terms:

"The

archetype

is communicated

and elaborated

by,

among

other

things, the musical form of the individual work.",)

In

essence, one kind

of formalism

(archetypal

plot)

has been substituted for another

(musi-

cal

genre).

As a

result,

the

autobiographical

dimension of the finale

that Newcomb also

acknowledges

and elaborates

("the

struggle

in

the

symphony

from

suffering

to

healing

and

redemption"

[p.

237])

ap-

pears

as little more than

a

metaformal

supplement.

The

interpretation

of the

finale of Mahler's Second that

I

offer

here differs in

one funda-

mental

respect

from Newcomb's

interpretation

of the finale of

Schu-

mann's Second. It

argues

that Mahler's

long

search

for a

finale to

the

Second does not merely supplement whatever formal construction we

may place

on it

(be

it music-technical

or

programmatic),

but instead is

itself

the

movement's

generative

formal

principle.

This is not the

way

Dahlhaus

saw

things.

In his formal

approach

to

Mahler's

finale,

he

seems

to

flout the

symphony's patent generic prob-

lems

by opting

for an all-too-familiar abstract

thematic

analysis

in

which

a trained listener's

expectations

are deeded inalienable

rights

in

experi-

encing

the work:

"In

the

finale of a

symphony,"

he

declares,

"the traits

of sonata

form,

even when

weakly

delineated,

stand out

conspicuously

because sonata form is the scheme expected by the hearer" (p.

82).

Im-

mediately

one senses trouble.

For

how

can

"weakly

delineated" traits

"stand out

conspicuously,"

even

if

we are

expecting

them? On

the con-

trary,

their weakness will

tend to

problematize

expectation

itself.

In

what sort

of

formal

framework do we

in fact

experience

these at-

tenuated delineations?

Like

virtually

all

analysts

Dahlhaus

recognizes

in

Mahler's finale an

instrumental

portion

consisting

of an

introduction,

exposition,

and

development,

followed

by

a

choral conclusion that

in his

words

"fulfills the formal function

of

a

recapitulation" (p.

81).

But because this section takes the form of a cantata, it must make some

kind of assertion of formal

independence

in

addition

to

fulfilling

its

re-

capitulatory

duties. It does

so,

he

claims,

through

a redistribution of

thematic

emphasis.

Whereas

the

principal

themes

from the

exposition

are

simply

restated,

ideas

presented

earlier

in

fragmentary

form are

now

elaborated

into true

themes. He cites two

instances

(mm.

27-39

and

78-84).

Both

these

fragmentary

passages

are

indeed

expanded

in

the

choral conclusion

(mm.

536-59

and

493-511),

but this is the work

serves

to account for difference"

but instead strives to save

appearances

for

an ever more

desperate

and ineffectual

allegiance

to formalism.

"Speed

Bumps,"

z9th-Century

Music

29

(2oo5/2oo6):

200.

.

Anthony

Newcomb,

"Once More 'Between Absolute

and

Program

Music': Schu-

mann's

Second

Symphony,"

z9th-Century

Music

7 (1983/84):

234.


7/19

BAUMAN

of the orchestra: The

passages

in the choral section are

instrumental

in-

terludes

that do not involve the chorus or soloists at all. So a

fundamen-

tal question remains unanswered: Why is the concluding section vocal

rather than instrumental? When the introduction

of

vocal music

into

the

symphony

is

justified by appealing

to instrumental models and in-

strumental

passages,

a connection has been missed

somewhere. We

have,

it would

appear,

come full

circle,

to the

question

first

put

to the

symphony-cantata

by

Marx.

An

ardent

Hegelian writing

before

Schopenhauer

came into

vogue,

Marx

adopted

the same

ranking

of vocal and instrumental music

that

Wagner

was to insist on four

years

later in

Oper

und

Drama,

although

for different reasons.,' Marx directs our attention to the words that

Beethoven

himself wrote for the first

appearance

of the human voice in

the

finale of the Ninth:

"O

Freunde,

nicht

diese

Tone."

They

tell

us,

he

declares,

that the content

of the instrumental and vocal

parts

will be

not

only

different

but

in

opposition

to each other. And the

superior

mode of discourse

in

this

opposition

is

vocal

music. It is

the more hu-

man of the

two,

he

explains,

since

man's own voice

is its

chief instru-

ment. In

consequence,

it can move us

more

deeply

and

directly.

Instru-

mental music is not

only

less

precise

but also

less

striking.

When

they

are used together, the instrumental must naturally cede ultimate con-

trol to the vocal.

Marx is well

known

as one of the architects of the

i9th

century's

conception

of sonata

form.

Yet his role

in

this

regard

is

frequently

mis-

understood. He entertained a

deep suspicion

of

abstract,

generalized

schemata and insisted

again

and

again

in

his

writings

on the

insepara-

bility

of

form and

content.

Not

surprisingly,

this article of faith

crops

up

in

his

discussion

of Beethoven's

Ninth: "The form of an

artwork,"

he

writes,

"is

nothing

other than the

expression,

the

externalization,

the

taking-shape of its content." "Form," he continues, "is determined, or

rather

generated-created-by

the

Idea,

by

the

[artwork's]

content"

(col.

492).

"The

Idea"-die

Idee--is

a

concept

Marx

developed quite

early

in

his critical career

to

designate

the

spiritual

content of a

work

of

art

in

its

totality."

