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The Journal of Music and Meaning, 5, Summer 2007, section 3
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Aesthetic Realism & Mahler’s Sixth:
Some Philosophic Light on a Symphonic Masterpiece
in its Centennial Year
By Edward Green, Manhattan School of Music
The American poet and philosopher Eli Siegel founded Aesthetic Realism 1 in 1941,
and central to his theory of the arts is the principle: “All beauty is a making one of
opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves”
(Siegel (1997), p.13). Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, as I intend to show, exemplifies this idea.
As one studies its reception history—and it is a full century now since its May, 1906
premiere 2 —one fact stands out boldly: the consistency with which the symphony has been
described as a drama of opposites. This holds true whether the description was primarily
of aesthetic import or of technical design. For example, in 1930 Herbert Antcliffe wrote of
how the work “justifies its own intricacy through its broadness of outlook.” 3 This is a
statement of musical dialectics: an assertion that one aesthetic quality is strengthened
through the presence of its opposite. Detail and whole, says the British musicologist, help
each other in Mahler’s composition. Two years later, in a German text devoted straight-
forwardly to technical issues, Moderne Harmonik, Edwin von der Nüll described the stark

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and yet veiled manner in which the composer mingles major and minor in this work (Von
der Nüll, E. (1932)). Here both the material and the artist’s approach to it are described in
terms of vivid technical contraries.
While, as la Grange and others have documented, the earliest reviewers were
generally puzzled by the Sixth Symphony—(and this is understandable, since a work
which insists on paradox will require time for its unity to be comprehended)—there were,
nevertheless, highly perceptive critics right from the start. William Ritter was perhaps the
earliest, writing in 1906 of the symphony’s “passion for joy even in the midst of suffering,
the passion even for making suffering serve as a means to joy.” And, he argued,” we have
in [Mahler] a symphonist such as there has never yet been, a genuine symphonist of the
new millennium.” 4 Guido Adler in 1914 wrote of how the composition, containing “the
negation of life as [its] decisive characteristic,” was yet infused with “brightness” and “wild
gaiety” as well as “reverie and glimpses into beloved regions.” 5 Later in this memorial
essay (Mahler died in 1911) there is a passage in which Adler points to the opposites of
freedom and order, strictness and luxuriousness:
Even when free episodes, improvisatory creations, are inserted in an
apparently loose manner, they are thoroughly incorporated into the organism of
the regular form. In the Sixth, which yields to the tragic conception of life in an
almost luxurious manner, the exigencies of strict formal treatment were so fully
observed that they acted in a formally determinative manner even on the inner
course of the work. (Reilly, E. (1982), p. 57)
A year earlier, 1913, Richard Specht had written of the dramatic “mixture” of “the
highest yearning and the deepest desolation.” And concerning the Scherzo he took
particular note of how “clumsy, rattling immensities” of sound were joined to sonorities that
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were “dainty, skipping, well-behaved” (Specht, R. (1913), p. 293). Around the same time,
Paul Stefan argued that while the symphony was likely the strictest of all of Mahler’s
compositions, it was yet “powerfully inspired.” He continues by noting that “twilight sounds
full of mystery mingle with merciless march rhythms” in its opening movement; and over
the course of its Finale the “search for peace” eventually is overwhelmed by “an incessant
roaring storm” (Stefan, P. (1912), pp. 123-125).
High and low, yearning and desolation, immensity and daintiness, clumsiness and
good behavior, peace and storminess, twilight mystery and merciless blatancy, the passion
of spontaneous inspiration and the cool level-headedness required for strict command of
formal musical materials—these opposing qualities were felt by Specht and Stefan to be
central to the impact of the symphony.
The language used by these early commentators is post-romantic; they emphasize
the emotional content of the work and its immediate sonic reality—its “phenomenology.”
But those who have grappled with the Sixth Symphony on more deep-seated, abstract,
structural grounds have also found themselves impelled to use dialectical language. If we
leap ahead some ninety years, we find Warren Darcy in 2001 writing of how “the rotational
process of the Andante…relies exclusively on the recycling of two maximally differentiated
thematic blocks.” Moreover the final rotation “brings us to the telos or structural goal of the
movement: the reconciliation or synthesis of these two thematic blocks” (Darcy, W.
(2001)). If musical materials are “maximally differentiated” and the goal is to “reconcile”
them, then Darcy is observing the “making one of opposites,” though using different
terminology to say so.
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Another important technical essay was written by Christopher Hailey in 1988:
“Structure and Tonal Plan in Mahler’s Sixth Symphony.” A perceptive analysis, it is clear
that Hailey is moved by Mahler’s ability to reconcile opposites. Hailey says:
Mahler was exploring the tension between the subjective content and rhetorical
demands of his musical language on the one hand, and the abstract demands of
rigorous formal and motivic organization on the other….Despite its length, the
Sixth Symphony is a work of remarkable conciseness, for its movements are
bound by a small family of motives thus giving the piece its striking thematic
cohesiveness. (Hailey, C. (1988), p.253)
The opposites here are concision and expansiveness; impersonal, abstract rigor and
highly personal, “subjective,” feeling. Their junction, Hailey implies, is why the symphony is
worthy of praise. 6
The presence of opposites in honest interaction appears likewise to be the cause of
the positive tone Robert Anderson takes in his 1970 review for The Musical Times of the
Philips recording by Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw. For Anderson, the sonic
universe of this symphony moves between two “poles”—the distant sound of cowbells and
the crushingly immediate impact of hammerblows. Nor is the motion between these poles
vague; in his opinion Mahler has “firm control” of his materials, and the symphony has a
clear “overall sense of direction.” 7
1) What the Reception History Reveals
What emerges from a close study of these representative instances of Mahlerian
commentary is that listeners have experienced the Sixth Symphony as a compound of
contradictions. Mahler’s tautest work motivically, it is also resplendently rich—almost
infinite in sonic and emotional variety. The music is grim, yet charming. It shrieks and
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caresses. It moves with heavy, inexorable motion and also with playful casualness. It is
passionate love music; it is bitter mockery. It is idyllic vision; it is desperate struggle. And
even when critics do not explicitly grant Mahler aesthetic victory—the ultimate synthesis of
the forces he has unleashed—they still speak of the great drama of opposites which this
work enacts and embodies. For example, in 1963 H.F. Redlich wrote of the “grim
discrepancy between the homeliness of its old-style motives and the fiery breath of its lurid
orchestration.”
That sentence was about the Scherzo, which he also calls a “forerunner of similar
antithetically conceived pieces” in Mahler’s later work (Redlich, H.F. (1963), p. 207). The
use by Redlich of “antithesis” is a classic way of acknowledging the dynamic presence of
opposites—just as earlier other terms were used: poles; tension; etc. What matters, of
course, is not the terminology, but the reality behind it: the dialectical reality.
As a final contribution to this compact reception history, there is Peter Andraschke’s
1978 essay “Struktur und Gehalt im ersten Satz von Gustav Mahlers sechster Symphonie.”
Andraschke concludes that we can discern—even in its opening phrases—“the
fundamental idea of the entire symphony….the striving and struggling towards a goal, and
at the same time the fruitlessness of being able to hold on to its attainment” (Andraschke,
P. (1978), pp. 214-215). The symphony expresses how “for mankind there exists this
constellation: the struggle for life and existence and, on the other side, the hope for
happiness now and at all times” (Andraschke, P. (1978), p. 232).
While I do not agree with every aspect of Andraschke’s interpretation, his use of the
word “constellation” is very taking, and deserves commentary. The word implies
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(etymologically) a “shining together,” a sense of diverse things joined in a beautiful and
brilliant manner. And yet, this is a “tragic” symphony.
