Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 3: Getting Behind the Music

(This post is my pre-concert talk for the Harrisburg Symphony's performances of Mahler's 3rd Symphony, April 16th & 17th, presenting background information and biographical context for the work.)

A couple of years before Gustav Mahler composed his 3rd Symphony, a friend – or perhaps just a fan – wrote to him asking “whether it is necessary to employ such a large apparatus as the orchestra to express a great thought.”

Mahler responded that “the more music develops, the more complicated the apparatus becomes to express the composer's ideas.”

In Bach's day, a handful of musicians might suffice to play the orchestra parts in his Brandenburg Concertos. Haydn or Mozart might use 25 or so, Beethoven would have been quite happy with around 40. But 65 years after Beethoven's death, composers at the other end of the 19th Century like Mahler and Strauss would expect orchestras of 75 to 100 to play their works. In the 2nd Symphony, his “Resurrection” Symphony, Mahler called for at least 120 (as many strings as possible would leave this open-ended) in addition to two vocal soloists and a large choir. His Third Symphony would call for about 118 considering the largest possible contingent of string players and including additional reinforcements for several parts like the 1st Clarinet, 1st Trumpet, harps and off-stage snare-drums – then add the alto soloist and the rather modest size of the women's choir and boys' choir. Sometimes it's not just the budget that determines the size of this “apparatus,” but the available space on the stage.

Ten years after the 3rd, Mahler's 8th Symphony was dubbed the “Symphony of a Thousand” by a marketing-minded manager at the world premiere in Munich – which involved an orchestra of 171 plus vocal soloists and choristers numbering 858 – in other words, 1,029, to be exact...

One could argue that the grander this “apparatus” is doesn't necessarily mean Mahler's idea in his “Resurrection” Symphony is any “grander” than Handel's idea in his oratorio, Messiah, which can get along with about 50 performers (though even in Handel's day, there were “gala performances” with a choir of hundreds and an orchestra to balance it).

The form of the piece – another aspect of presenting the composer's idea – also expanded, becoming more complex in the century since the death of Mozart.

As far as symphonies go, a typical symphony of four movements written at the end of the 18th Century might be about a half-hour long. By comparison, Mahler's 3rd Symphony, written at the end of the 19th Century, and was going to contain seven movements instead of the final six, lasts about an hour-and-a-half to an hour and 40 minutes...

And one could also argue whether or not sheer length makes Mahler's “idea” any more intense, more universal, more “grand” than Beethoven's? Except recall that Beethoven's 5th is around a half-hour long and Beethoven's 9th, written 20 years later, is about 70 minutes long...

Part of the problem with composers' ideas and the “apparatus” in which they present them, is how to get this across to the listeners. Music is an indirect language that can't be translated the same way a spoken or written language – like a novel or a poem – can be. A painting or a sculpture might represent something but it still leaves the viewer to interpret and react to it. Music, open to different interpretations, depends on what the listener brings to it, what the listener is able to take away from it.

In one sense, there are – basically – two kinds of music (aside from the “Good Music” and “Bad Music” response). Music can be abstract, a logical architecture built on pre-conceived forms doing more-or-less expected things. Think Beethoven's 1st Symphony. Or it can support a story, illustrating the events and characters, situations and emotions we find in a tale told in words, but here expressed in music. Think of tone-poems like Richard Strauss' Don Quixote or Paul Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice, with or without Mickey Mouse (Walt Disney's Fantasia is actually a very accurate rendering of the story the music is illustrating).

In between are varying degrees of that – for instance, music that implies a story which can be further subdivided into a story (and I use the term loosely, here) imposed on it by the listener or the critic or a story implied by the composer as a means of explaining the music or guiding the listener.

Here, Beethoven's 5th could be an example of the first, in which people listen to the struggle of the first movement, the dark uncertainty of the scherzo emerging into the sunlight of triumph in the finale and decide it is about Man's Struggle with Fate, though Beethoven said nothing about it beyond calling the opening motive “Fate Knocks at the Door.”

An example of the second would be Beethoven's 6th, called his “Pastoral,” in which Beethoven supplied illustrations by giving each movement titles – “Pleasant impressions upon arriving in the countryside,” “Scene by the brook,” complete with bird-calls, “Thunderstorm” (quite literal in its sound effects) and “Thanksgiving after the storm.”

In the late-19th Century, this “program” music was all the rage and anything that didn't have a program often frustrated listeners who had to know what a piece was “about” in order to understand it. Richard Strauss wrote tone-poems like Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) which suggested a story with explanatory titles about the hero's battles with his adversaries. He also set a philosophical work to music, Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra in which he tried to interpret Nietzsche's views in music, something that might have been familiar to an audience where most people had probably read the work – it had been published only 10 years earlier and was a best seller.

Curiously, the year before Strauss wrote his “Zarathustra” piece, Mahler set a poem from Nietzsche's book as a movement in his 3rd Symphony, part of a grand scheme he had planned with an elaborate outline of what the different movements would be, giving them a detailed “program,” as we call it, to let the listener know what he's up to at any given time.

In the vast first movement – actually, the last to be composed – he even marked in the sketches things like “Pan Awakes,” “Summer Marches In,” “The Rabble,” “The Storm” and so on... The subsequent movements were given titles like “What the flowers in the field tell me,” “What the animals in the forest tell me,” “What Man tells me” – this is the “Midnight Song” with the text from Nietzsche (see illustration, right) – “What the angels tell me” and finally, “What Love tells me.”

If you're seeing a kind of ladder of awareness, here, we go from the calling forth of primordial matter in the opening – following this incantatory horn theme that begins the piece – through flowers to animals to mankind to the gates of Heaven and finally Love in a spiritual sense, the Love or Forgiveness from God.

Despite Nietzsche's poem, this symphony presents a very anti-Nietzsche viewpoint – Mahler originally thought he would call the whole symphony “A Summer Night's Dream” or “The Happy Life” or, “The Happy Science” after another of Nietzsche's books but then realizing it wasn't Nietzsche's viewpoint he was implying but his own, then maybe “MY Happy Science”... and then for good measure, “Dream of a Summer Morning,” “A Summer Noontime Dream” with a specific warning that it has nothing to do with Shakespeare.

Eventually, he rejected all of these and just called it his Third Symphony. However, while working on the middle movements – written that first summer – he told his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner, “calling it a symphony is actually incorrect because in no way does it adhere to the usual form. Creating a symphony means to construct a world with all manner of techniques available. The constantly new and changing content determines its own form.”

But since Mahler is full of contradictions, both as a musician and as a person, a year later, nearing completion of the work, he told her it's the same basic structure as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven – Adagio, Rondo, Minuet, Sonata-Allegro Form – except, in his work, the sequence of movements was different with greater variety and complexity within the movements. So at first it wasn't a symphony but, if you really look at it, it was. Perhaps he could've called the whole symphony, “What Art Tells Me.”

But speaking of contradictions, by the time the entire symphony was ready for its world premiere six years later, this vast symphony built on these elaborate outlines – the music's “program” – he changed his mind and said he would forbid making these titles, these picturesque details, these comments and images public. The music stands on its own as an abstract work. “Down with programs,” he would write, setting himself in opposition to his friend and frequent musical adversary, Richard Strauss.

Oh, and he was recommending his new young wife, Alma, burn all her copies of Nietzsche.

Critics and many listeners, knowing there was a program behind the piece, clamored to be informed, complaining they couldn't make sense without it. If Mahler was concerned his music – or his “idea” – would be misinterpreted, he now ended up having people superimposing their own ideas on his music in order to “explain” it.

Arnold Schoenberg, the composer who had just completed his tone-poem Pelleas and Melisande and written his Transfigured Night five years earlier, heard the first performance of Mahler's 3rd in Vienna and wrote to the composer that “I felt the struggle for illusions; I felt the pain of one disillusioned; I saw the forces of evil and good contending; I saw a man in a torment of emotion exerting himself to gain inner harmony. I sensed a human being, a drama, truth, the most ruthless truth!”

So the modern-day argument is “do we mention this program or not?” Most writers agree that, since it was what Mahler was specifically using as the inspiration for the music when he was writing it, it has its place. But considering he changed his mind, then, perhaps it has no place. Just to make things more confusing, the last performance of it Mahler himself conducted, he allowed the titles of the movements to be used in the program-book after all (speaking of contradictions).

Mahler was in his mid-30s when he wrote his Third Symphony. He was almost 42 when he premiered the work and by then had completed his 4th and 5th Symphonies and also married Alma Schindler (see photograph, right), three months before the 3rd premiere – she was 21, Mahler was 19 years her senior.

We tend to break Mahler's symphonies into biographical periods – the first four form one group because, composed between the ages of 28 and 40, are all inspired by or include earlier songs setting poems from the folk-collection, Des Knabens Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) – three of these symphonies include the voice and all of them were conceived with elaborate programs.

The next three – the 5th, 6th and 7th – are entirely instrumental and seemingly abstract, without programs – or at least without any commentary that Mahler made public. He would tell a friend something tantalizing about this or that detail, perhaps, but it's not enough to pin some story or “idea” underlying each movement much less the entire work. He wrote these in his early-to-mid-40s – so perhaps one could argue that the exuberance of youth has given way to Middle Age. One can infer the 5th is a Struggle-with-Fate Symphony and, after all, he had referred to the 6th as his “Tragic” Symphony (though the first one he had begun since his marriage to Alma).

The 8th Symphony – the one dubbed the “Symphony of a Thousand” – setting the hymn Veni creator spiritus in the first half and the final scene of Faust in the second, was written when he was 46. And “Das Lied von der Erde” (The Song of the Earth) which he considered a symphony in all but name despite its being a vast song cycle, he described as his most personal, autobiographical work yet, written in his late 40s following the death of his daughter and his own diagnosis of a heart condition.

The 9th Symphony – essentially a farewell to life – was again purely instrumental, but it is impossible to listen to this work and not feel this too is a struggle-with-fate symphony, but without Beethoven's victorious ending (unlike Tchaikovsky's last symphony, the “Pathetique,” which ends with a requiem, Mahler's farewell is one of acceptance and transfiguration). The 10th Symphony, its sketches filled with personal comments in the margins following the revelation of Alma's infidelity, was left unfinished when Mahler died, burned out at the age of 50.