In

Marx's

philosophy

of

music,

the Idea

bridges

one

of the

Is

Wagner's

ambivalence toward the

pronouncements

he made

in

Oper

und Drama

after he felt the

impact

of

Schopenhauer's thought

is

a central

theme

of

Dahlhaus's

Die

Idee der absoluten Musik (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1978) and of Carolyn Abbate's "Opera as

Symphony,

a

Wagnerian Myth,"

in

Analyzing Opera:

Verdiand

Wagner,

d.

Carolyn

Abbate

and

Roger

Parker

(Berkeley:

Univ.

of California

Press,

1989),

92-124.

1

For a discussion of Marx's

application

of

the term to Beethoven's

earlier

sym-

phonies,

see Scott

Burnham, "Criticism, Faith,

and the Idee: A. B. Marx's

Early

Reception

of

Beethoven,"

19th-Century

Music

13

(1989/90):

183-92.

473


8/19

474

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

most treacherous chasms

threatening

aesthetics,

for it

offers simultane-

ous

guarantees

of

both

unity

and

individuality.

The

specific examples

Marx explores are the very obverse of Dahlhaus's formal norms-

unabashedly

extramusical and arrived at

by

hermeneutic

leaps

of criti-

cal intuition.

In

the

case of Beethoven's

Ninth,

the

Idea he identifies

is "a

purely personal

one."

By

virtue of his

growing

deafness,

Marx ex-

plains,

Beethoven had become "the

poet

of the

instrumental

world,"

a

productive

but

alienating

role that

engendered

a

"thirst

for

commu-

nion" with

his

fellow

man. In the choral

conclusion of

the Ninth he

at

last created

in art

what was

denied him in

diurnal

existence: brother-

hood and

community.

In order to establish this Idea's unifying power, alongside its unde-

niable

individuality,

Marx

points

to features

from

the earlier move-

ments that lie

under its

governance, including

syncopations,

elided

cadences,

and

voices that

disappear

into one

another. It is somewhat

surprising

that he

does not also draw attention to

the

crushing

disso-

nance that

opens

the

finale,

a feature German

critics have called

Beethoven's

"Schreckensakkord,"

or chord of

terror.

Dahlhaus did well

to

ignore

this

resounding

dissonance,

given

his

unwillingness

to enter-

tain the notion

of

historical

mediation

among

symphony-cantatas.

Oth-

erwise he could scarcely have avoided observing the astonishing fidelity

with

which Mahler

reincarnated Beethoven's

Schreckensakkord,

and at

precisely

the same

point.

In

each

symphony

the

penultimate

movement

ends

meditatively

in

a

major key,

only

to be

jarred

from its

reverie

when

the dominant

of

the

finale,

a

grating half-step

below,

is thrust under-

neath it.

An

even

deeper

parallel

between the two

movements lies beneath

the surface of

these harsh sonorities.

If

the choral

conclusion of a

sym-

phony

is not to

be a mere

afterthought-as

is

clearly

the case with the

setting of the Chorus Mysticus that Liszt added to his Faust Symphony

-then the instrumental

portion

of the finale

must be

made

to

sound

introductory.

Beethoven's

finale,

to be

sure,

begins

with

a

recitative-like

instrumental

section that is

unambiguously

an

introduction. And

Dahlhaus

astutely

sensed that even the massive

sonata-like instrumental

portion

of

Mahler's finale

ultimately

performs

a

similar

introductory

function.

But

by

itself

this

parallel

seems less than

compelling,

since

formally

the two movements differ

widely

from each

other. A

deeper affinity

is

to be sought beyond formalism, in a common rhetoric that deploys

an

introductory

instrumental canvas first to

thematize and then to sub-

vert conventional

symphonic

discourse as an

adequate expressive

medium.

Beethoven's famous

strategy

is

thoroughgoing

and none too

subtle:

Emissaries from the earlier movements are received and as


9/19

BAUMAN

quickly

dismissed

by

the

basses and

cellos;

all

this takes

place

in

the lan-

guage

of

recitative-already

an

excursion into

vocality,

or at least to

its

threshold, before the Word itself becomes manifest when the baritone

first intones Beethoven's

text.'2

Mahler's

finale,

by

contrast,

sets out as

if

it

were bent on

laying

be-

fore

us

a full-scale instrumental

design.

But

somewhere

along

the

way

the discursive

modes of

the

German

symphonic

tradition become ei-

ther

stymied

or

exhausted,

and

they disintegrate

in a final

collapse

that

given

the movement's dimensions and ambitions

amounts to a

formal

and

expressive

catastrophe

of the first order.

The formalist

explication

of this

process

that Dahlhaus offers de-

picts an indecisive structure, one that shapes material instrumentally

and

yet

also

prefigures

a more

adequate

vocal elaboration of the same

material.

He

was

especially

bothered

by

the

exposition's

ABA

structure,

which seems to

preclude

the

developmental

elaboration that

thematic

dualism invites. But there

may

be more

going

on here than

calculated

inadequacy

of

thematic structure.

Throughout

the

exposition-and

for

that matter

throughout

the entire instrumental

portion

of Mahler's finale

-there is

nothing

that even

vaguely

corresponds

to a transition sec-

tion.

Shapes

move

in

and

out

of

focus,

unsponsored

and

unconnected.

And yet the ordering of events is far from arbitrary, for each of the ex-

position's

three sections describes the same closed rhetorical

shape:

thematic

presentation,

followed

by

a broad

expanse

involving

either de-

velopment

or a static

pedal

point,

then a

concluding disintegration

or

collapse.

The

pattern

of

discrete,

juxtaposed segments

in the finale's

exposi-

tion

finds continued

application

in the

massive

development

section.