That humanity can express its most tragic moods beautifully—can, through aesthetic
activity, find pride-giving, pleasure-giving form in material which otherwise might easily
seem only painful and depressive—is evidence for what Eli Siegel passionately argued:
that the deepest and greatest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest
basis, and that the way to do this is through the study of aesthetics as “the making one of
opposites.” 8 And Mahler’s Sixth Symphony can stand as a touchstone—for its tragic
conclusion in no way alters the fact that for listener after listener the experience of the work
was thrilling and full of life-enhancing pleasure.
Perhaps nothing is more important in the realm of aesthetics than the power of art to
coordinate the pleasure and pain of things; the goodness of life and its evils, imperfections,
agonies. As Aristotle was the first to imply in his Poetics, tragedy takes on these
contradictions and composes them: pain and pleasure, senselessness and form, grandeur
and weakness, emotional desolation and the feeling of pride and self-respect. With this in
mind, it is not surprising that Alma reported that upon completing this most heart-
wrenching of symphonies—(“the first genuine ‘tragic symphony’ to be written” (Cooke, D.
(1988), p. 85), said Deryck Cooke)—Mahler “was serene; he was conscious of the
greatness of his work. He was a tree in full leaf and flower” (Mitchell, D. (1971), pp. 70-
71).
2) The Underlying Tonal Design
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I now focus on Mahler’s tonal planning in the Sixth Symphony—his long-range
design of key relations. In that design symmetry and disorder; tonal weakness and
strength are inextricably joined; and it takes no more than five beats for the basic seed to
be presented from which the entire symphony will grow. It is the pitch A (here presented in
the bass register in octaves) 9 suddenly modified by a chord above having F as its root and
C as its highest and melodically most prominent note.
A is, of course, the tonic of this symphony. Thirds surrounding a central tonic—this,
in evolution over time, will prove to be its essential tonal drama. 10 The idea is so
elemental, so protean, it cannot even be called a “Grundgestalt.” It is more like an
elemental “premise.” For when A and F are enriched through motion towards a yet lower
third, D, we have the central keys of the opening two movements. 11 Symmetrically
balancing this and completing the tonal design, when A and C are enriched by yet a higher
third, Eb, we obtain a second "triad of tonalities," which represents the main tonal activity
of the concluding movements.
How architectonically satisfying this design is. Yet symmetry by itself never made for
drama—let alone the heart-pounding, tragic drama this symphony enacts. So what else is
present? A "tonal contender" which lingers on the scene almost to the very end,
threatening to redirect the gravitational center of the composition towards itself. That rival
of A, the true tonic, is D, the "lowest" note of the two "triads" described before.
Critical to Mahler's tonal design is a paradox. While these two "triads"
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Eb

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D
F
[A] ↔ [A]
are symmetrically generated around the over-all tonal center of the work, the composer
does not employ them in “mirror-image.” Instead, Mahler uses each “triad” cadentially—
with a "downward" pull. In the course of the symphony, we experience these tonalities
largely as follows:
A Eb
↓ ↓
(F) (C)
↓ ↓
D A
Herein lies the technical challenge Mahler set up for himself, and also the cause
of his ultimate artistic triumph. For the "triad" A to D, leads away from the true tonic;
moreover, it is an “acoustically strong" triad, outlining a perfect fifth. Thus the lowest
key center, D, seems a very convincing place to rest. Too convincing, in fact, for
comfort. On the other hand, the triad with which he descends to his true tonic, A, is
outlined by a very equivocal interval: the diminished fifth, Eb to A. Mahler must
therefore go to extraordinary lengths—(literally, in terms of duration, and also
technically, in terms of harmonic “sleights of hand”)—to find a way to make that final
descending tonal arc convince us of the work's true tonality, despite its tritonal outline
which tends to do just the opposite: to negate any strong definition of tonality. 12
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C

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Through the most meaningful of musical ironies, that unstable and tonally
ambiguous Eb will prove the means by which Mahler ultimately grounds his true tonic.
Weakness will become a source of strength. Nor, as this essay will later explain, was
this only a “technical” victory. For these opposites—weakness and strength—were the
dramatic substance of Mahler’s own life; and perhaps never so keenly as in the years
surrounding the composition of this very work.
Many compositions have been put forth as direct ancestors of the Sixth
Symphony, including Bruckner’s Sixth. 13 Surprisingly a work not been mentioned in the
scholarly literature, but which in terms of its underlying tonal design bears the clearest
signs of “musical paternity,” is Beethoven's Seventh. As did Mahler later, Beethoven
took extraordinary care to surround a tonal center of A with keys symmetrically arrayed
at a third. Exactly the same keys: F and C. The British composer Robert Simpson,
noting this, wrote of the “wonderful new approach to tonality” in the Seventh Symphony:
Beethoven here colours the whole work with an uncomplicated but hitherto
entirely unfamiliar attitude to the keys: the main key is A major, but as well as
allowing the music to explore nominally related tonalities he makes startling
systematic use of the foreign keys of C major and F major. The indefinable
character of the whole symphony is determined by Beethoven’s enormously
powerful imagination in tackling this situation. (Simpson, R. (1986), p.45)
So dramatic—and so cosmological, in his opinion—were the implications of this
symmetrical use of tonality, that Simpson observes: “The three tonal protagonists, A, C,
and F, seem more like dimensions than keys” (Simpson, R. (1986), p. 47).
The presaging of Mahler goes even further. In Beethoven’s opus there is also a
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prominent structural use of the key of D, approached likewise not in the traditional
manner—as an immediate subdominant—but as the deepest point in a falling cycle of
thirds. (A minor is the key with which Beethoven concludes his second movement, and
F and D are juxtaposed in the third.) And while the key of Eb is never established in the
symphony, the desire to counterpose the pitch Eb to that of the tonic is clearly present.
Near the end of the work (m. 389-417 of mvt. 4) Beethoven prominently marks D# by
repeatedly insisting on it as the deepest of a two note bass register ostinato. This sets
up a long dominant pedal which leads, just measures later, to the symphony’s joyous,
conclusive affirmation of its tonic. 14
To my knowledge, no earlier work by Beethoven—or, for that matter, Haydn and
Mozart—had featured the sharpened fourth so obsessively in the bass so near to its
ultimate cadence a tritone away. Beethoven took the tonal risk. Mahler, as this essay
implies, raised the stakes hair-raisingly higher by emphasizing the tritone while denying
himself any significant structural use of the dominant.
Mahler loved this symphony of Beethoven. He felt it had been misunderstood, and
championed it. In fact he performed it on April 4, 1903—just weeks before he
abandoned the hurly-burly of Viennese concert life for the rural quiet of Maiernigg to
begin work on his Sixth Symphony. 15 All this is deeply suggestive. 16 And yet it is
striking that technically akin as these symphonies are in their “deep tonal logic,” their
immediate “moods” are ever so contrasting—one eventuating in dithyrambic joy, the
other in desolating tragedy.
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3) Mahler’s “Fate Motto” and the Meaning of Aesthetic Experience
As famous as any moment in Mahler is the “fate motto” of the Sixth Symphony. It
has become as nearly emblematic for him as the opening of the Fifth Symphony is for
Beethoven. Every commentator has been impelled to describe that “fate motto” in terms
of opposites. The sudden juxtaposition of strength and weakness, assertion and
mutedness, blunt immediacy and a mysterious, swift motion into the distance, is
patent—as is Mahler’s careful effort to have these opposing qualities arise out of each
other seamlessly. [Ex. 1]
In terms of the hermeneutics of this motto, we should remind ourselves that in
western music theory major and minor have long been implicitly linked 17 to ideas of
hardness and softness—“Dur” implying strength, “Moll” implying yieldingness, a “giving
way.” Every listener, once he or she has a basic familiarity with the language of Western
symphonic music, can feel the “life” equivalent of the “acoustical” situation Mahler has
created: the sudden shock of strength turning to weakness; the stark dichotomy of
proud self-assertion and the retreat into mutedness, even shame.