People often mock Mahler's later symphonies for being too personal, autobiographical and egotistical, a man leaning out the window shouting “Look at me! I'm dying!” But he did inscribe a motto at the beginning of the great Adagio that eventually concluded his 3rd Symphony, “What Love Tells Me”:

“Father, Look upon my wounds! Let no creature be lost!”

Autobiographical or not, he did entitle the movements “What the Flowers tell ME.”

Incidentally, this symphony was not supposed to end with an Adagio – a slow movement was originally the 3rd of 7 movements. This 7th movement was to be a song he had composed three years earlier. “Das Himmlische Leben” (The Heavenly Life) was, in one sense, the initial starting point for his 3rd Symphony – following the flowers and animals and more abstract ideas like love, it became “What the Child tells me.” This child-like innocence, a naïve view of life in Heaven – where the music is better than anything on Earth – infused much of the 3rd Symphony's inner movements: fragments of it can be heard in the scherzo but especially in the “Angels” movement – when the alto soloist admits to having broken the Ten Commandments and the angels tell her to pray to God, to love God.

It is also interesting to note, reading these folk-poems with their Christian connotations that Mahler – born and raised a Jew – did not officially convert to Catholicism until February, 1897, (two years after he outlined the 3rd and had completed all but its first movement) when he had been offered the post of music director at the Court Opera in the anti-Semitic imperial capital of Vienna, a career goal he had been working towards during those two years – if not exactly required by law, he was not going to gain the post if he was a Jew but he wasn't assured the appointment until a few months later. There were comments made at the time to Natalie Bauer-Lechner that, while on the one hand he hoped to gain “applause and money” with this new symphony he was working on, on the other he knew it would be beyond the typical concert-going audience to appreciate which might have imbued the 1st movement, completed only six months before his official conversion, with a different light on its struggle between the intellectual and populist elements, the movement ending with its evocations of town bands and a march designed to appeal to the popular taste.

But at some point, he decided this song, “The Heavenly Life” (or as the original Wunderhorn poem was called, “Heaven is Full of Violins”) needed its own symphony, so he excised it from the 3rd and outlined a plan for a 4th Symphony whose basic idea was “Life After Death,” a fitting sequel to his 2nd Symphony, “The Resurrection” where the idea of resurrection is about mankind's rebirth, not the Resurrection of Christ. And since Mahler said the opening of that 2nd Symphony was a vast funeral march for the hero of his 1st Symphony – which is sometimes referred to as “The Titan” – it makes the 3rd Symphony the transition between Death and Resurrection to Eternal Life in Heaven – a cycle of four more-or-less interrelated symphonies. There are several moments when I'm listening to the 3rd and I hear something that I think, “wait, didn't I hear that in the 1st Symphony?” or like the bird-calls and other sounds of nature heard in the 3rd Movement, harking back to the finale of the 2nd Symphony as well as various parts of the 1st Symphony? Is it just because they're “fingerprints” of Mahler's style, sounds that he fell back on (consciously or not) because they were all written within a span of 12 years?

After he completed the 4th, he told Natalie Bauer-Lechner, who was a frequent companion of his (along with his sister) during these summer composing holidays, that there was a close connection between all four symphonies – “the content and structure of the four are combined to create a definite unified tetralogy.” Whether this is coincidental – the composer looking back and seeing how his subconscious had been at work – or whether it was a conscious plan, at least as he began work on the 2nd, there's no other direct proof. Still, he finished the 2nd when he was 34 and had basically outlined the 4th when he was 37, so in a sense, they all share the same small time-frame for their conception. He was basically outlining the 3rd and 4th Symphonies even before he had begun serious creative work on the 3rd!

Mahler's career as a conductor – he was still located in Hamburg at the time: later, he would make the career move to Vienna – meant that he had only a few months during the summer to get away from everything so he could compose. He would sketch and draft things during these summers and then work them out on his “down-time” during the year.

I've mentioned Natalie Bauer-Lechner (see photograph, left, taken several years later) who figures prominently in Mahler's life during these years. She was two years his senior, the violist of an all-female string quartet and a friend whom Mahler valued for her intelligence and insights though he often found her personality annoying. She, for her part, had assumed that Mahler, in his mid-30s and still an eligible bachelor, would eventually realize she would make the ideal mate, rather than just someone to take pleasant walks in the country with or to sit around and talk about music and creativity after spending the day composing. She left 30 diaries behind containing many details about these conversations (as well as those with other artists she knew).

Her hopes about marrying Mahler, however, met a sudden end when Mahler unexpectedly announced his engagement to Alma Schindler whom he'd met only a few weeks before. Mahler seemed surprised that Natalie had “feelings” for him – so perhaps there's something to be said that “Love” didn't tell him everything...

Another friend of Mahler's – and one who also figures in Natalie Bauer-Lechner's would-be Love Life – was the poet Siegfried Lipiner (see photograph, right) who was highly regarded as a young poet but published nothing after he was 24, yet he was highly regarded by both Wagner and Nietzsche.

And Mahler, too. They were good friends and it was Lipiner's poem “Genesis” that formed the original seed from which the 3rd Symphony grew – the cosmological dream of Nature coming to life and working its way up through flowers and animals to mankind and angels and God's Love. The first movement of Mahler's symphony has many marginal comments or section headings taken from Lipiner's poem.

The first movement abounds in Nature as much as the Flowers' & the Animals' movements do – “Pan awakens,” the great God of nature from Greek Mythology from whom we also get the word “panic” and sections Mahler marked “what the rocks and mountains tell me.” In fact, when Bruno Walter arrived that summer, walking up to the composing hut where Mahler spent much of his time composing, he saw Walter look up at the sheer cliffs of the mountains behind them and told his young friend, “No need to look up there any more – that's all been used up and set to music by me.”

Speaking of this “composing hut,” overlooking the shores of the lake where Mahler and his friends and family vacationed that year, it looks rather disappointing – tiny, more like one of those garden sheds you see in suburban yards but made out of cinder-blocks and with a piano and a desk instead of a lawn mower and hedge-clippers... Mahler arrived there at 6am, his breakfast would be left silently outside the door at 7 and he would not open the door again until noon or perhaps, on a productive day, 3:00...

That first summer, sketching out the symphony's plan and writing the middle-movements which he called, primarily, “humoresques” before settling down to the more serious movements – the Midnight Song from Nietzsche (which didn't exist in the original plan) and the Adagio which, only then became the finale. When he moved the “What the Child Tells Me” movement to the 4th Symphony's plan, he apparently moved what he'd been sketching as ITS “morning bells” movement to become the “Angels” movement with its children's voices imitating the pealing of bells. But it was too late in the summer to start on the 1st movement, so he had to put this off.

At some point during the winter, he wrote down a few pages of sketches for this movement which it turns out he forgot and left behind. He had to write to a friend of his to go to his apartment, find them and mail them to him. By June 21st, he wrote to this friend to thank him for having done this and then on July 11th (a few days after his 36th birthday), wrote back to him that he'd finished the 1st Movement – a half-hour's music in three weeks? Still, Natalie Bauer-Lechner mentions in her diary that he finished it on July 28th – revisions? the orchestration?

She also mentioned a few days later that Mahler told her he'd changed the ending of the slow movement, the final moments of the whole symphony, having completed the 1st movement. He said “it was not plain enough” but also mentioned “it now dies away in broad chords and only in the one key, D Major.” As you experience the ending, you'll probably be struck by the fact that, though it might seem simple – compared to what came before – it hardly “dies away.” Were there more changes to be made before it was officially “complete”?

The “Flower” movement was performed by itself a few times – even before the whole symphony was finished – and the 2nd, 3rd and 6th movements were performed as a unit a couple of times before the official world premiere of the complete symphony in 1902. But by then, Mahler was completely opposed to the whole program issue, suppressing the titles and the story about its composition, Nature and all. The audience was left on its own – and of course the argument for any work of art is that it transcends whatever initially inspired it to stand on ITS own. (You can read more about this first performance in a post on the Harrisburg Symphony Blog which can you can access through the symphony's web-site.)

So without a program telling you what to listen for, how do you grasp a 90-minute work? There are themes and fragments of themes – conflicts of mood or style just like you'd have in Beethoven – there is an over-all arch of direction from beginning to end with sounds and themes that recur, perhaps not literally but like reflections.

The opening horn theme – an incantation that, originally, is a call to awaken Nature – comes back in various guises: it may resemble the big theme in the last movement of Brahms' Symphony No. 1 which in itself sounds a lot like Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' theme. Sometimes it's a chorale, sometime it's swamped by a vulgar march (the most exciting parts of the movement, designed to appeal to the public taste) – in the end, it is transformed into the main theme of the finale, more chorale-like, and unfolds in long-spinning fragments.

In the 3rd Movement, there's an off-stage trumpet – imitating a post-horn – interrupting the animals' dance (almost a polka) – at one point, Mahler commented about how Nature, here, seems to be making faces at you, sticking out its tongue – with time suspended, they seem to listen as if hypnotized before resuming their dance.

The Nietzsche song takes us into a dark, deep place – midnight of the soul – which is then contrasted by the sudden brightness of the angels' chorus, like a door opening up and life bursting in – actually, heaven bursting in joyfully. Here, we might realize the symphony's opening call actually derives from a phrase in that song, “The Heavenly Life” now in the 4th Symphony, at the point where the Alto soloists weeps about breaking the Commandments but the Angels tell her to love God – essentially offering absolution and forgiveness. From this, we move to the consolation of the last movement, which, if it isn't exactly a “happy” ending to resolve the conflicts of the first movement, is a transcendent one.

When Mahler conducted the work in Amsterdam a year after its premiere (with a chorus of over 500 singers, 200 of them, children), a Dutch composer who hadn't thought much of him or his music, met him and changed his mind. He found there was “much that is ugly in the 1st Movement” but that after two or three hearings you know what he is intending to say and it all seems quite different.

“His music has the power of changing people, of initiating catharsis.” By comparison, Strauss' popular tone poems – he mentions Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote with their detailed “programs” – which “make a sad showing beside Mahler's 3rd Symphony.”

Other composers had introduced folk music into their “classical” music language, but Mahler was perhaps the first “serious” composer to introduce popular music, music of the “lower class” – the town-band's marches in the first movement, the dances that form the basis of the 3rd movement as opposed to the “concert hall” minuet-like dance of the 2nd movement (flowers or not) – often placing “vulgar” music – considering “vulgar” as “pertaining to the people or popular element” rather than rude behavior or dirty jokes – up against music associated with a more elite class. This is something that often made Mahler's audiences uncomfortable – not just the dissonances of his harmony or the sound-effects of sliding trombones near the beginning.