Dahlhaus,

unable to reconcile this central

complex

with the traditional

notion of

development,

complained

that here the

programmatic

com-

pletely overwhelms the formal. Having proleptically decided that the

ensuing

choral

section will

serve as

the formal

recapitulation,

Dahlhaus

was

ill

prepared

to see or hear

this

section

as

a

patchwork

in

which both

development

and

recapitulation

occur

in

indecisive alternation.

(At

least

one statement

of

each theme takes

place

in

the

tonic,

a

recapitula-

tory

convention all the more

striking

in

that it

no

longer compelled

ob-

servance

even

by

composers

far

more conservative than

Mahler.)

, Stephen Hinton offers a different and more frankly retrospective interpretation

of Beethoven's

strategy: "Might

the vocal recitative

represent

an

attempt

on Beethoven's

part,

if

not to 'take

back'

the

symphony,

then at

least

to issue

a

disclaimer,

however

cryp-

tic or

ironic?" The disclaimer involves the

potential

for

abuse of the "collective

optimism"

celebrated

in

the choral

portion

to follow.

"Not

'Which' Tones? The Crux of Beethoven's

Ninth,"

I9th-Century

Music

22

(1998/99):

77.

475


10/19

476

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

The

strategy

of

interweaving

development

and

recapitulation

effec-

tively

exhausts the material of the

movement without

satisfying any

of

the underlying formal demands of the instrumental tradition that

formed the

symphony's

point

of

departure.

Catherine

Coppola

has

made

a

good

case

for the

positive

moment

of a

similar

phenomenon,

to

which

she

has

given

the

label

"organized discontinuity,"

in

the case

of

the fantasia

in

the

later

18th

and

19th

centuries.'13

But

a

similar subver-

sion

of

formal coherence in a

symphonic

finale

can

scarcely

avoid

ap-

pearing negative, especially

when

parsed

in terms

of theme and

key,

the

traditional elements

in

the

formalist's arsenal. The

positive

moment

that sublates the

negativity

of

deliberate

formal

inadequacy

in

Mahler's

finale involves two far more elemental parameters that are normally

taken

for

granted: homogeneous

time

and hierarchic

unity.

One of the

strongest

compositional

affinities between Mahler and

Ives,

in the words of

Robert

Morgan,

is

"the

effect

of

hearing

music

from different directions

and

spatial

distances."'4

Morgan

mentions

a

passage

from the

development

of the

"Resurrection" finale

by way

of

illustration. It occurs

just

prior

to the central

section's

final,

pathologi-

cal

collapse,

where

offstage

trumpets

and

percussion

are

superimposed

on the

twisting,

minor-mode

theme

later connected

textually

with

the

notion of Faith (mm. 340-57). Mahler's own footnote to the conductor

at this

spot speaks

of

"isolated sounds of

a

barely

audible

music,

carried

on

the

wind"

(vom

Wind vereinzelnd

herfiber

getragene

Klange

einer

kaum

vernehmbaren

Musik).

Yet

key

and

meter

suggest

an additional

effect

of this

passage,

a

heterogeneous,

layered

experience

of

time.

The

implications

of a

breakdown

of

time as a

linear,

homogeneous

medium

for

the mechanics of

symphonic

discourse are not to be under-

estimated.

For

homogeneous

time

represents

one

of

the

unspoken

postulates

of

the

causal, hierarchic,

goal-oriented thinking

that

have

tended to dominate Western thought-and certainly most of our histor-

ical and theoretical

thinking

about

tonal

music.'5

The

modernity

that

links

Mahler

with

Ives

manifests itself

not

just

in

a new attitude

toward

time

in

Mahler's

symphonies

but also

a new attitude toward

the

ways

we

are invited to connect musical events in

order to form

unified structures.

Arno

Forchert

has

written about the

problem

posed by

the

way

events

are

organized

in

the music of

Mahler

(and Strauss)

in

terms

of a

3

Catherine

Coppola,

"The

Elusive

Fantasy:

Genre,

Form,

and

Program

in

Tchaikovsky's

Francesca da Rimini," 19th-Century Music

22

(1998/99):

172.

14

Robert

Morgan,

"Ives and

Mahler:

Mutual

Responses

at

the

End of

an

Era,"

r9th-

Century

Music

2

(1978/79): 78.

15

On

linear time as the

empowering agent

of

causality,

progress, teleology,

and

even the

possibility

of a

universal

history,

see

Siegfried

Kracauer,

History:

The

Last

Things

Before

the Last

(New

York: Oxford

Univ.

Press,

1969).


11/19

BAUMAN

"dissolution

of

traditional formal

categories

in

music around

19oo.00"

Mahler's

music,

he

notes,

places primary emphasis

not on the

tradi-

tional, unifying

role of motive and

key but

on the

potential

for

dissimi-

larity

and disunion

in

other

parameters.

The

way

these

parameters

articulate

time,

he

continues,

precludes

a

reduction to traditional

sonata-like

principles

or schemata. He

suggests

instead that Mahler

"composed

in

alternating

shapes" (p.

87),

a

tendency particularly

marked

in

the later

symphonies.

The

problem

is

subtler,

he

adds,

in

the

early

and middle

symphonies,

since the

technique "appears

almost as a

metaformal

principle

above traditional formal models"

(p.

89).

But

the

effect on overall

organization

is

the same: Form no

longer

means

orga-

nizing a whole

in

time

but

articulating the passage of time itself.