As Aesthetic Realism sees it, the opposites are inevitable in any honest
description of music because they are the philosophic bedrock of all possible
experience. 18 And this—the ontological meaning of opposites—is the deepest “context”
for the arts: a context which precedes and transcends (even as it includes) any
particular historical or cultural context. 19 Thus, in any century and on any continent,
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musical form has depended on the conjunction of such matters as change and
sameness, unity and multiplicity, speed and slowness, foreground and background,
separation and junction, nearness and distance—and also, by implication, hardness and
softness, strength and weakness.
If we want to develop a truly scientific musicology—one that can go from technical
statements to statements about the value of a work, without recourse to an entirely new
set of intellectual premises; a musicology deep enough to begin at a point prior to that of
cultural divergence—we need to recognize that these and other “bedrock” antitheses,
so necessary for the structural understanding of music, also form the core of our
emotional response to the art. Thus, from the perspective of Aesthetic Realism, Mahler
in the Sixth Symphony not only set himself an abstract, artistic problem to be resolved,
he also was dealing—through the symbolic language of music (and its particular early
20 th -century, western European “dialect”)—with psychological and ethical issues.
Issues critical to his own life and to ours; for who among us is unconcerned with
strength and weakness, with asserting oneself and yielding? Who would not want to
make beautiful sense of how life is both orderly and uncertain?
“The world, art, and self explain each other; each is the aesthetic oneness of
opposites”—said Eli Siegel (quoted in Kranz, S. (1969), p.1). Mahler’s symphony, I am
arguing, points to the validity of this philosophic statement, and the evidence is both
technically within the work and also to be found within its reception history. For
commentator after commentator has implied that Mahler’s great artistic achievement
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has ethical and philosophic significance.
Here, for example, is Norman Del Mar, a conductor who published a very detailed
study of the work in 1980. Del Mar is speaking of its finale; he could just as easily be
speaking of the work as a whole:
It is undeniable that, for all its ultimate defeat, there is more exultancy in
the Sixth Symphony's finale than in any other of Mahler's works. (Del Mar,
N. (1980), p.x)
As Del Mar continues, it is apparent he is moved by the “extraordinary power” of this
music to bring opposites together in a way immediately relevant to life:
The defeat is noble and heroic; there is no equivocation about it, but at the
same time a total absence of self-pity. For all Mahler's self-involvement
and identification with the symphony, it is, notwithstanding, his most
objective work—one might almost say his most impersonal, since the
extraordinary power of the music transcends the purely personal to
become universal. (Del Mar, N. (1980), p.x)
Later, I’ll return to this crucial insight of Norman Del Mar—for it is true: the sheer
junction of personality and universality in the Sixth Symphony makes it, arguably,
Mahler’s masterpiece. In fact, Deryck Cooke, in his Gustav Mahler: An Introduction to
His Music, writes along very similar lines (Cooke, D. (1980), pp. 85-86). However, in this
author’s opinion, neither Cooke nor Del Mar asks sufficiently what Mahler’s artistic
triumph might mean to an “average” person struggling, in his or her own life, with
exactly the same “tragic” issues.
And they should; for the putting together of subjectivity and objectivity—of feeling
life deeply, personally, and yet seeing life with logic and precision—is a universal
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human need. As Eli Siegel explains in “The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict,” it is an
inevitable, elemental aspect of ethics:
There is a deep and “dialectic” duality facing every human being, which
can be put this way: How is he to be entirely himself, and yet be fair to that
world which he does not see as himself? The definition of aesthetics is to
be found in a proper appreciation of this duality…[A] person should, for his
mind’s health and his deep contentment and his profound efficiency, be
objective and subjective at the same time. If he is, he will be aesthetic—
for aesthetic means, having an adequate, alive, “personal” perception,
while giving oneself truly to the fact outside, the specific reality, the that.
(Siegel (1981), pp. 91-2)
That Mahler felt the need to give himself to reality, to create works which would
embody—as far as it was within his power to do so—the full scope of the world around
him, can be seen through his famous statement made to Sibelius in Helsingfors in
1907: “A symphony must be like the world, it must embrace everything” (quoted in
Shapiro, N. (1978), p.52).
It is likely that Mahler was recalling a statement of the great German
metaphysician Arthur Schopenhauer. 20 In Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, there is
this; and Beethoven is the composer the philosopher has in mind as he writes:
Now if we cast a glance at purely instrumental music, a symphony of
Beethoven presents us with the greatest confusion which yet has the most
perfect order as its foundation, with the most vehement conflict which is
transformed the next moment into the most beautiful harmony. It is rerum
concordia discors, [“the discordant concord of things”], a true and
complete picture of the nature of the world. (Schopenhauer, A. (1969),
p.450)
As we shall see, Mahler’s symphonic logic in the Sixth Symphony is directly in
keeping with Schopenhauer’s understanding of Beethoven. Mahler, too, brings together
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qualities most often seen by people as separate and in antipathy—qualities
Schopenhauer implies we must grasp as one if we are to have “a true and complete
picture of the world.” 21 And the “fate motto,” as I implied earlier, does impel a listener to
experience opposites together.
4) Architectonics and Emotion
It would be foolish to elevate the abstract aspect of music over its emotional
content; or to do the reverse. The true relation is reciprocal; the emotion explains the
tonal architecture; the abstract form, the emotion. 22 / 23 So it is on the basis of the
inter-explanatory nature of opposites that we now investigate in more detail the
structure Gustav Mahler has given his symphony. 24
Let us begin by observing that the absence of the “secure” perfect fifth in the
triadic arc which outlines the large-scale tonal motion of the second half of the
symphony helps explain the heart-breaking quality of the key of Eb whenever we meet
it. Its music seems full of sweetness and peace; it is the key of the Andante, also of the
surprising "idyllic core" of the first movement. Yet Eb is in an inherently unstable relation
to the symphony’s ultimate tonic: A. What might this mean in terms of the emotional
drama an audience experiences? This—the instability and lack of “firm footing” of that
tritonal relation leads one to feel that the sweetness and the repose of Eb will ultimately
prove an illusion. And yet, it is through this “dubious” key that the tonic is ultimately
affirmed: Mahler fights off the “rival” tonic of D by means of a “cadential arc” which
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begins precisely with that “weak” Eb.
Here, in outline, are the major key areas of the concluding two movements. (I am
presuming that the Scherzo should precede the Andante; later I will give reasons—both
technical and in terms of historical evidence—for why I believe this order is correct.) We
can see how Mahler highlights the descent of Eb→C→A, and also how powerfully, in
the Finale, the “tonal contender”—D—attempt to reorient the symphony: [Ex. 2]
Now consider the opening two movements. By contrast, they highlight the
A→F→D configuration—which compel a listener to give tonal weight to D: the “rival"
tonic. Only "heroic" efforts pull us back, 25 at the end of each movement, to cadence in
A, and in each case through the presence of a large-scale motion of Eb→C→A. [Ex. 3]
I have been outlining the architectonics: the impersonal form of the work. But this
work arose from a person—and so it is necessary to reaffirm something once obvious,
but more recently largely forgotten: a major work of art cannot be impelled from an
absence of intense personal emotion. The energy of self needed to accomplish it would
be lacking. That Mahler himself had no doubt of this is clear from a letter he wrote to
Bruno Walter informing his younger colleague of the completion of the Sixth Symphony.
In it he says simply: “what one puts into music is one’s whole (feeling, thinking,
breathing and suffering) being” (La Grange (1995), p. 527.
An idea much bandied about on campuses now-a-days is that we needn’t take the
personal intent of the author centrally into account as we try to grasp the significance of
a work of art—the “Death of the Author” trope. It has also been called, in a more
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nuanced way, the “intentional Fallacy.” Yet however it is put, this idea is at heart a
confession of ingratitude. It is after all Mahler’s symphony; he cannot help but show
some deep purpose of self in it. In fact, every action of any living being in some way is
an expression of an inward purpose. That is what, centrally, differentiates the organic
from the inorganic.