This was all part of the symphony's potential universality – its ability to embrace the world, to create something that is a varied as the world itself.

As Mahler wrote to a friend four months after completing the 3rd Symphony, “No one will hear, of course, that nature encompasses everything that is eerie, great and even lovely (this is precisely what I wanted to express using the whole work as a kind of evolutionistic development).” He said that most people's image of Nature was only flowers, birds, forest fragrances – “nobody mentions the god Dionysus or the Great Pan,” who figure so prominently in the first movement, ideas he took from Nietzsche's “Birth of Tragedy.” “There,” he told his friend, “you have a kind of program, a sample of how I make music – always and everywhere only the sound of nature!” He goes on, “If I have now and then given them titles, I wanted to provide sign posts for the emotion, for the imagination. Here it is the world, nature as a whole, that is awakened out of unfathomable silence and sings and resounds.”

- Dick Strawser

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Bibliography: primarily from Henry-Louis de La Grange: Mahler (Vienna: The Years of Challenge) [Oxford 1995]; Constantin Floros: Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies [Amadeus Press 1993]; Bruno Walter: Gustav Mahler [Vienna House, Inc., 1973].

Gustav Mahler's "Doomsday" Symphony

Since the Harrisburg Symphony is performing Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 3 this weekend, Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm – I'm doing the pre-concert talks an hour before each performance – I thought it would be appropriate to post some excerpts from my recently completed music appreciation thriller, “The Doomsday Symphony,” a scene involving Mahler's most recent posthumous symphony which gives the novel its title.

Two of the main characters, Dr. T. R. Cranleigh and Zoe Crevecoeur, have just returned from Dresden, May 1849, rescuing Richard Wagner from the history-changing clutches of the villain, Klavdia Klangfarben, who is out to eliminate the music written by four of the most influential Great Composers. They have returned to Harmonia-IV, that parallel universe where dead composers go but continue to compose.

In this scene, they’re on the edge of the woods outside the city. They’ve just run into some talking flowers (yes, a parody of a scene from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”) and notice someone further off the beaten path...

*** ***** Excerpt from Chapter 40 ***** ***

Just beyond the flowers, I noticed a man with his back to us sitting on a large mushroom-shaped cushion. He appeared to be playing the bassoon, though I couldn't hear a single note he was playing.

Everything he wore was some shade of bluish-purple, blending into the shadows so well, it was difficult even to see him, at first.

The man turned out to be Alexander Skryabin, much annoyed having his meditation disturbed. He wasn't playing the bassoon so much as smoking it, having modified it like a hookah. Judging from the sweet aroma, my guess is it wasn't tobacco.

"I am working on my Mysterium, my greatest composition. Leave me, please," he said imperiously, closing his eyes.

"You've been writing it for almost a century? How much is left to finish?"

"All of it, of course. It is the ultimate creation, meant only for my own appreciation."

With that, drifting away, he stopped talking.

…We kept walking along, figuring there was no sense bothering [him] further: in a parallel universe, he was his own parallel universe.

Another bend and more voices lay ahead. This was one busy place!

Certainly, someone here must know where we are?

The first man I see is easily recognizable.

"Oh my God, it's Mahler!"

He stood next to a large-built man looking vaguely familiar but I couldn't place him.

The two were looking over a score lying open on this table covered with many dishes of food like they were in the midst of a reception.

Zoe said, "wasn't that the man talking to Wagner back in Dresden?"

"Of course! I didn't recognize him in the top hat."

Mahler saw us and waved us over to join them.

I knew that Gustav Mahler, despite being a titan of the symphony, was a relatively short man in real life but he looked almost diminutive next to this hulk in the black trench coat and top hat. Who he was or what he was doing here, I had no idea.

Mahler explained as if we were late-comers and not total strangers appearing from nowhere, "I was just telling Herr Schweinwerfer about my newest symphony – put the finishing touches on it yesterday, in fact!"

The man named Schweinwerfer ignored us as he paged through the score.

Zoe and I looked at each other in great relief. That confirmed we were back at Harmonia-IV, at least, so now all we had to do was find our way back to the city. But to talk with a man like Mahler about his latest symphony was an opportunity not passed up lightly. We stood on his other side.

It was his Symphony No. 17, even though there were a few other large-scale works he didn't call symphonies that probably were. Recently, he'd become looser about the concept of the symphony as a "musical organism."

"After all, 'symphonic' means something that is developed or expanded through development, not just a four-movement work in a set and acceptable pattern."

This one was a massive work – two hours in length – with eight movements and a typically huge orchestra: thirteen horns, seven trumpets, six trombones, three tubas and quintuple woodwinds including two contrabassoons. "Enough to wake the dead!"

Schweinwerfer laughed what could only be described as a malevolent laugh, deep and resonant. "Everyone will call it your 'Doomsday' Symphony!"

"Doomsday – yes, I like that," Mahler said, "that's exactly what I had in mind. I'm not sure about this series of chords, though," pointing at one on the next page.

My eyes bugged out just looking at it.

"There are seven of them placed structurally throughout the piece, each becoming increasingly weightier, violent, expanding till the last one is like the hammer-stroke of fate that initiates nothing less than the destruction of the world!"

No doubt, judging from the look of this one!

Like the hammer-strokes of his 6th Symphony translated to a universal level, would he take the last one out for fear it would ultimately fell the world-hero?

Schweinwerfer said it would unleash dark matter from the black hole that would destroy Earth on the winter solstice of the year 2012.

As Schweinwerfer laughed, Zoe tugged at my arm, pointing to the right. There on the horizon were two unmistakable figures advancing rapidly toward us.

They were not Sebastian and Xaq as I'd hoped.

"Ah," I said, excusing myself for changing the topic, "can either of you show us the way back to the center of town? It's rather urgent."

Mahler graciously pointed the way, down the path to our left. "But must you go so soon?"

"I'm afraid so: we're trying to avoid those two unpleasant people."

Mahler looked up. "Kedaver? I should think so."

...[We quickly left, heading in the opposite direction...]

"Ach, my angel of destruction," Schweinwerfer said, grabbing the familiar figure by her waist, "my little devil of temptation!"

Klangfarben resisted but clearly she was no match for him and Kedaver wasn't about to take him on.

Mahler, meanwhile, engaged the lawyer in a conversation about a possible law suit he was contemplating.

"Abner, those bastards are getting away!"

"And so, my angel, someone put a bullet through your neck, too, and now you're here?"

"I'm not dead. Leave me alone!"

"Ah, so then this time, I could kill you? And keep you here forever?"

[Schweinwerfer is referring to Klangfarben’s having killed him back in Dresden in May 1849, while trying to delay Wagner so he would be captured by the royalist army and eventually tried and probably executed for treason, but that was a previous chapter. In a subsequent chapter, conductor Rogers Kent-Clarke, who’d met Puccini at his haberdasheria, is trying to locate the entrance to the black market hiding place where he could find the opera Puccini had been telling him about (see this earlier post).]

*** ***** Chapter 42 ***** ***

The directions Puccini gave him sounded simple enough but Rogers Kent-Clarke kept wondering if he had somehow taken the wrong path – literally as well as metaphorically…

This was so unlike his character, the mild-mannered assistant conductor usually reacting to others people's biddings rather than forging his own path through life. Even on the podium, he had to conduct it the way the regular conductor planned to, so as not to confuse the musicians. Here, he was on his own and it was kind of thrilling.

Even when he conducted on his own – like this lousy Collierville Festival where he was billed as a guest conductor – he found himself relying on other conductors' interpretations or, instead, listening to recordings. He'd become used to not applying himself. He hated doing new works: you had to study the scores because there was nothing else to go by.

But to present a previously unknown opera by Puccini, now, that would be a coup worth the work it would take to learn it. He could imagine the excitement of anticipation and the boost to his career.
People would be talking about him. "Oh, you're the guy who discovered that new Puccini opera!" What if it were a masterpiece on the order of Turandot? Even if it were only another Fanciulla, it was still Puccini and still new. With N. Ron Steele's backing, it should be a cinch finding a company to produce the world premiere.

The only drawback he could see was Steele's wife [Rosa Budd] as the tragically wronged virginal maid. The composer's wife was likely to be the meatier part, a mezzo, unsuitable for Rosa's peculiar lack of range and talent.

His fantasies were interrupted by the sound of a squabble coming from beyond those trees. Who knew how long he'd been looking for this secret mineshaft's entrance, so he thought he'd interrupt these people and ask.

Was this a tea-party in the middle of the woods? And who was that arguing with that other man – Gustav Mahler? What luck!

The big guy in the top hat kept shouting while scuffling with a beautiful woman in a stunning black leotard with wildly streaming platinum blond hair. Should he rush out and rescue her? Maybe she was a mezzo – she’d look fabulous as the composer's wife in La vendetta di sposa! But what was Mahler, looking very unconcerned, doing here?

"Excuse me," he said meekly, stepping forward from beneath the trees' shade.

Immediately, they all came to a stop, turned and stared at him.

Mahler waved him over with an invitation to join their little party.

The woman broke free of the big man's grasp, then, with the man in the black cravat, took off down the path in the opposite direction, streaming curses behind her, her hair streaming in the breeze.

"Sorry to interrupt," Kent-Clarke began, "but I was looking for a..."

"You're just in time," Mahler said, cheerfully clapping him on the shoulder.

The bigger man stuck out a massive paw by way of introduction.

"Siegfried Schweinwerfer's my name and the world is coming to an end, soon. You must prepare!"

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Rogers Kent-Clarke, a well-known conductor in the United States... internationally, I mean," quickly correcting himself.

Mahler said he was just showing Schweinwerfer his latest symphony.

"Really!?"

The composer began explaining a little bit about it, paging through the score, pointing out things he thought a conductor would especially appreciate.

Speechless, Kent-Clarke was holding in his hands a huge, brand-new symphony by Mahler!

The whole time Mahler was talking to him – "me," he thought, "a lowly assistant conductor!" – Kent-Clarke realized, "This trumps a Puccini opera, any time, in my book!" With several choruses involved and twelve vocal soloists – perhaps something Rosa Budd could handle, but who cared? – not to mention this huge orchestra, why, it must be a "Symphony of TWO Thousand!"

He listened attentively as Mahler told him how many years it had taken to complete – seven – and how the big central scherzo, "The Apocalyptic Dance of the Four Horsemen," had already been thoroughly revised five times.