Forchert's

ideas

were

developed

in

response

to a radical alternative

to

traditional formal

analysis

of

Mahler's music

proposed

by

Theodor

Adorno.'7

While Forchert's

own

"alternating shapes"

bear some com-

parison

to Adorno's so-called "material

categories,"

including

suspen-

sion,

fulfillment,

breakthrough,

and

collapse,'

he insists

that,

at least

in Mahler's

music,

Adorno's

categories

are not

yet

purely

"material"

but

still

"functional,"

although

no

longer

in

terms of a

unified

whole. But

exactly

what kind

of

unity

is it that

Forchert

misses in

Mahler's music?

It is subordinating, hierarchic unity, the kind also demanded by Dahl-

haus's

formal

norms,

with their insistence that aesthetic

experience

be

informed

by

the

functional

relationship

of

a work's

parts

to a

coherent

whole.

The succession

of

events

in

the "Resurrection" finale

suggests

a

uni-

fying

relationship

of

a less restrictive

kind,

one that

does

accommodate

Adorno's "material

categories."

It

could be described

as

more or less

equivalent

to the

grammatical

notion

of

parataxis-a

non-hierarchic

coordination

of

units-as

opposed

to

hypotaxis,

or

the

subordinating

of linguistic units.',) The recurring pattern of statement, expanse, and

'"

Arno

Forchert,

"Zur

Aufl6sung

traditioneller

Formkategorien

in der Musik

um

19oo:

Probleme

formaler

Organisation

bei

Mahler

und

Strauss,"

Archiv

fiur Musikwis-

senschaft

32

(1975): 85-98.

'7

Theodor

Adorno,

Mahler:

Eine

musikalische

Physiognomik

(Frankfurt:

Suhrkamp,

1963).

Trans. Edmund

Jephcott

as

Mahler:

A Musical

Physizgnomy (Chicago:

Univ. of

Chicago

Press,

1992).

'

See Erwin

Ratz,

"Zum

Formproblem

bei Gustav

Mahler:

Eine

Analyse

des ersten

Satzes der Neunten

Symphonie,"

Die

Musikforschung

8

(1955):

169-77.

Ratz's

description

of the conclusion

of

the

development

section in the first movement of the

Ninth

as "a ter-

rifying collapse" (ein furchtbarer Zusammenbruch) applies without qualification to the

same

spot

in

the finale

of

the Second

(176).

".

See

Hans

Meyer,

"Musik und

Literatur,"

in Arnold

Schiinberg,

Ernst

Bloch,

Otto

Klem-

perer,

Erwin

Ratz,

Hans

Mayer,

Dieter

Schnebel,

Theodor W

Adorno

iiber

Gustav Mahler

(Tiibin-

gen:

Rainer

Wunderlich,

1966),

142-56.

For

Mayer

the

paratactic

element

in

Mahler

in-

volves

the

relationship

not

only

of text to

music

but

also text

to

text.

Major

instances of

477


12/19

478

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

collapse

(carried

on,

as

mentioned,

without

mediating

transitions)

cre-

ates a sense of

paratactic

kinship

among

successive

segments

in

the

finale's exposition and development. These are the very sections where

Dahlhaus's

formal

norms fail most

conspicuously,

insofar as it

is here

that

by

tradition

their

explanatory powers

ought

to be

greatest.

Indeed,

func-

tionally

speaking

it would seem

that,

given

the

strong negative implica-

tions of the

statement-expanse-collapse

pattern

as a

formal

strategy,

fail-

ure is

virtually

hard-wired into

Mahler's

exposition

and

development.

Not so

the

sections

surrounding

them,

the

introduction

and

the

choral

conclusion.

The

introduction

begins

not with statement

but

with

collapse-Mahler's

version of

Beethoven's Schreckensakkord. What

emerges out of its residue is a special kind of expanse: a static, dysfunc-

tional

pedal point

that

Monika Lichtenfeld has called a

"Klangfldiche,"

or

sound-plane,

a form

of

compositional

standstill "in

which

expecta-

tion

of what is to

come

and remembrance

of

things

past interpenetrate,

as

befits the

beginning

of

a

finale.'"2()

This

sort of

expanse,

the

equiva-

lent of Adorno's material

category

"suspension,"

differs

fundamentally

from the kind

that

succeeds the thematic statements

and restatements

of the

exposition

and

development

sections. The

very

term

"introduc-

tion" is little more than a convenience

in

Mahler's

finale,

where

the

ret-

rospective moment is especially marked: The Schreckensakkord itself

he borrowed

directly, key

and

all,

from

earlier in

the

symphony,

near

the close

of

the Scherzo.

Further,

despite

the

fact that a C

pedal

persists

throughout

the introduction's

61

measures,

it carries

only

the barest

vestige

of

the

traditional function of

preparatory

dominant. At its

close,

a series of

ungrammatical

harmonies not

only

expunges

the last traces

of dominant

preparation

but also offers a foretaste of

the

layering

tech-

nique exploited

more

fully

in

the

development

(mm.

53-61).

As

a

re-

sult,

we move into

the

Dies irae theme

of the

exposition

with

a

paratac-

tic sense of succession without subordination.

Since the

opening

Schreckensakkord and the

ensuing pedal

point

no

longer

stand

in

hypotactic

subordination

to

the

following exposi-

tion,

their

later

return does not

automatically signal

preparation

for

a

recapitulation.

And when

in

fact these

same

elements are recalled in

toto

at the end

of the

development

section,

they

function

not

as a new

beginning

but as

a

climax: the final element

in an

extended

passage

of

increasingly desperate

harmonic-motivic contortion

(mm.

379-447)-

the latter include the "almost absurd idea" of coupling the medieval hymn "Veni creator

spiritus"

with

the

closing

scene of Goethe's Faust

II in

the

Eighth

and the

"strange panthe-

istic

amalgam

of

Klopstock

and

Gustav Mahler" in

the choral

conclusion of the Second.