Before we marginalize Gustav Mahler—by describing the work exclusively in cool,
structural terms; or terms so drenched in sociology that his personal vision is rendered
irrelevant; or worse, by arrogating to ourselves the power of making the work
meaningful by asserting that its value resides in what we choose to bring to it, our
unique reading of it—(and weird as this point-of-view is, there are some post-modernists
who seriously maintain it)—well, before we do any of that, we owe it to Gustav Mahler
(or any artist) simply in terms of normal human ethics to do our best to see what the
work first meant to him. 26 We do know from Alma that Mahler wept uncontrollably after
the dress rehearsal for its premiere. 27 Those tears were as real as the notes on the
page. And certainly as real as any “reading” we choose to make.
How then, should we approach the Sixth Symphony? First, by asking about it
what we should ask of any work of art—What conflicts are present in its very texture
and structure? What gives it dramatic urgency? Aesthetic interest? If, as we engage a
work on this “abstract” or “technical” level, we recurrently encounter a certain interplay
of opposites—perhaps of weight and lightness, or speed and slowness, or intensity and
calm—we can presume that this particular “dialectical” situation is key to the meaning of
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the work, and that this specific conflict of opposites passionately interested the artist
from whom the work arose. Interested him or her not merely on a “professional” level,
but also on a personal level.
If in addition, we see that critical commentary across the entire reception history of
that work highlights the same opposites, then we have doubly solid reason to believe
we have penetrated to a core of enduring meaning—something that truly is of the work
itself, and not merely of a private or transitory “reading” of it.
A work of art, then, is a sincere attempt by a person (and perhaps a largely
unconscious attempt) to reconcile contradictory aspects of life; of the world as he or she
has experienced it. These contradictions may be intensely personal; at the same time
they always correspond to, and reflect the enduring structure of reality. 28 We could not
feel the pain of separation from another were separation and junction not, in a prior
sense, in reality itself. We could not feel harsh and also tender, had not the rose
preceded us with its thorn and petal. It is precisely because our feelings belong at once
to ourselves and to reality, that the sincerity of one person has a value for all persons;
there is in true art, as Norman Del Mar implied, a coming together of personality and
universality. 29
It is my considered judgment that the central drama of the Sixth Symphony
concerns the opposites of strength and weakness. We may not (in fact, do not) know
precisely what strength and weakness meant to Mahler at the time he created this
symphony. What we can be confident of is that an artistic answer to this very human
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contradiction mattered greatly to him. And as we survey Mahler’s life as a whole (let
alone the period during which this symphony was written) it is clear that these very
opposites were a source of great personal confusion and anguish. He therefore had
reason—deep, pressing reason—to engage his artistic energy towards making beautiful
sense out of that conflict.
5) Self-Conflict in Gustav Mahler
“The resolution of conflict in self,” Eli Siegel explained, “is like the making one of
opposites in art” (quoted in Baird, M. (1971), p.v). The implication is that through the
study of aesthetics, ethics can take on greater clarity and efficiency (see
http://www.edgreenmusic.org). Meanwhile, as history witnesses, artists have not been
clear about the fundamental unity of aesthetics and ethics, with the result that it has
been a rare thing for an artist’s life to be equal in beauty to his or her art.
Mahler himself felt the disparity keenly—felt that his mind worked far better with
music than it did with life. In 1909 he wrote to Bruno Mahler:
What is it, after all, that thinks within us? And acts within us? Strange!
When I hear music—even when I conduct—I can hear quite definite
answers to all my questions and feel entirely clear and sure. (Cited in
Walter, B. (1973), p.153)
We need to take seriously how much of a toll this disparity took on Mahler—an
emotional toll, certainly; and quite possibly a physical toll. For health carries with it the
concept of wholeness, and it is not an easy thing to maintain the integrity of self when a
rift between art and life exists; when one’s mind is a source both of grand musical
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beauty and yet also everyday pettiness and injustice. Consider his relation with Alma. In
1903 and 1904, as he was composing the Sixth Symphony, they were newlyweds, 30
and as Alma writes of their early wedded years, it is plain she is describing a marital
situation that was deeply painful—with the pain arising from imperfect ethics:
I felt very uncertain of myself in my relations with him. After I had conquered
him by my audacity before I knew what I was about, all my self-assurance
was undermined by the psychological effects of becoming pregnant before
being married. From the moment of his spiritual triumph, too, he looked
down on me and did not recover his love of me until I had broken his tyranny.
Sometimes he played the part of a schoolmaster, relentlessly strict and
unjust. He soured my enjoyment of life and made it an abomination. That is,
he tried to. Money—rubbish! Clothes—rubbish! Beauty—rubbish!
Traveling—rubbish! Only the spirit was to count. I know today that he was
afraid of my youth and beauty. He wanted to make them safe for himself by
simply taking from me any atom of life in which he himself played no part. I
was a young thing he has desired and whose education he now took in
hand. (Mitchell, D. (1971), p. 43)
Mahler, like many people, associated strength with the ability to domineer—to
bend other people to his will. Not surprisingly, there was objection and resistance. Nor
was Alma, in her wifely relation to Gustav, the only person who endured his disposition
towards tyranny. His players felt it, and bided their time until they could “even the
score.” Taking advantage of his having suffered a severe hemorrhage, requiring a sick
leave, the players of the Vienna Philharmonic in March, 1901 seized on the moment to
vote in a “successor.” Mahler had little choice but to resign his post. This, at a time
when he also was scoring triumph after triumph at the Opera.
What a ricocheting situation of strength and weakness! And it was in this context
that Mahler (just some months later) met Alma and conducted his lightning courtship. As
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readers will know from their own life experience, there are only two options when a
person gets criticism for one’s tyrannical ways. That person can yield proudly to the
criticism, learn from it, and grow truly stronger, or seek to suppress the criticism and
attempt to prove their “masterful” approach to life was correct all along—in fact, to try to
find new territory in which to assert that “mastery.”
Quite possibly such an unconscious dynamic, such a deep confusion over what
authentically was strength in his life and what was weakness, was at work in Gustav at
this time—and contributed to the uneasy beginnings of the marriage. We know, from the
testimony of Bruno Walter, that throughout his years in Vienna Mahler was in internal
conflict. He could be deeply kind, and yet cuttingly cruel. “When I…tried to convince him
that undue harshness could be avoided,” Walter writes:
He made the memorable and truly naïve reply: “Well what do you want, am I
not always quickly reconciled?” It was impossible to make it clear to him that it
was the other fellow who had cause to be irreconciled. (Walter, B. (1973), p.
44)
Just pages later, continuing the theme, Walter notes that while “on the one hand,
Mahler was very obliging, sympathetic, and ready to help, he was capable on the other,
of unparalleled rudeness” (Walter, B. (1973), p. 50). He tells of an incident he
witnessed:
On a hot June day, a composer played his opera for him. I joined them
towards the end of the last act and found both in their shirt-sleeves, the
composer perspiring profusely and Mahler obviously sunk in the depths of
boredom and aversion. When the playing had ended, Mahler did not utter a
word. The composer, too, probably deeply hurt by Mahler’s silence, said
nothing, and I saw no chance of saving the awkward situation by any effort of
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my own. There was no help for it: the composer put on his coat, wrapped up
his score and, after a silence that lasted for several minutes, a coldly polite
“Auf Wiedersehen!” terminated the painful scene. An entire lifetime of
personal relations of all kinds had not supplied Mahler with that modicum of
social polish which would have brought the meeting to an ordinary end.
(Walter, B. (1973), pp. 50-51)
“Power,” wrote Eli Siegel in the chapter “Psychiatry, Economics, Aesthetics” from
Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism, “is not just the ability to affect or
change others; it is likewise the ability to be affected or changed by others. If a person’s
power is only of the first kind, his unconscious will be in distress” (Siegel, E. (1981), p.