Even the choral selections from the Popul Vuh, he explained, had been based on the numerical symbolism of the Mayan calendar, creating a web of complex counterpoint rhythmically intersecting like several time-spans across a cosmic disturbance.

To his percussion, he added several of Harry Partch's instruments, tuned in quarter-tones and sounding completely other-worldly, representing the static nature of Eternity.

The final movement which he called "The Rapturous Song of the Final Cataclysm," was a spacious adagio, gradually increased in unbearable intensity until the very end – "in fact," Mahler chuckled, "the very end of Time itself!"

"Amazing," Kent-Clarke said, "a 'Symphony for the End of Time'!"

That was good, too, but Mahler felt Schweinwerfer's "Doomsday Symphony" was more marketable.

Suddenly, it dawned on Kent-Clarke there really was no reason for him to go looking for some old mineshaft Puccini had been telling him about: black market or no black market, he had just found his vehicle.

But, Kent-Clarke wondered, would he be able to “ride” this symphony back to the Other Side? Surely, Mahler wouldn't bother entrusting it to the first conductor who came along? And who was he – a mere unknown!
If he managed to premiere this, he would be unknown no longer. Everybody would know his name. "Gilbert Kaplan, eat your heart out!"

The only way was for him to steal it, right out from under Mahler's nose, then run as quickly as he could back to that field where he'd found the gateway. How difficult could that be?

Meanwhile, Schweinwerfer was thinking about his own plot. He had to get this score over to the Other Side where its premiere would bring about the apocalyptic end of the world. Then he would be vindicated.

Clearly, this conductor, a Trespasser, was hungry and ambitious. He had only to wait for the right moment – and he'd steal the score!

*** ***** Excerpt from Chapter 51 ***** ***

Rogers Kent-Clarke stood by the table, listening to the conversation as he munched on more of those little sandwiches cut in the shapes of clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds, laid out upon the table like a spread of playing cards. He liked especially the heart-shaped ones with bits of pimento skewered to the top, held in place by tooth-picks.

“From the heart, may it return to the heart,” he said after a reasonable pause, raising his tea-cup as a toast to Mahler who smiled back at him, pleased with the quote from Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.

Mahler and Schweinwerfer discussed, each with their considerable passions, their thoughts about the inevitable end of the universe – more, Schweinwerfer declared, than the mere destruction of Earth. Mahler was disappointed it was not just a cleansing of the Earth, making way for a new world, a new and better society, starting over and this time, eventually, getting it right.

As the party progressed, others wandered by, unexpectedly, people out on a stroll stumbling across Mahler’s little reception quite by accident. Verdi was there, said a few kind but patronizing words, clearly bored with Mahler’s symphonic rhetoric, but spoke, as usual, about his plans for Lear which he continued to toy with more than a century after his death. He lamented how he’d not had great success in his posthumous career, so he often found himself glancing over at Puccini’s shop and envying him his retirement. But still, the idea of Lear gnawed at him unrelentingly.

Even Skryabin stopped by again, drawn by the smell of sardines on rye toast, delighted to find in the middle of his woods a table loaded with zakuski, the Russian repast similar to British “high tea.” All it needed, he said, was a samovar and perhaps a pretty young maid to be pouring out cups of steaming orange-flavored tea.

Schweinwerfer, doffing his battered top hat, greeted Skryabin cordially with dripping sarcasm, asking him how his ecstasy was today – “better than yesterday’s?” Briefly, they discussed their cosmic world-views but refrained from arguing beyond mere superficial statements.

“He’s mad, you know,” Skryabin whispered to Kent-Clarke, pointing at the philosopher with his toothpick.

“I thought that’s what philosophers always were,” the conductor responded, trying to appear as mild mannered as possible, hiding his excitement. It wasn’t often someone like him had a chance to stand around chatting with the likes of them. (Perhaps it was a dream…)

Kent-Clarke realized this would be his opportunity. Several guests were preparing to leave, offering their farewells. Verdi had long gone when Skryabin woke up poor Lyadov, so bored with the conversation he could barely stay awake. Together, they wandered off down the path and Kent-Clarke, thanking Mahler once again, quietly followed them, disappearing into the bushes along the trail.

Schweinwerfer nodded after him with a wink and a wave, then warmly shook Mahler’s hand, thanking him for his time and pointing at the score, saying something under his breath, before he, too, turned and left.

Mahler, sipping the last of his tea, gazed out over the empty fields, wondering if anyone else would stop by. Skryabin, he thought, was whacky enough but this Schweinwerfer was a complete riddle all by himself. It was one thing to be passionate about your views and another to be close to incomprehensible not to mention so depressingly irredeemable.

There was a commotion in the distance, something he could barely see. There were several groups of people converging on a couple – hadn’t they stopped by to say hello? Yes, it was, but the police had suddenly charged them from the woods, yelling. The woman with the platinum hair and that cad, Kedaver, turned and ran into the forest.

What did that mean? Why were the police after those people?

When he turned back to get some more tea, he noticed a large blank space where the score had been.

It was gone!

Mahler screamed.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***


- Dick Strawser

Bartók, Father & Son

Gretna Music presents the Calder Quartet who will be performing all six string quartets by Bela Bartók over the span of two evenings, Friday April 8th and Saturday April 9th at Elizabethtown College’s Leffler Chapel. The concerts are at 7:30 pm and an hour before each program, there will be a pre-concert talk.

(You can read my post about Bartók's String Quartet No. 1 and its biographical background, here.)

Tonight, at 6:30, I’ll be interviewing the composer’s son, Peter Bartók.

When I mention this to friends, eyebrows shoot up and I’m met with questioning looks: familiar with Bartók’s music, they are not aware that his son could still be alive. After all, Bartók was born in 1881, wasn’t he?

Peter Bartók, the second son of Bela Bartók, was born in 1924 when his father was 43 years old. He was with his parents in New York City during much of the time they were living there, what turned out to be Bartók’s last years.

Peter went on to become famous in his own right as a recording engineer and is currently living (and maintaining Bartók Records) in Florida which is where we will reach him by way of Skype!

In 2002, he published a memoir about his famous father which he called, simply enough, “My Father.” It is not easy to track down – it took a few weeks by way of Interlibrary Loan for me: the folks at Gretna Music are still waiting for the copy ordered on-line – but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Bartók’s music, obviously, but to anyone interested in human side of the lives of Great Composers, those personal details that often get lost in the “and-then-he-wrote” biographies and chronologies.

And Bartók certainly is a Great Composer, generally regarded as one of the three greatest voices in the first half of the 20th Century along with Schoenberg and Stravinsky, though he founded no “school” and the events of World War II coincided with his deteriorating health to cut short a career that might have had more impact if circumstances had been different.

But it is not always good to play “What If,” tempting as it is – after all, consider what Mozart could have written if he lived to be as old as Beethoven, dying in 1813 instead of 1791 at the age of 35; or Schubert, rather than dying at the age of 31, if he'd lived to be 80, dying instead in 1877; and so forth.

One thing I learned from reading Peter Bartók’s book was that there might have been a 7th String Quartet (”My Father,” p.114). Unfortunately he was unable to get around to it in that final summer: he left two other works incomplete, as it was – the last 17 measures of the 3rd Piano Concerto still needed orchestration and “filling in,” not a great problem, but the Viola Concerto, though “ready” according to the composer, was in such a state, the sketch pages unnumbered, it was difficult to tell what went where and which came next.

The two photographs of father and son, posted here, were found on-line, taken in 1932 when Peter was about 8 years old, his father 51 – and around the time Bartók was composing the first volumes of teaching pieces called “Mikrokosmos,” many of which originated with the piano lessons Bartók gave his son. Another photograph, taken on one of their vacation mountain hikes can be seen here.

Just to place his life within the chronology of his father's life, Peter was 3 when Bartók composed his 3rd String Quartet and 21 when his father died in New York City at the age of 64.

When I first opened the book just to glance at it, once it arrived at the local library – thank you, East Shore Public Library for tracking it down – I saw this:

“My father’s objection to radio went beyond his fear of unwanted musical sounds at home.” (”My Father,” p.30)

Now, having spent 18 years working in radio, this intrigued me. As a composer, I could imagine the sound of a radio would be an intrusion into the solitude needed to write.

But there was more to it than this, as Peter explains: “radio and phonograph,” his father talked about in a later lecture on ‘Mechanical Music,’ “may discourage people from making their own music, so they never experience the satisfaction that goes with music-making, even if clumsy.”

That’s true, considering family life in Europe in the 1920s and ‘30s. In the days before such “mechanical music-making” became technologically possible, people made their own music at home, being actively involved in it, not simply the passive couch-potato of today.

Later in the book, he quotes from this lecture more extensively:

“While conceding the usefulness of radio for sick or otherwise immobilized people, [the lecture] contained some critical thoughts: the easy availability of music coming out of a home loudspeaker at the flick of a switch – no need to dress up, buy tickets and sit in silent attention with some thousand others in a big hall – may lead to superficial listening: people can turn the music on and off at any time, make it loud or soft, and they ‘may even chat during the music!’ He characterized radio music for many as no deeper experience than ‘being caressed in a lukewarm bath.’” (”My Father,” p. 226)

He concludes by pointing out that playing a radio with the windows open should never be allowed: “Without laws,” his father writes, “protecting the quiet of others, radio may become one of God’s curses on humanity.” (”My Father,” p. 227)

It makes me wonder how Bartók would fare in New York City today, beset by muzac everywhere and boom-boxes galore. It is almost impossible to avoid being subjected to “mechanical music” today.

Of course, his argument against the radio – the convenience, not having to get dressed or buy tickets or sit in silence in a communal socio-religious setting – is often the complaint of many of the younger generations who argue these are reasons the Concert is Dead.

As a friend of mine on Facebook commented, when I posted this quote, “a different time.”

- Dick Strawser

Blogging Here and There

More there than here, however...

It’s been a busy week at Dr. Dick Central and I hope, later today, to post something here about my impending interview with Peter Bartók, the son of composer Bela Bartók whose six string quartets will be featured in a two-evening series of concerts with Gretna Music at Elizabethtown College’s Leffler Chapel. The Calder Quartet will play three quartets each evening - No.s 1, 3 & 5 on Friday, No.s 2, 4 & 6 on Saturday. I’ve been reading Peter’s biography of his father, appropriately entitled, simply, “My Father,” which he published in 2002. The interview is Friday evening at 6:30 and we will be connecting with Mr. Bartok from his home in Florida by way of Skype!