211

Monika

Lichtenfeld,

"Zur

Klangflichentechnik

bei

Mahler,"

in

Mahler

-

eine Her-

ausforderung:

Ein

Symposion,

ed. Peter Ruzicka

(Wiesbaden:

Breitkopf

&

Hdirtel,

1977),

121-34-


13/19

BAU

MAN

Here the

expanse

following

the Schreckensakkord

suspends

time

itself

as harmonic motion and motivic

development

come to

a

standstill. Its

horn calls and oboe triplets are eventually joined by passages for flute

and

piccolo

that Mahler marks "like

a bird call."

As Lichtenfeld has ob-

served,

in Mahler's

Klangfliichen

there is

always

the

suggestion

of

scenes

from

Nature-a

Nature, however,

that is not

"natural" but

rather

the

negative

of

artifice,

of

"the

busyness

of

motivic-thematic

development,

metric

pulse,

and harmonic

progression"

(pp.

133-34).

An

equally

in-

triguing

feature

of this climactic

passage

is its shift of

tonal

domain:

The Schreckensakkord

and

pedal

are now anchored to an

extensive

C#

in

place

of

the

C

heard

at the

beginning

of

the

finale. Even in terms of

tonality, then, there is no sense that what is to come out of this moment

of

suspended

animation will be a return

to

what has

gone

before.

It is difficult to do

justice

to what

happens

next within the modes of

discourse offered

by

any

traditional

system

of formal

analysis.

With

the

entrance

of

the chorus

comes a

mysterious

sense of

metamorphosis:

Somehow the work has

undergone

a

change

of

state. Dahlhaus's articu-

lation

of the formal

problem

this

juncture posed

for

his

own

analysis

cannot

help

sounding

pedestrian:

"If

one does not view the march as a

development,

then the

formal

importance

of the vocal

part

is

certainly

diminished [from what it would be] in a situation in which the recapit-

ulation

emerges

as the

goal

and result

of

the

development"

(p.

82).

Goals

are almost

by

definition conscious and

future-directed;

they

are

achieved

by

gaining

control over events and time.

At

this

point,

how-

ever,

the

discourse seems

to have lost control

over both.

In

trying

to

read

the choral conclusion as

functional

recapitulation,

Dahlhaus

avoided

any

mention of its tonal

structure-wisely

so,

since it

mounts

the most

vigorous campaign

of

all

against

traditional

recapitu-

latory expectations. Why

does the chorus

begin

in

the remote

key

of

G6

major, and to what end does it carry us through a succession of other

keys,

equally

unfamiliar,

to

the

staggering

apotheosis

in

E6

major?

Eb

major-this

is

a brave new world. It is not the

opening key

of the

symphony,

either

major

or

minor,

nor

is it even close to the

F

minor of

the

finale's

exposition,

not

to mention the

initial

Gk

of the

choral con-

clusion.

As far as I

know,

the finale of the

"Resurrection"

represents

the

first time that a

symphony

dared forsake overall

unity

of

key.

The ana-

lyst

Graham

George

threw

up

his hands in

despair

in

trying

to make

sense of its

unique

tonal

plan.2

He found no

precedent, support,

or

reason for G6, and he was constrained to rummage all the way back to

21 Graham

George, Tonality

and Musical Structure

New

York:

Praeger, 1970),

192-

94-

479


14/19

480

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

an

E6

minor

episode

in

the first

movement's

development

in

order to

explain

EL

major

as

the

key

of the

finale's

apotheosis.

The

relationship

is tenuous at best, especially given that Mahler abandoned preliminary

plans

to

put

the

"song"

theme

of

the first

movement's

exposition

in

E6

major

and

settled instead on E

major.

A more

broadly

constituted tonal

sense

may

be at work here.

To

be-

gin

with,

the chorus is not the

symphony's

first

encounter with

vocality.

In "Urlicht" the solo alto had

already

prefigured-in

the dim

light

of

the folk-medieval

poetry

of Des

Knaben

Wunderhorn-the human

need

for belief

that

is addressed

much

more

explicitly

in the

choral finale.

Simultaneously,

she had

linked

DM

o the

poem's

intimations

of

immor-

tality, creating a point of tonal and emotional stability from which the

instrumental

portion

of the finale

departs

and to

which

it

returns.

The hushed entrance of the

chorus, then,

would seem to resolve

the

D6

of

"Urlicht" to

Gb

major.

But

again,

as in

the finale's introduc-

tory

Klangfldche

on

C,

traditional dominant-to-tonic

hypotaxis

is effaced

through

a

suspension

of

temporal continuity. Only

in

the choral con-

clusion

does

the

finale

begin

to

coordinate events in a

way

that at last

reconciles the

paralyzing parataxis

of the

instrumental

portion

with a

sense

of

integrated, purposeful

succession.

Klopstock's

first two

stanzas,

both in GL, are laid out in a vast antecedent-consequence paragraph

composed

of

two

statement-expanse

structures.

Then,

with the first

words

of Mahler's own added

text,

a

series

of

episodes

restructures and

redirects motivic material from

both "Urlicht" and the

instrumental

portion

of the finale. Each

episode

ends on an

open

cadence

that

her-

alds

a

tonal

region

a

perfect

fifth

above that

of

the concluded

episode.

Both theme and

key,

in

other

words,

have

broken

free

from

circularity

and

collapse

into a

new,

open-ended spatio-temporal

order.