276). Mahler was never sure tenderness of mind was strength for himself. Nor did he
see how his ability to intimidate others caused weakness in himself. As Alma observed:
“He had wielded power so long, encouraging only abject submission on every hand, that
his isolation had become loneliness” (Mitchell, D. (1971), p. 6).
In his biographical study, Ernst Křenek implies that Mahler suffered because
others resented “his superiority” (“Gustav Mahler”. Included in Walter, B. (1973), p.
202). This cannot be gainsaid—for part of the trouble humanity has had about strength
and weakness is the false (and largely unconscious) equation we make that honest
strength in another must imply weakness for oneself. 31 And yet the human unconscious
also harbors an equally hurtful equation, only in the reverse: that seeing other people in
a position of awkward weakness relative to ourselves is proof of our superiority and
strength. 32 As Walter’s story clearly shows, though he was certainly a recipient of ill will
(including of religious prejudice), Mahler himself could be a source of gratuitous cruelty.
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Mahler’s willingness to see life as a battleground in which someone must “come
out on top,” hurt him badly. How frequently we encounter statements in which he refers
to people as “dung flies,” “filth,” or worse. As a young man, friends already noted the
strong tendency in Mahler towards this depreciating way of mind. 33 Marie Lorenz said:
I knew Mahler from his modest times (when he was a student at the
conservatory) and even at that time he could not bear being put in the
shade in any way. (La Grange (1973), p. 41)
And Robert Fischof, a fellow conservatory student, adds this:
his deepest thoughts and feelings were obviously awareness of his own
abilities and a quiet contempt for men. (La Grange (1973), p. 41)
Which means that Mahler made the choice to use beauty in an ugly way—to exploit his
undoubted talent in behalf of vanity and ego superiority.
To use one’s art to think less of other people is to betray the very meaning of art,
and to do so is to despise oneself. For great art simultaneously expresses the unique
vision of life and of reality had by its creator, yet also expresses what human emotion
fundamentally is, and what the world fundamentally is—both of which are shared by all
people. That Mahler did despise himself for making unnecessary and ugly divisions
between himself and others, between art and life, is evidenced by the agony of his inner
life. He sometimes had hallucinations of himself as dual, with his double trying to force
its way to him through the walls. Bruno Walter writes of the violence of the headaches
Mahler would endure moments after he had been particularly vehement with someone.
And to his sister, Justi, Mahler wrote at age 31: “I am condemned to be alone
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everywhere. I accustom myself to this idea with as much pain as that of attaching
myself to someone” (La Grange (1973), p. 247).
Mahler passionately hoped someone would resist his autocratic tendencies, and
when someone did—to his credit—he fell in love with her. Alma was not correct in
thinking only her “youth and beauty” had affected him. Her criticism did, too—and I
believe even more centrally. As the “autocrat of the Opera,” Mahler had been used to
silencing people whenever he chose. Yet despite his power in artistic circles, and the
fact that he was 18 years her elder, the young Alma Schindler was not cowed. At their
very first meeting, at a dinner party thrown by the Wittgensteins, she told him he had
been unjust to the composer Zemlinsky. “You have no right to keep a score that’s been
submitted to you for a whole year,” she protested in front of the entire dinner party. “He
is a good composer, and you could at least have answered him” (La Grange (1973), p.
665).
Mahler was so affected by her unexpected candor and criticism that he could not
sleep. He had never met such friendly opposition to his contempt, and, very much to his
credit, he liked it. He felt—in a way he never had about any person before—that she
could complete him, and soon he asked Alma to marry him.
She agreed. And then something heartbreaking occurred. Mahler, it appears,
could not sustain his pleasure in having such large respect for this young woman; could
not sustain the emotion which, Eli Siegel observed, is the very essence of love—the
feeling of “proud need.” 34 A feeling, quite clearly, that puts together the assertive self
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and the yielding self.
Tragically, it seems that Mahler felt his need for Alma was an insult to his
independence and strength—and so, to regain “the upper hand,” he demanded that
when they married she must give up composing forever. “The role of composer…falls
to me,” he wrote her. “Yours is that of the loving companion and understanding partner.”
And he ended with these mean and terrifying words:
You must…give yourself to me unconditionally [to] shape your future life,
in every detail, entirely in accordance with my needs, and desire nothing in
return save my love. (Siegel, E. (1981), pp. 688-699)
Adding to the ethical horror, Mahler had never even bothered to look at Alma’s music.
“What have I done?” Gustav told Alma when he finally looked at her songs after
years of marriage. “These are good!” (Mitchell, D. (1971), p. 176) He begged her to
return to composing; he arranged for performances of her work—also for publication.
But despite his haunted, passionate desire to atone for the injury he had inflicted on the
one person who had stirred him most deeply with her meaning, Mahler never knew how
to give clear and effective form to his overwhelming self-criticism. Despairingly he said,
“My life has been all paper…paper” (Mitchell, D. (1971), p. 197).
However one chooses to takes the powerfully charged (and somewhat mystic)
story that Alma relates—that Mahler seemingly anticipated in the Sixth Symphony the
terrible “blows of fate” that would befall him in 1907 35 —this much can reasonably be
asserted: while he may not have been able to foresee the details of the future, he surely
was impelled to think of himself as someone who should be punished by fate. The
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question, of course, is why.
To answer this, we need to begin with elemental ethics. Who is more likely to
imagine him or herself the recipient of a vengeful and malicious fate? A person who has
been kind in their thoughts about others, or one who hasn’t been? And who is kinder—
a person who enjoys respecting others, or one who feels that others should be
intimidated into unquestioning servitude? And being so confused, and choosing
wrongly so often, has consequences. The consequence of a false assertion of strength
is the whiplash of shame, of weakness, of retreat—a sudden “collapse” of self.
Something which, on musical terms, might be expressed this way:
[Ex. 4—the “Fate motif.”]
It is important to see that what Mahler found so difficult to do in life—merging his
sense of self with that of others; finding strength for himself through yielding to the
meaning of outside reality—he relished doing as artist. We see again that deep division
of art and life in this moving passage by Bruno Walter, as he notes the joy with which
Mahler worked as a director of opera:
He was a truly dramatic man: which is to say, a man of the highest vitality
of heart and imagination. He would take a passionate interest in the
despair of Alberich who had been robbed of the Ring, and in his heart he
would rage the wrath with which the dwarf hurled his curse at the robbers;
he breathed anew with the prisoners of Pizarro as they were allowed to
walk in the prison-yard for a few minutes; he stormed with the jealous
husband whose suspicion seemed well founded that the lover of Mr. Flood
was hiding in the washing basket; with Wotan he was in a towering rage at
the disloyalty of Brünnhilde, and with Brünnhilde he tried to assuage the
wrath of the father: no human emotion, and none that was divine, was
alien to him—no petty spitefulness of Beckmesser too wicked, no St.
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John’s-Day mood of Hans Sachs too serene—he lived in everything and
everything lived in him. And no matter how foreign a sentiment might be
to his own nature, how contrary to his character, his imagination would
enable him to place himself inside the most opposite person… (Walter
(1973), pp. 67-68)
This is art—the oneness of self-abandon and self-assertion; of a narrow notion of
self being joyously put aside so that a larger idea of self can assert its powers of
sympathetic imagination. The pain of Mahler’s life indicates that he never realized how
thoroughly this ethical and artistic state-of-mind could be gone after in “ordinary”
circumstances. He did not bring the same aesthetic passion to the everyday moments
of life that he brought to music. 36
6) The Unity of the Sixth Symphony
We are now in a better position to return to the “abstract” design undergirding this
work and see how, even as it is expressive of a tonal conflict of strength and weakness,
it also embodies a symbolic resolution of that conflict. The core tonal drama, again, is
the contrast between a stable and “strong” triad of tonalities (A→F→D) ands its
unstable counterpart: (Eb→C→A). The massive irony is that what seems weak is, in
fact, the means by which the true tonic is affirmed, while what seems strong can lead
one tonally astray. The resonance with Mahler’s life is, I hope, apparent.