Meanwhile, I’ve been blogging about Beethoven Violin Sonatas coming up in next Tuesday’s Market Square Concerts' recital at Whitaker Center with violinist Miriam Fried and pianist Jonathan Biss – I feel compelled to mention that program is at 6:00 rather than the usual 8pm, so, no, that is not a typo. There’s some biographical background about the four sonatas they’ll be performing – including a touching portrait of the composer around the time he composed the last of his violin sonatas – as well as some reminiscences about hearing Miriam Fried play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Harrisburg Symphony in 1984 and hearing Raya Garbousova, one of the great cellists of her generation, play the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Harrisburg Symphony in 1963 – an important influence in my early musical experience. That makes three generations of this family I will have had the chance to hear here in Harrisburg: Jonathan Biss is Miriam Fried’s son and Raya Garbousova was Miriam Fried’s mother-in-law, therefore Jonathan’s grandmother.

There’s also a preparatory post for the up-coming performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 which the Harrisburg Symphony will be performing under the baton of Stuart Malina on the weekend of April 16th and 17th. I’ll be presenting the pre-concert talk an hour before each concert (assuming I can finish my taxes in time). The post over at the Symphony Blog describes what it was like at the 3rd Symphony’s world premiere in 1902 and includes video excerpts from a performance by Leonard Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic dating from the mid’70s.

Last weekend, I was the pre-concert talker for both nights of the Lancaster Guitar Festival with performances by Ernesto Tamayo and Friends and by Czech guitarist Vladislav Blaha. It was great to hear them play and great to see an enthusiastic audience response - especially following the sad news of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music's closing announced a couple of days earlier. This is something I also want to write more about in the near future.

Something else I've wanted to write about is the recent death of composer Lee Hoiby who was a friend and kind of mentor to me over the years. I last saw him when he came to Harrisburg to hear Stuart Malina play his "Sextet for Winds & Piano" with the Dorian Wind Quintet just two years ago. I've managed to post a brief bit about his death over at the Market Square Concerts blog and hopefully will manage a more fitting, more personal tribute to him once the dust settles here.

- Dick Strawser

More Spohr and Several Years Ago

(This is a revised and expanded post, originally from 2007, reposted here in honor of Spohr's 227th Birthday Anniversary, today.)

The other night I was tooling around through Google, looking for something else and found a reference to Spohr’s 10th Symphony. Suddenly I was back in the library at Eastman almost 40 years ago, when I was browsing through the old-fashioned card-catalogue and found a manuscript copy of Ludwig Spohr’s 10th Symphony.

There was a bit of trivia that immediately played through my mind: how many composers, other than Beethoven, completed only nine symphonies and died?

Bruckner doesn’t count because he didn’t complete his ninth (though there is that awkward Symphony No. 0). But Mahler would, basically, and so would Dvorak, once you got all the earlier symphonies published and renumbered. And Ralph Vaughan Williams, too. Schubert’s a little tricky since he didn’t really finish the “Unfinished,” did he? And if you’re going to count that one, then what about all the other unfinished symphonies he never finished, either? Not to mention the fact there really is no Symphony No. 7 in the official catalogue.

Oh yeah, and Ludwig Spohr.

Most people have never heard of Ludwig Spohr – or Louis Spohr as he’s often known. For some reason, he styled himself with a French first name though Beethoven often signed himself “Luigi Beethoven” and you don’t see people jumping up and down arguing we should call him Luigi, not Ludwig... but I digress.

In his day, Ludwig Spohr was an important violinist, conductor and composer. Until Paganini came along, Spohr was the most famous violinist on the concert circuit and he did a great deal to advance violin technique in the early 19th Century. He also became one of the first actual conductors. Following the demise of the ever-present continuo harpsichord, most orchestras by the early 19th Century were “led” by the first violinist or concertmaster (in England, even today, that position is still called “Leader”) who would set the tempo and threw important cues while playing at the head of the violin section, sometimes using the violin bow almost like a baton when he wasn’t playing. Spohr shocked his fellow musicians when in 1820 he put the violin aside and pulled a stick of wood from his coat pocket, placed his music stand facing the orchestra and proceeded to wave this... this baton around. He also championed a lot of new music – particularly Wagner. Even though he didn’t particularly care for “Lohengrin,” Spohr thought it was important that it be heard.

He also didn’t seem to have a handle on Beethoven, at least the later music. He played some of the Late Quartets which were mystifying to players and audiences alike when they were still new (one could argue, still today) but one time, realizing, as he put it, his “accompanists” didn’t quite grasp the piece, he decided they should substitute one of his own, more easily accessible quartets instead. True, the standard quartet approach was a principal violin part with the “accompaniment” of three other string players, but that was hardly the concept behind most of Beethoven’s quartets to begin with. The important thing was, though, that Spohr at least played them – you can’t say that about everyone, back then.

As a composer, Spohr’s style is often considered out-moded, belonging to a now easily derided period called “Biedermeier” with its middle-class, amateur-oriented, non-inflammatory values in music, poetry, literature, architecture, even furniture design. His personal attitude considered Mozart the pinnacle of perfection and while he might have been more adventuresome than some of his contemporaries, his harmonic digressions are more of the “purple patch” variety than anything “organic” like Beethoven or Wagner.

Of course, compared to Beethoven or Wagner, we might think something like this of little consequence. But in those days, Beethoven was the avant-garde composer, the purveyor of modern music who annoyed, to a certain extent, the status-quo. Spohr, on the other hand, was more popular and considered by many to be better. It was not a time when audiences – or composers – were concerned about posterity: it was the entertainment value of the here and now that was more important. This was why, for all his genius at writing songs and with masterpiece after masterpiece of chamber music and at least two of those symphonies (or to be more specific, one and a half of those symphonies), Schubert’s big dream was to make it big in the opera house: that’s where the most gratifying reputations and profits were being made, not in the concert halls.

When Beethoven was struggling with his Late Period and Schubert was trying to break into the business, Spohr ruled the roost.

So why don’t we hear any of his music today?

He wrote what was probably considered “nice” music, not “great” music that appealed to the comfort level of his audience – “Biedermeier” is nothing if not “nice” – and when tastes changed, fickle audiences quickly jumped on somebody else’s bandwagon. Do you think the contestants of (and I can’t believe I’m mentioning this program in my blog) “American Idol” are really concerned about posterity?

Anyway, I started by telling you about his 10th Symphony. I checked the score in the Eastman library – it was in the manuscript collection and you couldn’t sign it out – and sure enough, it was a hand-written ink copy (not printed) with editor’s and conductor’s markings in red and blue pencil of a “Symphony No. 10 in E-flat by Louis Spohr.” Is this a discovery, does anybody else know about this?

Paging through his autobiography which was written near the end of his life, he mentions two works that never saw the light of day: one more symphony and one more string quartet, both suppressed because they didn’t meet the standards, he felt, of their predecessors – I can’t remember the exact flowery (and very Biedermeier) wording he had used. Comparing photocopies and reproductions of his own handwriting and musical manuscripts as I could find, it became clear this particular symphony score was not Spohr’s original manuscript but maybe that of a copyist’s getting it ready for a performance.

Somewhere I found a reference to one of the movements having been performed in a private concert in Germany in the 1920s and one movement of this particular manuscript had more thorough markings than the rest of the symphony. So yes, it was no secret, musicologically speaking, and may even have been performed before, in part or in whole. I was very curious – not so much about the music but why the composer deemed it “not worthy to stand at the end of the fine long procession of its predecessors” (as I remember his comment) and also why those predecessors were no longer considered worth maintaining in the repertoire.

This symphony was composed in 1857, two years before his death. By rejecting this symphony (and its contemporaneous string quartets), Spohr was clearly feeling the doldrums of reduced creativity, having “passed it” in modern parlance. Perhaps in the symphony his return to earlier, more classical models was a way to get around his lack of inventiveness as he aged (he was 73, after all) but it may also have back-fired, since it would certainly be unable to stand comparison with the advances in Romantic style that one can follow from his earliest symphonies (the 3rd, for instance, was composed a year after Beethoven died) to his 9th (completed in 1850, the year Wagner premiered Lohengrin).

Checking his biography (though I no longer have access to a copy of his Autobiography), it seems in 1857 Spohr was “pensioned off against his wishes” (forced into retirement) by his employer, the Elector in Kassel. Then, that winter, he fell and broke his arm which brought an end to his violin playing (though he still conducted a performance of Jessonda in Prague in 1858 – not coincidentally, perhaps, while Wagner was in the midst of composing Tristan. Spohr died the following year, 1859, at the age of 75.

Meanwhile, back at Eastman in the mid-1970s, I located scores of several of Spohr’s symphonies in the library plus some chamber music as well as vocal scores of his most popular operas, Faust and Jessonda. It was while plowing through Jessonda that I discovered something that made me just sit there and go “wow” with suitably dropped jaw.

If you’re a music student or an afficionado, you’ve probably heard of the “Tristan Chord” from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. The chord is basically considered one of the most important starting points for the development of late-19th Century harmony and it’s basically a pile-up of embellishing tones resolving, ultimately, to a dominant 7th chord. The opera was composed between 1857 and 1859.

Here is the opening of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde:

Now, what I found in the vocal score of Spohr’s Jessonda - opening the main character's entrance aria - was an almost identical passage: the same key, the same 6/8 meter and (as I recall) the same rhythms but, more importantly, virtually all the same pitches but one – the next-to-last note in Spohr is a C-natural, an “upper-neighbor” embellishment, where Wagner’s A-sharp is a chromatic passing tone.

Spohr composed his opera in 1823.

Yet no one calls it “The Jessonda Chord.” Nor does anyone accuse Wagner of plagiarism, either.

Was Jessonda so forgotten 25 years later that Wagner could steal this, even subconsciously, without anyone noticing? Hmmmm...

Eventually, this curiosity turned into a concert. My particular doctoral program (technically a DMA in composition with an emphasis on performance rather than a PhD with an emphasis on research) required a recital program in addition to a concert of my compositions. Now, I was nowhere near having the talent (or the courage) to try a piano recital so they said I could conduct a chamber orchestra. And that’s how Spohr’s 10th got its first complete performance in Rochester (if not anywhere else).