To call this new order a

recapitulation

denies both its

singularity

and its essential modernity. For it is not the old functional-or better,

symphonic-role

of

tonality

that

is

restored

but

a new

synthesis

of the

functional with the material that carries

us,

as

Mahler's

own

text

puts

it,

toward

a

new and hitherto

unsuspected

end: "zum

Licht,

zu

dem kein

Aug'

gedrungen"

(to

the

light

to which no

eye

has

penetrated).

Yet

Dahlhaus,

even as

he

confronted the

latent tension between the con-

ception

of the

symphony-cantata

as a

genre

of

exceptions

and the ade-

quacy

of traditional

formal

analysis,

could not

in

the

end tear

himself

away

from the familiar

categories

of

functional

analysis,

and

so

sought

to accommodate the work's novelty and aesthetic significance within

the

very

tradition it

subverts.

Marx,

who had first raised the

genre

issue,

offered

a

different

path

to

understanding

with his

notion

of

the

generative

Idea,

which medi-

ates not

only

form and

content

but

also

individuality

and

unity.

But


15/19

BAUMAN

where

does one

begin

to

look for

the Idea that

generates

the

excep-

tional form

of the

"Resurrection" finale?

As

Marx's own

interpretation

of Beethoven's

Ninth

illustrates,

the Idea can

all too

easily degenerate

into

programmatic exegesis

as an

alternative to

ineffectual

formal

analysis.

Although

Mahler himself

provided

several

programs

as an aid

to the

Second's earliest

audiences,

these

documents are best

dismissed

with

Mahler's own words

about

them

to

Alma:

They

are "a crutch for

a

cripple"

that lead to

"a

flattening

and

coarsening,

and in

the

long

run

to

such distortion

that the

work,

and still

more its

creator,

is

utterly

unrecognizable."22

"...

and still more

its creator."

Mahler

seems to be

suggesting,

even

as

he

denies his

own hermeneutic

narratives, that to perceive his sym-

phony

in its

fullness is to

perceive

not

simply

the

composer's

intentions

but the

composer

himself.

The

reciprocal

relationship

of

artistic cre-

ation and

life-experience

is

a

frequent

theme

in

Mahler's

letters,

espe-

cially

those of the mid

189os

that deal

with the

Second. "So it

always

is

with

me,"

he

wrote to Arthur

Seidl,

"only

when

I

experience

do

I

com-

pose; only

when I

compose

do I

experience "2"

Mahler

was never

pre-

cise

in

defining

the boundaries of

art and

experience,

since to him

they

were

inseparable.

And never

were

they

more

inseparable

companions

than in the

creation of the

Second.

The

history

of

the

symphony's genesis

is

well

known. The first

movement was

composed

at

Leipzig

in

1888,

at the

time of the First

Symphony.

For

several

years

Mahler tried to

envisage

what

could

follow

it

in

a

symphonic plan,

granting

it a

provisional

self-sufficient

existence

as the tone

poem

Todtenfeier.

He sketched

and

completed

movements

2

and

3

in

the summer of

1893

at

Steinbach

and was

planning

a vocal

finale,

busily

sifting through

"all

human

literature,

including

the

Bible,"

but

without

finding

a

suitable text.

Early

in

1894

Hans

von

Billow,

who

had

played

a

markedly ambivalent role in Mahler's career, died at

Cairo.

Mahler himself

described to

Seidl the

impact

of the

"Aufer-

steh'n"

chorale

setting, sung by

a

boys'

choir at

the

conductor's funeral

at

Hamburg:

"Like a

bolt of

lightning

it hit

me and

everything

stood

perfectly

clear and

distinct

before

my

soul.

This is the

bolt the creator

waits

for,

this is

'holy

conception' "24

And

he added:

"What

I

experienced

then,

I

now had to

create

in

tones."

Is

the choral

conclusion,

then,

some

kind of mirror

image

of

the

chorale and its

message,

transferred into his

finale like

the

missing

'-

Alma

Mahler,

Gustav

Mahler:

Memories

and

Letters,

trans. Basil

Creighton,

ed. Don-

ald

Mitchell,

3rd

ed.

enlarged

(Seattle:

Univ. of

Washington

Press,

1975), 217-18.

3

Gustav

Mahler

Briefe,

879-1911,

ed. Alma

Maria Mahler

(Berlin,

1924),

229.

24

Ibid.

481


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482

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

piece

of

a

puzzle?

This is

substantially

Theodor Reik's

position,

pre-

sented in

a

psychoanalytic

interpretation

of

the finale.25

Reik

stresses

Mahler's antipathy toward Billow himself, who had covered his ears in

disgust

when

Mahler had

played Todtenfeier

for him in

1892.

Subcon-

sciously,

Mahler

longed

to

complete

the

symphony

to

spite

Billow

and

fell

prey

to a "death wish." The

fulfillment of this wish with the

conduc-

tor's death

triggered

an emotional

certitude

in

Mahler

that

the

sym-

phony

itself would

also

achieve

fulfillment,

and the

Klopstock

chorale

revealed

to him the vehicle for

this fulfillment.

Reik's

explanation suggests kinship

with Marx's

equally

biographi-

cal

interpretation

of

Beethoven's Ninth. But even if

we

could

bring

our-

selves to identify with Mahler's purported "death wish," it falls woefully

short when

we

try

to use

it

to take the musical

measure

of the

finale it-

self,

for the state

of

emotional certitude its

fulfillment

supposedly

en-

gendered

tells

us

scarcely anything

about

the

movement's

expressive

content.