Earlier I described this design in “large-scale” terms. But its elemental “genetics”
is also reflected throughout the symphony in smaller structural units, giving the work a
complex unity. Consider m. 6-13 of mvt. one: 37 we begin in A minor, feel a motion to F,
and then a strong pull to D minor, only to be suddenly wrenched back, in measure 13, to
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A minor by the stark impact of that falling seventh in the upper strings and celli, marked
fff. 38 This same tonal motion plays out over the course of the entire exposition of this
movement. It is cast in two large sections: A minor and then F major. (m.1-76; 77-120.)
At the very end however (m. 121-122) Mahler suddenly creates an "undertow" towards
D minor. Due to the repeat mark, that key it is suddenly deflected, and we are wrenched
back to A minor for the repeat of the exposition. And looking ahead to the fourth
movement, we see that the "lure" of D, and the need to deflect it, takes on an even
more monumental character there.
Thus we come to the famous "hammerblows." Scholarship has determined that
Mahler had considered as many as five for the Finale. 39 The score, however, contains
just two—or rather had three, but soon after the premiere Mahler chose to suppress the
third blow. 40 / 41 While many theories have been given for why he edited out those
“extra” hammerblows, I would like to suggest a technical explanation which goes along
with the logic underlying the core tonal and emotional drama of the piece. The two
remaining hammerblows occur at moments when the music seems poised, with
overwhelmingly sonic strength, to resolve in D—and yet at just these points the music
suddenly is deflected from that tonality. The hammerblows which strike at these
moments of deflection thus highlight the crisis: the greatest—one might even say, the
most desperate—tonal struggle in the symphony. 42
D, as the subdominant of A, has the potential to become a “shadow” tonic—since it
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lays a perfect fifth below the true tonic. The ear thus tends to feel any “pull to the
subdominant” as an attempt to reach a “deeper repose.” This being so, there emerged,
in the “common-practice era,” the tendency to emphasize what lay on the “other side” of
the tonal wheel—the dominant, as a means of contradicting the subdominant, and
stabilizing the tonic. 43 This is why in this symphony the presence of Eb instead of the
“true dominant” E is so crucial; for by denying himself a true dominant Mahler has only
made his task harder. He seems to be struggling against impossible “tonal” odds.
If we return to Example 2, and study the large tonal motion within the concluding
movement, we can see how dangerously placed the key of D is—for it concludes the
massive exposition, opens and concludes the development, and is present (by
implication) at the onset of the recapitulation. Mahler gives it enormous prominence; any
further prominence and the entire tonal structure—striving to fulfill its final descent from
C to A—would be pulled irremediably “off-center.” Thus a titanic force is needed to
prevent D from gaining any further strength; that force is symbolized by the
hammerblows.
The first of these occurs at measure 336, as the bass resolves to D after a strong
preparatory dominant 7th. Yet the trombones, with their sustained Bb, question the
complete authority of D, especially as they quickly take us, via Ab, to G major. Then a
variant of the "fate motto" on the upper brass brings us, a mere two bars later, to a Cb
major chord. Two more bars and we reach F minor. The looming triumph of D has
certainly been undercut through this swift set of modulations.
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If we look at m. 479, the second of the remaining hammerblows, we see the same
tonal drama—intensified, as befits its later placement: for a full cadence in D, so near
the end, would certainly threaten the stability of the final tonality of A. Yet at first, that is
exactly what seems to be happening! Mahler has built-up a powerful cadence pointing
to D. Since here the struggle to overcome the pull, the vortex, of D is more critical than
before, the composer calls upon more powerful forces of deflection: a tuba is added to
strengthen the three trombones, and the bass resolves not to D, but Bb.
If we examine the three other moments Mahler considered for hammerblows, yet
excised, we see none of them involve a moment in which “heroic” tonal struggle is
needed to counteract the “lure” of the subdominant. (The “third”—and “suppressed”—
hammerblow, at m. 783 would have been at an uncontested tonic harmony.) If I am
correct that the pull towards D represents a tonal crisis throughout the symphony—a
false security, a false point of repose—then we see why the only hammer blows to
survive Mahler’s excisions were placed exactly where they were: to highlight these very
moments of “crisis."
Earlier I had written that the key of D was present “by implication” at the
recapitulation of this finale. To explain more fully what I mean is also to see in a new
light the awesome tonal drama of this movement: for Mahler brings a new “marker of
fate” to it. We hear it in the very first measure: a German 6 th built on Ab over a C
bass. 44 By implication, this is clearly in the tonality of C. And the chord reappears,
transposed down to A, as the Coda to this movement arrives. 45
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C to A: this is tonal closure the movement achieves; the final motion on the
descending tonal arc of Eb→C→A, which characterizes the second half of the
symphony. In fact, so important is the motion from C to A, that the exposition of this
Finale travels it three times, with no other tonal center having any structural
significance. But the disruptive force of D will not retire from the battlefield so easily.
Twice, in the center of this Finale, that new “fate chord” intervenes, but now asserting D
as its bass: at the opening of the development and at the opening of the recapitulation.
Thus D yet again threatens to become primary, to overwhelm the true tonic. The
struggle is perhaps most obvious at the moment of recapitulation—for the chord above
is the German 6 th of C (and thus part of the “correct” tonal motion) while the bass is that
disruptive D.
As previously mentioned, it is noteworthy how little use Mahler makes of the "true"
dominant key—E, the one extended use if it being, in actuality, Fb major. 46 E is
constantly "upstaged" by the semitonally inflected flatted dominant: Eb. This is part of
the work's "tragic" design, made as "ironic" as can be—for in the third movement we
seem to reach a haven of peace after the storms and mockery of the opening two
movements. Yet it is illusion, for this world of peace is built on the quick-sand of a
tritone, Eb relative to A: the most "unstable" harmonic relation in Western tonality, the
"diabolus in musica."
On the subject of this tritone, it is notable how often, on a melodic basis, Mahler
chooses to highlight A and Eb—to draw it forth into our immediate consciousness. One
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such moment occurs at the very beginning of the development section of the fist
movement. [Ex. 5] And we also hear, though most often in transposition, many
moments where the tritonal relation becomes "harmonic," or simultaneous. For
example, this conflation of Bb and E major early in the same movement. [Ex. 6] Quite a
new sonority for 1903 and 1904. 47
It is also a striking fact that once the key of Eb was so heartbreakingly lingered
with in the third movement, it is not heard again except for the briefest of passages in
the midst of the vast development section of the finale. Nor is the key of B, which
preceded the final Eb tonality of the third movement, heard again. Perhaps the reason
why is that at the end of the third movement, Mahler, in a technical tour-de-force,
merges the two keys. At m. 158 we recapitulate "melodically" in B yet, as the
recapitulation continues, we move in m. 173 to the "home key" of Eb. We have arrived
tonally, yet in this "home key" we do not hear the "main melody." The two keys, then,
share the recapitulation.
We now are in a position to see why Mahler eschews not only Eb but also the key
of B in his Finale. They have merged in our minds: to sound B would be to evoke Eb.
And it is critical for Mahler's large-scale design not to backtrack in his arc from Eb,
through C, to A. He needs to press forward; thus any "mention" of either Eb or B would
hurt the power and the structural clarity of his ultimate "triadic" descending cadence.
7) What is the Correct Order of the Symphony’s Four Movements?