It was in April 1974 that Eastman’s First and Only SpohrFest took place at the Cutler Union Building. It opened in the parlor, the piano in front of an ornate fireplace, with me accompanying a friend of mine singing Jessonda’s aria, complete with the so-called “Tristan Chord.” Then I conducted an Octet Spohr had composed for a tour of England (he incorporated variations on “The Harmonious Blacksmith” as a tribute, thinking it was an English folk-song and not a piece by Handel - I actually had to shoosh the audience at one point because they started to giggle at the presumed triteness of one passage). It was not necessary for these musicians to be conducted (it is, after all, chamber music), it just gave me something to do and also saved some rehearsal time since none of them were familiar even with his much better known Nonet.

And then we moved across the hall to a large open space set up for the chamber orchestra, about 30-35 musicians in all, and there I conducted Spohr’s 10th, having hand-copied the score and all the parts myself. (There is an additional funny tale to tell since the first rehearsal took place on the afternoon of Good Friday and I had my qualifying Oral Exam for the DMA that morning, but I’ll save that for another time.)

I don’t think anyone, myself included, jumped up and down with excitement at the discovery of a neglected masterpiece or even an unjustly neglected genius in its composer. The audience was for the most part appreciative of the context, hearing music – first of all, not in a concert hall setting but in something closer to the idea of a house-concert with a nice sized music room like the Mendelssohns had in Berlin around the same time – that for one reason or another Time has not been kind to. But yet it’s not that it’s “bad” which is so terribly subjective a response: it’s just that it no longer speaks to us the way Beethoven or Mendelssohn or any number of other composers from that era still do today. And yet Spohr was one of the great composers – well, popular composers – of his day.

So it was amusing to run across this on-line while googling:

- - - - -
'His nine symphonies (a tenth was left unfinished, but was brought to completion by Eugene Minor and premiered by the Bergen Youth Orchestra) show a progress from the classical style of his predecessors to the programme music of the ninth symphony, Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons).'
- - - - -

The Bergen Youth Orchestra gave the 10th its “world premier [sic]" in 1998 but then there would be no reason for them to know I had done it in an otherwise undocumented private performance (more or less) 24 years earlier. I also don’t know in what state the original manuscript might have been in – since my score (by another hand) could have been someone’s attempt to complete the work, it’s possible Spohr abandoned it before finishing it. It had been my assumption he had withdrawn it which would imply it had been completed, copied and probably performed (or at least read through), possibly even published before he decided otherwise.

Whatever state the symphony had been left in, I assume from the handwriting the score I was working from would have been copied by some contemporary of Spohr’s rather than a more modern calligraphic style. If the red and blue pencil markings in the slow movement were intended for that 1920s performance, there seemed to be a difference in the handwriting to indicate one was, say, mid-19th Century and the other one early-20th.

But I don’t have a copy of the original manuscript from Eastman’s Sibley Library: it was bound and in fairly delicate shape, so there was no question of photocopying it. I made my own copy by hand, spending hours sitting in the Sibley Listening Room and I was not particularly concerned about musicological details such as which was the copyist’s markings and which were the red or blue pencil markings… Checking my own hand-written copy, now, I notice I indicated these penciled-in markings were by someone named Sauer and now I vaguely recall there was an inscription in the manuscript indicating its use in that 1920s performance. Unfortunately, I didn't write that down.

And I don’t have a recording of the performance to prove anything, for that matter, just my copy of the score and (somewhere) the parts.

After this post appeared originally on a previous blog of mine, I heard from Eugene Minor who was going to send me a photocopy of the manuscript he had worked from which was Spohr’s calligraphy. Unfortunately, I never received this. He also said that it was being (or had already been) recorded.

A more recent e-mail from a reader at the Spohr Society of Great Britain – which led to my reposting the information, here – informs me there are now two competing recordings of Spohr’s 10th. The earlier one (paired with the 3rd), conducted by Howard Griffiths on the CPO label with the NDR Radio Philharmonic of Hannover, was originally released in the fall of 2007, six months after my original post.

The other was released just this past February on the Hyperion label, paired with the 8th, with Howard Shelley conducting what used to be called L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande but now goes by Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.

The question, I suppose, is not so much have we resurrected an important masterpiece, saving it from oblivion, but helping to place the music that we do know and regard as masterpieces in some kind of historical context, letting us know what else was out there at the time, forgotten or not, what other people were composing or listening to and which was often highly thought of. After all, not everybody who gets to ride the Fame Bus makes it to the end of the line: sic transit gloria mundi...

- Dick Strawser

The Story Behind a Newly Discovered Puccini Opera

News arrived today that there is a previously unknown opera by Giacomo Puccini, "La vendetta di sposa." Here is a bit of information on how this discovery came to light.
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Opposite a large park, he saw a shop, a light in its front window.

"Kind of late to be open," he said to himself. "Who'd be shopping at this time of night?" Cautiously, he went over to check, thinking "if I were back home, this could be a break-in!"

But instead of burglars, there was a well-dressed man leaning against the counter, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette while paging through a newspaper. Rogers Kent-Clarke could recognize this man anywhere. The name ornately painted on the glass was unnecessary. "Welcome to Puccini's Haberdasheria."

He was aware, finally, there were other people on the street, walking in the park - he was not alone, after all. Looking around like Scrooge on Christmas morning, it occurred to him, "if it's July 24th, why isn't it as hot here as it was in Collierville?" Feeling definitely under-dressed, what better place to be than a clothing store?

But the man at the counter saw him standing there and motioned for him to go away. "We're closed," he mouthed and went back to reading his paper. Kent-Clarke continued waving until the man eventually relented.

Puccini figured the man must be having a fashion emergency. Given his condition, checking him up and down with a practiced eye, while any store-clerk in a discount retailer could probably help, the man would certainly benefit from an expert's advice. Besides, Puccini figured, he wasn't doing anything else, so he opened the door to let the man in.

"Welcome to Puccini's," he said graciously with a slight bow.

Kent-Clarke wondered if he'd be able to afford the prices, here, but maybe he could find a light jacket or sports coat in his price-range. That way, he might engage him in more personal conversation. A blazer would be a wonderful souvenir, but that wasn't why he was here.

He started to explain how he'd just arrived but his luggage hadn't.

"Ah, a tourist," Puccini said, mentally measuring his arms and legs for a new suit. The man was dressed for warm weather, inappropriate for Harmonia-IV. "What part of Parallelia are you from?"

"Paralellia? I've just dropped in from Pennsylvania."

"Pennsylvania? Never heard of it – sounds very quaint, no? And what would the signor be interested in, today?"

"Do you take Visa?" Kent-Clarke checked his wallet.

"Your passport is immaterial to me, signor." But Puccini saw there were many bills in the wallet, American dollars, worth far more on the Harmonian black market than any other currency.

Puccini started humming "Musetta's Waltz" as they began with a blazer, something light bluish-gray, accenting the man's eyes. Meanwhile, Kent-Clarke kept up the small-talk.

Recognizing the tune, he began humming along.

"Ah, you know the music?" Puccini beamed at the recognition.

"Yes, actually – I've conducted 'La Boheme' many times. It's always been one of my favorites." He didn't feel he was lying – maybe gushing too much, but not lying.

Puccini debated whether he should lower the price of the blazer or double it.

The customer said he'd come back for a suit in a day or two – at this point, it was obvious he was lying – but all the same, Puccini offered him some coffee and a biscotti. So they sat, watching the handful of people walking past the shop windows, occasionally glancing in.

And they talked. The visitor was very curious.

Puccini, carefully hiding his wariness, assumed this must be one of those Trespassers he'd heard about. It was flattering to be considered one of the Great Composers worth "killing off," but should he call the police?

He explained he gave up composing – the rat-race was an eternity, now that he was dead – but for any unpublished stuff lying around somewhere, Kent-Clarke should check with his publisher, Ricordi. They'd found many things he had lost and a few things he wished they hadn't. No, there was no full-scale opera, finished or otherwise, waiting to be unearthed.

There was a long silence while both sipped their coffee. Puccini debated telling him about this before deciding it could be fun: what could the man do about it, anyway?

"There was one opera I wrote since I arrived here in Harmonia-IV, after I finished writing 'Turandot.'"

"You finished 'Turandot'?" Kent-Clarke's jaw nearly hit the floor with a thud.

"Well, of course: just because I died didn't mean the opera had to be dead-on-arrival. Besides, all good intentions not withstanding, Alfano rather botched it as far as I was concerned." He left the topic dangling tantalizingly.

The new one, "La Vendetta di Sposa" was based on a story from his own life. There was this young girl, Doria, working as a maid at his villa. Elvira – his wife – became jealous of her, began tried forcing her into admitting having an affair with the composer.

"Elvira even dressed in my clothes, hoping to trap her in the garden. She spread nasty rumors in the village until Doria's family shunned her and her boyfriend denounced her. Eventually the poor maid committed suicide. At the autopsy, it was discovered she was still a virgin."

Now that he was dead, Puccini figured he could tell that story, how the girl's family sued his wife and won. Elvira eventually opted to live in a different parallel universe and never bother him again, but he'd recently heard the Makropolous Opera Company was taking "La Vendetta di Sposa" on tour, there.

He chuckled into his coffee cup.

Kent-Clarke began salivating at the idea of taking "La Vendetta" back to the States. He hoped the part of Doria was suitable for Rosa Budd [the untalented wife of SHMRG's CEO, N. Ron Steele] – with Steele's backing, people might just take notice of him, now.

His stock would surely soar, even if Rosa fell flat on her face. He could take it to other companies, have real sopranos take it on. Yes, his success would be assured.

For a moment, he'd forgotten he still needed to get his hands on the score. How likely was it Puccini would just hand him a copy?

Unfortunately, Puccini continued, wondering about his customer's silence, posthumous scores were not allowed to be taken back to the Other Side. After they're registered with the library, they're kept locked in a vault.

"There is a place where many composers also keep copies of their scores – it’s like a black market music shop but very difficult to get to."

Needless to say, Kent-Clarke was all ears.

Puccini explained it was in an old abandoned mine north of the city, beyond the Bois de Bologna, a fashionable park where many people liked to hang out on a summer day. At the extreme northern edge of the woods, where the paths all came to a stop and respectable people no longer continued, there was an old rusty gate leading to another path.

"About a mile beyond that, you'll find the entrance to the mine – can't miss it. Tell them 'Schicchi' sent you – that's my code-name, there."