Instead,

Reik's

portrait

presents

a

psychological curiosity

with

only

limited

application

even to the

narrow issue of

compositional

process.

The

life

experience

Reik's

scenario

sought

to read into the finished

work can

be

analyzed

from a

different

perspective.

Consider first the

expressionwith which Mahlersought to capturehis moment of revela-

tion,

one that

betokens the

very

opposite

of

death-"die

heilige

Emp-

fdingnis," oly

conception.

What was received

("empfangen")?Surely

not

merely

the

text,

or

even its

message.

It

is

absurd

to

imagine

that

in

his

search

for a

fitting

text Mahler had never encountered

Klopstock's

poem

or

its

like,

still

less that

he

was

unacquainted

with the doctrine

of

Resurrection

or

had never considered

it as a

counterpoise

to a first

movement

that

he

had at

one

time called "Funeral Rites."

And

anyway,

Klopstock's

poem

and

the

doctrine

of

Resurrection do

not

by

them-

selves play a determinative role in his setting. Most of the text after

Klopstock's

first two

quatrains

Mahler

wrote himself.

His added verses

have little

to do with

Christian

theology;

rather,

they

offer

an

extended

gloss

on

the

theme

of

redemption through struggle,

to

which he

re-

turned when

he set

the

close of Faust

II in

the

Eighth,

and which

ap-

pears again

and

again

in

Wagner's

operas

and

music

dramas.

Earlier we

considered the

join

between

symphony

and cantata

in

the "Resurrection"

finale as a

change

of state. An

interesting parallel

to

this

idea

in Mahler's musical

heritage

lay very

close at

hand: the

awakening of Brfinnhilde in Siegfried, now no longer a Valkyrie but a

mortal woman.

Constantin Floros

and

others have

pointed

out

that the

25

Theodor

Reik,

The

Haunting

Melody:

Psychoanalytic

Experiences

n

Life

and

Music,

part

3

(New

York:

Farrar,

Straus and

Young,

1953).


17/19

BAUMAN

principal

motive

developed

in

the choral

section

of

Mahler's finale

(mm.

550-59)

is

lifted

almost

directly

from

her

Friedenmusik,

sung

to

the words

"Ewig

war

ich, ewig

bin ich."26 If

we

adopt Marx's view of

vocal

music

as more human

than

instrumental

music,

then-like

Brfinnhilde-Mahler's

symphony

also

takes

on mortal form

with the

first words of

the chorus.

But this

presents

us with

a

seeming paradox:

The

symphony

resorts

to the

discourse

of

mortals

just

when it

begins

to

speak

about

immortal-

ity.

A

brief

detour back to

Beethoven's Ninth

offers an

instructive con-

trast. Its

finale had faced no

such

paradox,

since there the

chorus and

soloists,

even in

addressing

the

Goddess,

are

concerned at

every

turn

not with divine but

with human Joy, as Marx rightly observed. Further,

recall

Schiller's exhortation

that

Joy

use her

magic

to

reunite

what

cus-

tom has

severed

("Deine

Zauber binden wieder

/

Was die Mode

streng

geteilt").27

Given the

generic

issue the Ninth

confronted for the first

time,

this

appeal goes

out

not

only

to

factious mankind but

to instru-

mental and

vocal

expression

as

well.

Even

in terms of

musical

genre,

that

is,

Beethoven's

symphony

reunites what custom had

severed.

The

paradox

in

Mahler's Second-its

invocation

of the

human to

express

the

divine-can be

resolved

in the

spirit

of

Beethoven's reunit-

ing of severed modes of musical discourse if we acknowledge a final

level of

parataxis,

one that

deals with

genre

itself. For

only

in

homoge-

neous,

linear time is Mahler's

symphony-cantata

an either-or

proposi-

tion;

in

the

new

temporal

order

of its own

creating,

however,

there is

no need to

decide which

mode

of

discourse is subordinate to

the other.

The

rhetorical

impasse

at

the end

of

the instrumental

portion

of the

finale is

not

a turn of events

in a

generic

turf

war but a far

more

press-

ing compositional

impasse

precipitated

by

a

crisis

in

the

very

creation

of the work

itself. That

impasse

was overcome

only through

a moment

of metamorphosis in the creative process-experienced by Mahler him-

self but also

embodied

in

the

change

of state

the finale

undergoes

with

the entrance of the chorus. In

this moment

art and

experience,

genesis

and

revelation,

merge

to

engender

a

new,

self-begotten

music.

6

Constantin

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler,vol.

2:

Mahler

und die

Symphonik

es

i9.

Jahrhun-

derts in

neuerDeutung

(Wiesbaden:

Breitkopf

&

Hdirtel,

1977), 259-60.

The

motive occurs

frequently throughout

Mahler's

oeuvre,

nearly always

in

a context

closely

associated with

eternity

or

life after death. Its

recurrences

were

first

catalogued by

Philip

Barford,

"Mahler: A Thematic Archetype," Music Review 21 (1960): 297-316. See also Floros, Gus-

tav

Mahler,

2:

408,

and

Henry-Louis

de

la

Grange,

"Music about Music in

Mahler: Remi-

niscences,

Allusions,

or

Quotations?"

in

Mahler Studies,

ed.

Stephen

E.

Hefling

(Cam-

bridge:

Cambridge

Univ.

Press,

1997):

143-44-

27

This

is

the

text as

Beethoven set

it;

Schiller's

original poem

reads

"Wasder Mode

Schwert

geteilt."