From the foregoing, it is plain I agree with those who take the position that Mahler's
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initial plan for the symphony—Scherzo preceding Andante—is correct. A weighty
structural bit of evidence is that this order allows Mahler to mirror, on a larger scale, the
dramatic essence of the "fate" motif: the sudden presence of A minor after a triumphant
statement of A major. That is exactly what we hear as the second movement enters in A
minor after the brassy blaze of A major with which the first movement ends. No victory
here, says the "fate" motif in miniature; no victory here, says the mocking second
movement as a whole. 48
These matters of tonal design are powerful evidence for the Scherzo/Andante
configuration of the inner movements; meanwhile there is other evidence—though some
of what follows is admittedly speculative. As already remarked, there is a general
tendency in this symphony for things first encountered on a smaller scale to be met with
again on a larger one. For example, the "a minor / F major" sonority that arrests us in
the symphony's opening measures prefigures the fundamental tonal contrast of the
entire exposition of the first movement. Now might it be that the symphony, as a whole,
is meant to reflect, on a grander scale, the design of its first movement?
Let's consider. The first movement begins with a "double exposition." So does
the symphony—for the Scherzo, in both its tonal design and its motivic essence,
"repeats" the first movement. The third movement, an "idyllic" release, then corresponds
to the "idyllic" heart of the development section of movement one--complete with a
return of the Herdeglocken. The grand fourth movement, returning to the key of A, and
making use again of nearly all the motifs from movements one and two, would then
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function, for the symphony as a whole, much as the combined recapitulation and coda
do for movement one.
The evidence that the Scherzo should precede the Andante is not merely
technical; there are historical grounds as well. It is the form we find in the first published
score; it is also the order in which he initially performed the symphony. And there is
another “historical” aspect to be considered, which concerns two of the most ardent of
the young “Mahlerians” of Vienna at the time: Alexander Zemlinsky 49 and his brother-in-
law, Arnold Schönberg. Zemlinsky was asked to come to Maiernigg, Mahler's summer
retreat, in 1904 as the symphony was nearing completion. On the agenda was a
discussion of die Vereinigung schaffender Tonkünstler in Wien, but it is likely that at this
time Zemlinsky and Mahler also discussed the assignment to the younger musician of
preparing the 4-hand arrangement of the symphony. Soon afterwards, in fact, he was
given the job, and he and completed it in time for the reduction to be commercially
available before the May 27, 1906 premiere in Essen (see La Grange (1995), p.715 and
(1999), p.810).
In Zemlinsky's arrangement the movements are in the order for which I am
arguing. 50 Now it can be noticed that both of Schönberg's major works at this time, the
String Quartet #1, completed in 1905, and the Chamber Symphony #1, completed in
1906, indicate a detailed knowledge of Mahler's symphony. There are many melodic
and harmonic references in both of these works to the symphony, and in each the
"scherzo" precedes the slow movement.
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Since Schönberg was close to Mahler at this time, one can imagine—even though
"hard evidence" is not yet available—that the younger and older composers discussed the
Sixth Symphony, and the logic of its design. At the very least, we must assume
Schönberg and Zemlinsky went over it in detail. The sheer symphonic logic of this great
work must have impressed itself deeply upon as creative and astute a musician as the
very "logical" Schönberg, and so it is no surprise that his major works of these years
reflect, technically, his admiration for it--especially the Chamber Symphony.
When Mahler gave way to the doubts of friends about having the Scherzo come
second, 51 it is easy to imagine Schönberg—only just beginning detailed composition of
the Chamber Symphony, 52 and deeply respectful of the older composer's artistic
wisdom--learning from his example, and altering his own plans. The fact he chose to
"hold fast" to a Scherzo/Andante design could indicate, if my admittedly "speculative"
reasoning holds, that he felt Mahler had yielded to "public pressure," but that he—the
uncompromising "idealist," aware of how "right" the initial logic was—would not.
Some further, albeit indirect, evidence for the correctness of the
Scherzo/Andante movement order can be adduced through a consideration of the
puzzling issue of why the Finale has a far heavier instrumentation than the earlier
movements. Not only are there quintuple winds, Mahler added two more trumpets, and
even considered adding three extra brass; 53 and, of course, the hammer. These extra
brass, it has been thought, may have been intended for final "threnody" at rehearsal
#165. Wagner tubas are good, after all, for that kind of thing—as Bruckner had shown
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when using them, in the slow movement of his Seventh Symphony, as a memorial
tribute to Wagner.
However this may be, plainly Mahler felt he needed in some manner to "beef up"
the Finale, to give it "extra sonic heft" relative to the other movements. The question is,
why? The answer, I think, points us once again in the direction of confirming the wisdom
of the movement order I think correct. For imagine the reverse: there would then have
been two concluding movements in A minor—more than enough to make the "tonal
point." But with a third movement in Eb, there would be only one movement to go. And
even with one as long as this Finale, Mahler may have felt he needed more sonic force
to "nail the tonal structure down."
If all this is so, it would not--by itself--be an argument that Mahler was correct in
expanding his instrumentation. Strauss, no mean judge in such matters, did feel the
Finale was over-orchestrated; and this, by the way, after Mahler had already "lightened
it a good deal, as one can see from Norman Del Mar's fastidious study of the history of
the orchestration (Del Mar, N. (1980), pp. 109-153 deal with this matter in detail). What I
am suggesting is that this possible "over-reaction" on the part of Mahler could be seen
as another important bit of evidence for the rightness of giving the symphony its
Scherzo/Andante order.
On the subject of the unity of the symphony, a few more words ought to be given
concerning the importance of the “fate motto.” With its dramatic juxtaposition of major
and minor, it haunts the work, being plainly quoted in the first, second, and fourth
movements. It also has an intimate relation to main theme of the opening melody—as
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can be seen by comparing their rhythms: [Ex. 7]
Many commentators on this symphony deny the presence of the "fate motto" in
the third movement (see, for instance, Floros, C. (1997), p. 164). Strictly speaking, it is
true; we do not encounter it in its original form, with that strong rhythmic accompaniment
and with the melodic collapse of the third from major to minor. 54 But the “Fate motto” is
in this movement, only transformed. Consider m. 112 and 113. Rather than a falling
semitonal inflection between the two possibilities of the third, what we hear is the
equivalent inflection of the thirteenth. Further, if this movement is in the "key stone”—
the center of the arch of the symphony, the point furthest from the tonic—then one
would expect that just here the composer would bring about some "dramatic turn."
And he does: nowhere else in the symphony do we meet so many "minor" chords
immediately resolving into their major counterparts. We hear this in the very opening
measures. [Ex. 8] These hopeful "tierces de Picardie" imply that "Fate" might be
reversed. That hope is needed for the full tragic impact of what will follow in the Finale.
The idea of "semitonal" inflection—so immediately dramatic in the impact of the
"fate" motto—colors, on a far large scale, the entire symphony. 55 Consider the A minor
triad. F and Eb are inflections of E, and both keys are crucial in the symphony. The
pitches C# and C, as we saw, fight it out in the motto, and are not unimportant tonalities
in the work itself. In the final threnody, we feel the powerful presence of Bb in friction
with the minor tonic A. Perhaps to highlight the meaning of Bb—to draw our attention to
it--Mahler spelled the chord at measure 773 not as the expected German Sixth for A
minor, but as an F 7th, the dominant of Bb. And here we unlock a key—pun intended.
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For the only tonality not to establish itself at all in this symphony is Ab. 56 It seems that
A, as "the bottom line" to this tragic story, must hold firm, must remain implacable.
8) Art and Life: A Recapitulation
It is time to ask again, and even more directly, the question which, for a truly
humanistic musicology, matters most: what do these abstract, compositional matters
have to do with the undeniable emotional impact of the work?
Let us return to elemental matters: every person has felt the sense and the
senselessness of life, has observed the coherence and the imbalance of things, the
strength and weakness. A symphony which, through the symbolic language of sound,
deals centrally with these opposites would thus be one which grappled with critical
matters of human feeling and human experience. Such a symphony would be of
immense importance—for what is art but the achievement by a fellow human being of a
more beautiful way of conceiving life, with all its difficulties, than we customarily have?