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excerpt from The Doomsday Symphony (Chapter 34) by Dick Strawser

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
While Harmonia-IV (part of a string of parallel universes), a place where many composers have gone after they've died (and where they continue to compose) may be, in short, fictional, the incident which inspired Puccini's posthumous opera, "La vendetta di sposa," is a true story which happened between him and his wife over what she assumed was an affair the composer was having with one of their young maids. It certainly would have made a good verismo opera subject.

Another work described in "The Doomsday Symphony" is Beethoven's latest (likewise posthumous) symphony, described here at its first rehearsal.

Watch for a future post about Mahler's most recent symphonic work which gives the novel its title.

- Dick Strawser

Beethoven's Symphony No. 8: Life Behind the Music

Whether it has any direct influence on the music or not, I’m always curious about what was going on in a composer’s life at the time he was writing something I’m listening to.

In the case of Beethoven’s 8th Symphony (which the Harrisburg Symphony is playing in this weekend’s concerts), there was a lot going on but then Beethoven was famous for compartmentalizing his life from his creativity.

Concerns about signs of increasing deafness led to an intense emotional crisis in October of 1802.

Written as a response to this, the heart-rending Heiligenstadt Testament included doubts about his ability to continue as a composer and performer. Even though one could argue the thoughts of suicide were in the flowery language of the day and possibly more rhetorical than emotional, it is still powerful stuff. And yet at the same time, Beethoven was working on the final movement of his 2nd Symphony, probably one of his most extroverted, joyous pieces.

Since the 7th and 8th Symphonies are fairly intertwined (see a previous post, here), let’s look at what was happening just before the time he officially began working on the 7th, keeping in mind he had been sketching some ideas for his next symphony already. Did any of these events have any bearing on the symphonies’ gestations?

Two years before he began these symphonies may seem unusual, but this is an important time in Beethoven’s life. Vienna had been under siege by Napoleon’s army, the second time the French occupied the Austrian capital. This was a time of hardship, as he writes to his publisher in Leipzig:

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“You are indeed mistaken in supposing that I have been very well. For in the meantime we have been suffering misery in a most concentrated form. …[S]ince May 4th I have produced very little coherent work, at most a fragment here and there. The whole course of events has in my case affected both body and soul… The existence I had built up only a short time ago [an income guaranteed by a few generous patrons who now face economic hardships as a result of the occupation] rests on shaky foundations… What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around me: nothing but drums, cannons and human misery in every form.” (Beethoven, writing on July 26th, 1809)
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Shortly after Vienna surrendered to the French, Haydn died. Even though Haydn had proved an ineffective teacher for Beethoven and had himself essentially quit composing since Beethoven’s star began to ascend, he was still an icon of his times, the last remaining vestige of the greatness of the last century.

In September, Beethoven conducted his Eroica at a charity concert as Vienna began to return to normal and a peace treaty had been signed between Austria and France. But his mood was still somber and pessimistic.

Again, he wrote to his publisher,

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“We are enjoying a little peace after violent destruction, after suffering every hardship that one could conceivably endure. I worked a few weeks in succession, but it seemed to me more for death than for immortality. …I no longer expect to see any stability in this age. The only certainty we can rely on is blind chance.” (Beethoven, writing on November 22nd, 1809).
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Yet during this year, despite the physical, economic and psychological hardships, he managed to complete the “Emperor” Concerto (most of it finished before the bombardment began), the “Harp” String Quartet and a set of piano sonatas including the famous “Les adieux” Sonata, inspired by the absence and eventual return of his friend, student and (probably more importantly) patron, the Archduke Rudolph, youngest son of the Austrian emperor, who, like most of the aristocracy, had fled the city on May 4th before the French army’s arrival, only returning in late January, 1810.

At the end of 1809, he received a commission to write incidental music for Goethe’s Egmont, a play about a hero opposing the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands. We often think of this as part of Beethoven’s heroic theme, a thread that held together the 3rd and 5th Symphonies as well as the “Emperor” Concerto (essentially a work in the old “military” style that was quite popular in its day but forgotten, today). In actuality, the attraction of this commission probably had more to do with the not very subtle similarities between Holland’s foreign occupation and Vienna’s.

Goethe was the greatest living figure in German Art – poet, playwright, novelist. That summer (1810), Beethoven corresponded with a woman named Bettina Brentano who was a friend of Goethe’s: she would later arrange for them to meet at the spa in Teplitz.

Another significant but more personal event of the summer of 1810 was Beethoven’s decision to marry. He had often complained how he was unsuitable for marriage or seemed to be attracted to women of a higher station in life than would reasonably consider such a man – genius or not – for her husband. He wrote to an old friend in Bonn to track down a copy of his baptismal certificate as proof of age (a requirement for marriage) and he even paid attention to his wardrobe and his appearance. But apparently his proposal was turned down. It seems the woman in question was the daughter of his physician, a young girl of 18. Beethoven would turn 40 that December. It seemed an unlikely choice.

Though disappointed, Beethoven spent two months in Baden where he worked on two major compositions – the String Quartet in F Minor which he subtitled “Serioso” (very few of the nicknames associated with his works originated with the composer) which may have been influenced by his state of mind, and another work dedicated (like the “Emperor” Concerto and the “Les adieux” Sonata) to the Archduke Rudolph, a piano trio in B-flat, his grandest chamber work, known as the “Archduke Trio,” which he completed in March, 1811.

But his health was still not good and his doctor (and ex-future-father-in-law) suggested he spend the summer in Teplitz, a famous resort northwest of Prague. Refreshed, he returned to Vienna and began work on the 7th and 8th Symphonies. Though work on the 8th didn’t really begin in earnest until after he finished the 7th the following spring, he talked about plans for it and for a possible third symphony to follow, probably in D Minor, though not enough exists to prove this became the actual 9th Symphony completed in 1824.

In December, 1811, he composed a song originally with guitar accompaniment, setting a poem by Johann Stoll, “An die Geliebte” (To the Beloved) which he presented to Antonie Brentano, Bettina Brentano’s sister-in-law. Her copy of the song includes a note in her handwriting, “requested by me from the author, March 2nd, 1812.” (Incidentally, this song is not to be confused with the more substantial song cycle, “An die ferne Geliebte” (To the Distant Beloved), composed in 1816.)

For the second summer in a row, Beethoven decided to return to the same place he’d spent the previous summer – the spa in Teplitz (usually, he stayed closer to Vienna). Since this was in neutral territory and between most important German cities and Vienna, it was a place where diplomats and aristocrats would gather to discuss the political situation as Napoleon took off for what turned out to be the disastrous invasion of Russia in the fall of 1812. Goethe would also be there, that summer, and a meeting was finally arranged between them by their mutual friend, Bettina Brentano (who, by the way, had recently married Achim von Arnim who would later collaborate with her other brother, Clemens Brentano, on the collection of folk poems known as “Des knaben Wunderhorn,” a major inspiration to, among others, Gustav Mahler).

About meeting Beethoven, Goethe wrote to his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter (and future teacher of Felix Mendelssohn),

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“His talent amazed me; altogether he is an utterly untamed personality, who is not altogether in the wrong in holding the world to be detestable but surely does not make it any the more enjoyable either for himself or for others by his attitude. He is easily excused, on the other hand, and much to be pitied as his hearing is leaving him, which perhaps mars the musical part of his nature less than the social.”
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Such is a description of Beethoven at the time he was composing his jovial 8th Symphony!

(Beethoven, for his part, viewed Goethe as paying too much attention to courtly matters, “far more than is becoming in a poet.”)

There is some doubt about exactly when Beethoven completed the 7th – some sources say “April, 1812,” others “during the summer of 1812.” At any rate, once he completed it, he began work on the 8th in earnest.

One source describes the creation of this new symphony like this: “The months during the composition of the work were partially spent traveling from Teplitz to Karlsbad, back to Teplitz and to Linz.”

Sounds like a pleasant summer vacation, a writing holiday to get away from the distractions of the city, right?

Beethoven arrived in Teplitz on July 5th. The next morning, he wrote a letter.

Now, ordinarily, this would seem inconsequential – he wrote lots of letters. But this letter precipitated a mystery that has yet to be solved: it is the famous “Letter to the Immortal Beloved.” The woman is unnamed and she was at the spa in Karlsbad not far from Teplitz: the plan, apparently, was for him to meet her there shortly.

It is a passionate love-letter and the only copy of it was found in Beethoven’s desk after his death in 1827. Was it the rough draft? Did he never send it? If he was apparently met with rejection (again) since nothing ever came of this relationship (that we know of), why did he keep the letter? There were two portraits in that same desk drawer, miniatures of Giulietta Guiciardi (to whom he dedicated the “Moonlight” Sonata in 1801) and one that was believed to be Countess Anna Marie Erdődy (Beethoven rented rooms from her and her husband in 1808-1809 and dedicated the Opus 70 piano trios to her in 1810) but was later ascertained to be Antonie Brentano.

There have many candidates for Immortal Belovedness – the least likely being the one espoused by the highly inaccurate 1994 film “Immortal Beloved,” Beethoven’s sister-in-law.

While her true identity will probably remain unsolved – and Antonie Brentano, currently the favorite candidate, was in fact in Karlsbad when Beethoven wrote the letter – her impact on him may have been considerable. Assuming this letter was the culmination, not the start of their relationship, could it have something to do with Beethoven’s state of mind since he would probably have met her and fallen in love within the previous year or two?

We know that he met Antonie (see left) in 1810. Could love be behind the joy we hear in both the 7th and the 8th Symphonies? By most accounts, Beethoven was described as “elated” that summer of 1812, judging from his own correspondence and the two works that dominated his creativity at the time.

Antonie, her husband Franz Brentano and their six-year-old daughter arrived in Karlsbad on July 5th, just as Beethoven was arriving at Teplitz, and were registered in the guesthouse at 311 Aug’Gottes (God’s Eye). Beethoven left Teplitz for Karlsbad on July 25th and was registered to stay in the guesthouse at 311 Aug’Gottes – the same one where the Brentanos were staying. They all left Karlsbad around August 7th or 8th, stayed at the Franzensbad spa where Beethoven stayed until September 8th when he returned alone to Karlsbad and then by September 16th to Teplitz.

From there, he went to Linz in Austria, where he worked on the score for the 8th Symphony while staying with his brother, Nikolas Johann, who had opened an apothecary shop there in 1808.

Beethoven’s relationship with both of his brothers was stormy, at best. Even in the Heiligenstadt Testament, written as a kind of last will and testament to his two brothers, he leaves a blank space rather than naming Johann (another mystery for which there is no clear answer).