483


18/19

484

THE

JOURNAL

OF MUSICOLOGY

But doesn't this

simply

substitute one

quandary

for

another? For

how

can

anyone

but the

composer

have

access

to the

lived,

aesthetic

experience of both the work and its creation? To return to Mahler's let-

ter

that

relates his

experiences

at

Bflow's

funeral: "The mood in

which

I

sat

and

pondered

on the

departed

was

utterly

in

the

spirit

of

what

I

was

working

on at the time."

Mahler's world was that of his

unborn com-

position; inception

and

reception

are mediated from

within,

so that the

voice

heard

in

the finale is at once his own and the work's

own.

Fittingly,

we

actually

hear

this voice

emerge-by degrees,

section

by

section-as

we

ascend from GL to the

closing

peroration

in

Eb

with

which the

work

completes

itself.

In

the

spacious

G?

section at the

end

of

each of

Klop-

stock's quatrains, the solo soprano seems to break free from the chorus

(mm.

481-93).

This is an

unusual treatment of the solo

voice

in

a

choral

work,

but it

signals

what is about to

happen

textually:

Mahler's

own words take

the

place

of

Klopstock's.

With Mahler's

first

line,

"O

glaube,

mein

Herz, o

glaube,"

Klopstock's cenotaphic

"mein

Staub" is

transformed

into the

composer's

own

living

"mein Herz." The

rest

of

Klopstock's

text had elaborated the

essentially

passive

part played by

the soul

in his

vision

of

Resurrection and had

introduced

explicitly

the

figure

of

Jesus

as Intercessor. Mahler's

text,

when

it first

touches on

EK,

sets forth a very different, Faustian vision: "With wings that I have

won for

myself

I

shall soar

up,"

a sentiment

more

appropriate

to the

Athenian craftsman Daedalus

than to one of

the Elect

going

to his or

her reward.

At the

end of

Mahler's

text,

Klopstock's

initial

lines-and with

them the

portentous

moment at which the

composer

first

heard them

-are

paraphrased

and

personalized.

Interlaced with

echoes

of

Brfinn-

hilde's

Friedenmusik

in the

brass,

the

choral

peroration merges

state-

ment and

expanse

in a

key

that

symbolizes

"the

light

to

which no

eye

has penetrated." The approach to the colossal, final cadence in

E,

sets

in

relief the newness

of

the

symphony's

final

resting place

by swerving

momentarily

toward its earlier tonal

centers,

flanking

Eb

on either

side

(C,

Dk,

Gk,

F).

Each statement of Mahler's

words-"was du

geschlagen"

(what

you

have

created)-is

punctuated

at the

syllable "schlag" by

a

stroke

from

the

orchestra's

registral

extremes,

bass drum and

triangle,

in a final

onomatopoeic-autoreferential

union of vocal and

instrumen-

tal. The either-or

of

the

symphony-cantata

dissolves,

for the

music no

longer

simply

expresses

or

adorns the text's

meaning:

Here the text

points to the very music with which it is fused (mm. 720-26).

Mahler later admitted that he himself did not

know how he

had

achieved

the final

intensification,

the

Steigerung,

of

the "Resurrection"

finale.

His

confession

in one

sense

couples

the

symphony's redemptive

apotheosis,

that most Romantic of

solutions,

with

the

Ig9th-century


19/19

BAUMAN

ideal

of the

composer

as

unconscious vessel. But his words

can

also

sug-

gest

the

modernist

notion of the

self-fashioned work that

thematizes

its

own invention.

2

The instrumental portion of the finale ends in self-

imposed aporia,

created

out

of a

deliberately

inadequate

formalism

that exhausts

symphonic

discourse

as a

system

of

generalized expecta-

tions,

as

genre.

The choral

conclusion,

cast adrift from

external

expec-

tation

(and

from

the formalist's

gaze),

is left to set its

own course.

In

the

struggle

toward

self-completion

the

symphony

found

its

Marxian

Idea-the

psychotherapeutic

reenactment of its own

genesis.

Mahler

himself seems

to have

sensed

something

of

the work's

aesthetic

indebt-

edness

to its

own birth

pangs.

On

17

December

1895,

four

days

after

the first complete performance of the Second Symphony at Berlin, he

wrote

in a

letter to the

critic

Max Marschalk: "That

afterwards

I often

see an actual

event

dramatically

enacted before me

at various

single

parts

is

easy

to

comprehend

from the nature of the music.

The

parallel

between life and music

goes

perhaps deeper

and further

than can

as

yet

be

pursued."29

Northwestern

University

ABSTRACT

Like other

symphonic

works that combine instrumental and vocal

resources,

Mahler's

"Resurrection"

symphony

seems

to

pose

a

genre

puzzle, especially

to those who

have

tried to

subject

its

choral finale to

formal

exegesis.

Carl Dahlhaus

dodged

the

difficulty

of

categorization

in his

analysis

by

declaring

it

and

all

other

examples

of

the

"symphony-

cantata" as

members of an

intractable

"genre

of

exceptions."

Approaching

the

work

along

an

alternative,

metaformal

exegetical

pathway foregrounds

instead the

reciprocal relationship

of

artistic

cre-

ation

and

life-experience,

and

leads

ultimately

to the

conclusion that

in

this work Mahler reconciled instrumental and vocal discursive modes

through

the finale's reenactment of its own

genesis.

8

I

borrow this

expression

from

Paul de Man's introduction to

Hans Robert

Jauss,

Towardan

Aesthetic

of Reception,

rans.

Timothy

Bahti

(Minneapolis:

Univ. of Minnesota

Press,

1982),

xxiv.

.2Gustav

Mahler

Briefe,

8o.

485

Mahler in a New Key Genre and the Resurrection Finale

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