It was possible Beethoven planned this visit to delay his return to Vienna but not necessarily to have a nice family vacation. His primary purpose seems to have been more of a “visitation” than a “visit,” meddling in his brother’s personal affairs.

It seems that Johann rented part of his house to a physician whose unmarried younger sister-in-law lived with them and who eventually became Johann’s mistress. Beethoven was outraged at this news and “descended” on his brother to convince him to end the relationship, even applying to the local bishop and the police chief to have the girl expelled from Linz. But before he could manage that, Johann married her on November 8th and Ludwig retreated angrily to Vienna where nothing more was heard of him until December 29th when he gave a concert with violinist Pierre Rode where the newly completed Violin Sonata No. 10 was premiered.

At any rate, the manuscript score of the Symphony No. 8 bears the inscription “Sinfonia-Linz, im Monath October 1812” which implies it was either completed there or at least he wrote out the full score while there. Under the circumstances, it must not have been a very pleasant month…

But the question remains, if Beethoven was so outraged by his brother’s morals, what would he be doing carrying on an affair with a married woman right under her husband’s nose, if Antonie Brentano was indeed the “Immortal Beloved”? He could hardly marry her and she would be unable, most likely, to have gotten a divorce to do so. Is it possible, despite his proximity to the Brentanos, that Beethoven was in love with someone else who was there, someone we don’t know anything about?

Still, it is tempting to point out that the Brentanos, after their return from Karlsbad, left Vienna for Frankfort in November and Beethoven remained at his brother's until after their departure. Perhaps on purpose?

Oh, and another fact – though Beethoven and Antonie never saw each other again, it’s worth noting that she gave birth to a son, Karl Josef, on March 8th, 1813 – meaning the baby was conceived in early July, 1812…

Yes, well, like I said, there are mysteries among mysteries when it comes to examining a composer’s life and trying to apply them to a composer’s works.

But still, it’s tempting to wonder – whoever Karl Josef Brentano’s father really was – if Beethoven was working on his 8th Symphony around the time of his idyllic summer with the Immortal Beloved – whoever she may have been – is that perhaps one reason why Beethoven might have had an especial fondness for this symphony, one he called “my little one”?

Whatever may have happened during the end of that summer holiday with the Brentanos – was there a scene, a dramatic break-up? did Beethoven, unable to have the woman of his dreams descend on his younger brother to take it out on him, so that he couldn’t have the woman of his dreams, either? – Beethoven wrote this in his journal on May 13th, 1813:

“To forego what could be a great deed and to stay like this. O how different from a shiftless life, which I often pictured to myself. O terrible circumstances, which do not suppress my longing for domesticity but [prevent] its realization. O God, God, look down upon the unhappy B, do not let it continue like this any longer.”

- Dick Strawser

Beethoven's 8th Symphony: That Old Odd/Even Conundrum

People often make the comment – I’m not sure where it began – that Beethoven’s “even-numbered symphonies” are not as great as his “odd-numbered symphonies.”

I never understood that “not as great” – not as popular, maybe, but certainly not “not as good.” Greatness may be difficult to define and is often confused with size and scope as well as popularity. And in the Symphony No. 8, we have two problems to fit that concept of greatness: the work is not built to a heroic scale like the 3rd or 5th Symphonies, geared toward public appeal like the 7th or the epic grandeur of the 9th (but then nothing else really is). In fact, it doesn’t even seem to have the ground-breaking innovation of the 1st that so startled the classical music world when they first heard it in 1800 (a new century, a new age).

We tend to forget there are no other “great symphonies” from this time period that we can reasonably compare Beethoven’s symphonies to. If anything, Beethoven was rarely typical of his time. His style had grown out of the Classical Era of his teacher’s generation and the Romantic Era did not begin on January 1st, 1800, when other composers decided “okay, this is what we’re going to write like, now.”

Beethoven was one-of-a-kind – not just in the history of Western classical music. And his symphonies are – unlike many lesser composers who wrote series of works fitting particular patterns – also highly individual, with their own intrinsic personalities. Just like children.

And just like children, perhaps not all of them grow up to become irrefutable masterpieces, for one reason or another. And if the 2nd, 4th and 8th Symphonies of Beethoven did not achieve the popular status of their companions – the 6th, the “Pastoral,” is always an exception, speaking of individualities – they cannot be dismissed as not being chips off the old block.

When the casual listener thinks of a composer writing a piece, it’s often assumed that piece was written in isolation, in the heat of inspiration (Beethoven, with his wild eyes and even wilder hair, is the epitome of an artist working under the influence of inspiration) and with an eye toward posterity. But this isn’t always the case.

Bach, essentially, wrote for Now – his cantatas for specific Sundays in the church calendar, the Well-Tempered Clavier as teaching pieces for his sons, the concertos and orchestral suites for public concerts at Zimmermann’s Coffee House where he conducted the Collegium musicum, the closest thing Leipzig had to a local symphony.

Mozart and Haydn composed their symphonies and string quartets and operas for the audience of their day and if certain works survived to win favor with more audiences in wider locations, so much the better. Not every work set out to be a masterpiece, more original than the last.

It may sound derogatory to consider composers like Bach, Mozart and Haydn as craftsmen but this was often how they and their age viewed them – employed by the nobility or the church to produce works of art that were as much a part of their patrons’ ownership as any painting or palace, something to impress the neighbors with, to put it bluntly. Part of Prince Esterházy’s fame not only within the Austrian Empire but across Europe in general was that he employed Haydn who wrote these wonderful symphonies that were all the rage in places like Vienna, Berlin, Paris and London.

That began to change at the very end of the 18th Century – or, to round things off, around 1800. It could probably be blamed on the “equality” inspired by the French Revolution as much as the changes brought to everyday life by the no less influential Industrial Revolution, a time where artists in general became part of the general free market economy.

And around this same time, composers went from creating a huge inventory of new works – Haydn’s 104 symphonies, for instance – to concentrating on only a few. After Mozart arrived in Vienna where symphonies were not as popular as concertos, in those last ten years he wrote fewer symphonies (in fact only three) but more concertos because, frankly, there was more of an audience for them and that meant more money.

Mozart wanted his freedom to create so he went to Vienna in 1781 to seek his fortune and ended up dying young, buried in a pauper’s grave. That’s what we’re led to believe. But all through that short life, Mozart was trying to find aristocratic employment. When no one, for whatever reasons – mostly due to his father’s meddling, it is believed – wanted to hire him, the 25-year-old Mozart decided to move to Vienna and become a free-lancer, basically, rather than put up with the backwater provinciality he suffered in Salzburg where he was, quite literally, kicked out by an annoyed boss.

Reading his letters and following contemporary accounts, it’s not hard to believe that Mozart was difficult to get along with – not just his sense of idealism, as we regard it today, but in his lack of diplomacy dealing with the aristocrats he needed to court. And Beethoven was very much in the same mold, whether we regard this as egotism backed up by their genius or just in their inability to behave the way society expected them to.

Especially in Beethoven, posterity created this image of the heaven-storming Titan and therefore the sense that if the heaven-storming symphonies like the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th fit this image, consequently, the “other” symphonies – from the gentle pastoral 6th to the more abstract 4th and 8th – were times when Beethoven felt the need to relax after such Herculean struggles.

Unlike many composers – who write one piece and then go on to the next – Beethoven worked on several compositions at the same time. Judging from his sketches, whether he was consciously working on them concurrently or not, some works were often conceived in the process of composing another one. Themes or ideas might be put aside, inappropriate for this piece but perhaps more suitable for a different work, only to take shape later. But it’s also clear that Beethoven was fully capable of compartmentalizing his creativity to have various burners firing, more or less, at once. Yet it’s amazing how different these works, sharing a common gestation period, might be from each other.

We tend to forget, today, that in the 18th Century, a composer might produce a dozen concertos or a half-dozen string quartets in a set, not individual pieces later grouped together for convenience (Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos being an exception). Haydn would plan six string quartets where each one was to have its own individuality but also fit particular expectations – different moods, different stylistic details – which Beethoven followed in his first set of quartets, Op. 18: there is one in a minor key, the dramatic one; there is a more lyrical one, one that is more symphonic in scope (meaning it deals more with developmental aspects of the form), one that is more “concertante” in style (essentially a violin concerto with the accompaniment of the other three players) and so on. This is one way a composer could “individualize” collective works and in a sense, it kept a composer, even returning to a particular form or genre again, from writing sequels the way Tchaikovsky did in his 4th, 5th and 6th Symphonies (since he is often accused of writing the same symphony three times).

For Beethoven, we could assume the challenge was to always be original; in Tchaikovsky’s defense, we should think of it as finding a successful model (whether it resonated with the audience or with the artistic soul) that could be expressed in different ways. After all, would it be any less fair to say Tchaikovsky – or Mahler or Shostakovich – wrote their own 5th Symphonies or rewrote Beethoven’s 5th their way?

And does it matter?

To read more about Beethoven’s 8th, continue at the Harrisburg Symphony Blog, here. Stuart Malina and the Harrisburg Symphony will be performing this work at concerts this weekend, Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm at the Forum in downtown Harrisburg.

- Dick Strawser

Alexander Scriabin: the Charlie Sheen of His Day

Hey, classical music fans! It's time to make some pop-culture references to help people understand that classical music can have relevance to our lives today!

"Scriabin developed his own very personal and abstract mysticism based on the role of the artist in relation to perception and life affirmation. His ideas on reality seem similar to Platonic and Aristotelian theory though much more ethereal and incoherent. The main sources of his philosophical thought can be found in his numerous unpublished notebooks, one in which he famously wrote 'I am God'. As well as jottings there are complex and technical diagrams explaining his metaphysics."

Tiger blood aside, Scriabin was just better at explaining himself than Charlie Sheen -- not that Scriabin's contemporaries didn't have similar reactions to his philosophies and lifestyle choices...

Addendum - Not that I'm equating Scriabin with Charlie Sheen, as friends on Facebook seem to assume - I'm merely pointing out the perceptions of one generation are not necessarily those of future generations, not that that automatically makes Charlie Sheen a candidate for future geniusness.

My solipsistic skepticism, here, is purely to point out the absurdity of those who are constantly trying to engage a younger audience for classical music by bringing in "pop culture references." And this seems more "relevant" than trying to describe Mozart as the Lady GaGa of his day.

- Dr. Dick