Even when tragic, true art is inherently inspiring. In fact, it is not too much to say that
art—as art—is always joyous.
Recognizing the extraordinary simplicity of the basic symphonic design, we can
see how subtle Mahler is about it, and how dramatic. And how, technically, he
reconciles that deep-seated tonal contradiction. Notice: the "core substance" of the first
half of the symphony is the A/F/D triad of tonalities; yet at the heart of movement one--
its "idyllic core," complete with Herdenglocken--Mahler modulates through the keys of
G, Eb, and Bb—which in combination outline the triad of Eb, the key of the "idyllic" third
movement; the key most opposed to A minor. And if the opening movement carries in
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its center evidence of its tonal opposite, so does the concluding movement. As we have
seen, the key of D plays such a dramatic role in the heart of movement four. Thus, on a
vast scale, Mahler is making a one of the essential tonal opposites of the work; each of
the critical outer movements carries at center the element most characteristic of the
"triad" which is most representative of the other half of the symphony. At the deepest
tonal level, there is a “solution” to its core conflict. 57
Having pointed to Mahler's skill at interweaving tonalities, it would be remiss not to
comment on his skill at intermingling melodic ideas. Again and again he proves himself
a contrapuntal master. But is it only a technical matter, or does it have hermeneutic
significance? I approach the subject via lines from an anonymous 12 th -century poem:
Du bist min, ich bin din:
des solt du gewis sin.
Du bist beslozzen
in minem herzen;
verloren ist daz sluzzelin:
du muost immer drinne sin. (Forster, L. (1959), p.11)
It is well-established that Mahler intended the melody which sweeps us into F
major at m. 77 as a portrait of Alma. Alma herself wrote of how Gustav told her so in the
summer of 1904 (Mitchell, D. (1971), p. 70). But what of the opening theme? Many have
speculated that it might be Alma’s counterpart—that is, a portrait by Mahler of himself
(see, for example, Del Mar (1980), p. 16). Bruno Walter gives weight to this possible
understanding of the two melodies when he writes:
As in the older symphonists, [Mahler] usually places the male principle
theme in opposition to the female singing theme. (Walter, B. (1973),
pp.98-99)
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Yet this is not all; there is far more suggestive evidence that Mahler wished to say
something, through these themes, about love—and that in the symphony as a whole he
was, in some manner, dealing symbolically with issues related to his marriage. The
composer seems to imply—through the very construction of these two melodies—that
opposed as they might appear on the surface, they also are inseparable; they have
each other, figuratively, “in their hearts.” And at the height of the coda's A major
ecstasy, they embrace in simultaneous counterpoint climaxing, in measures 471 and
472, with nothing less than a clear reference to the most emblematic “love music”
Mahler knew: Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. 58 And the project which most engaged
Mahler’s energies in the months before he began work on the symphony was Alfred
Roller’s new production of Wagner’s masterpiece for the Vienna State Opera. 59
As we explore the possibility that Mahler did in some manner—however
conscious or unconscious—use the composition of this symphony to understand
himself, including his relation with Alma, it is worth focusing attention on a very rare
thing in symphonic Mahler: an unvaried repeat of a “sonata-form” exposition. Because
he does exactly this in his first movement, we experience the “Gustav” and “Alma”
themes in reciprocal relation: the relation of “interdependence”—of “proud need”—that
characterizes true love. In the initial exposition we meet “Gustav” first, and later hear
“Alma” embracing within herself aspects of him. Yet as this first exposition ends, and we
circle around to the repeat, the situation is reversed: we now hear “Gustav” following
“Alma,” and taking her musical motives into his heart.
All this, of course, would be the rankest “anthropomorphism” were it not for the
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accumulated technical, biographical, and hermeneutic evidence making the surmise
plausible. That there was a deep hope in Mahler that his marriage to Alma could truly
complete him, and that there was also—as I indicated—a force within him working
against that beautiful completion of one self by another, I think is clear from the
biographical evidence brought forth earlier. Mahler likely never was fully conscious of
this combat within him, 60 but as artist he was nevertheless able to dramatize it, and give
it beautiful, albeit tragic, form.
The symphony thus has a meaning both intensely personal, and also widely
impersonal. In it, Mahler created music of breath-taking candor about himself, but music
equally true for and about us. Were that not the case, how could it be that for a full
century this music has so powerfully stirred the emotions of audiences world-wide?
I conclude this “centennial-year” investigation with these moving and suggestive
statements about the composer from two important scholars. First, Deryck Cooke:
[Mahler's] persistent theme is 'The spirit is willing, but...'--no, not 'the flesh
is weak': rather, the spirit is willing, but is undermined by its own fatal
weakness. (Cooke, D. (1988), pp. 6-7)
Then Eli Siegel on October 14, 1966, gave a lecture entitled "Animate and
Inanimate Are in Music and Conscience" and discussed Norman Demuth's An
Anthology of Musical Criticism (Delmut, N. (1947)). In the course of this lecture he said
these simple, compassionate and profound words about the composer of the Sixth
Symphony:
Mahler was a wonderful example of the fight in a person between
awesomeness and frailty.
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Does not each of these quotations correspond to the main "motto" of this work—
with its trumpeting, blazing chord of A major collapsing into a painful minor of distant
nasality? Are they not also congruent with the tonal planning of the symphony as a
whole? And as we meet, through this music, the opposites in Gustav Mahler, are we
also meeting the opposites in humanity itself? Even—it may be said—the opposites in
reality, straight; reality at its philosophic beginnings?
The aim of this essay has been to bring forth evidence that “Yes” is the soberly
reasonable answer.
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1 See Green (2005a) For how the principles of Aesthetic Realism relate directly to musicology,
see Green (2005b) and Green and Perey (2004).
2 It was premiered on May 16, 1906 in Essen. It was composed in the summers of 1903 and
1904.
3 The Musical Times, August 1, 1930. Vol. 71, No. 1050, 749.
4 Cited in de La Grange (1999), p. 520. The use of the phrase “new millennium” is engaging, for
it is a hundred years early. Perhaps Ritter is thinking prophetically; his words certainly are in
consonance with Mahler’s own: “Meine Zeit wird kommen.”
5 From his article on Mahler for the Bibliographisches Jahrbuch und deutscher Nekrolog, Vol.
XVI, edited by Anton Bettelheim, quote in Reilly, E. (1982), p.37.
6 Hailey uses the term “tension.” As far back as Heraclitus there has been a sense that the
presence of tension implies a simultaneity of opposites. See his fragment 117: “People do not
understand how that which is at variance with itself agrees with itself. There is a harmony in the
bending back, as in the case of the bow and lyre.” Quote in Wheelright, P. (1974), p.102
7 The Musical Times. May, 1970. Vol. 111, No. 1527, p. 510.
8 For an extended consideration of this philosophic idea, see Siegel, E. (1981) and in particular
the Preface, pp.1-20, and its third chapter, “The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict.,” pp.91-122.
9 Current usage tends to prefer the clumsy locution “pitch-class.” I see no great advantage to it,
especially in discussing tonal compositions.
.
10 Here Mahler is indebted to Wagner. As William Kinderman says Kinderman, W. (1995), p.5:
“One of Wagner’s favorite devices…is to foreshadow the large-scale tonal progression of an
entire act at the outset of an orchestral prelude.” See also Bailey, R. (1977).
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11 In keeping with Schenker, and the authors of The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century
Tonality, it is clear that for Mahler the major and minor shadings of a given key center do not,
fundamentally, change the structural meaning of that center. Hence when I refer to a key as, for
example, A, I am not necessarily implying the major mode.
12 If, as Goethe said, the devil is “der Geist der stets veneint,” then the tritone—the diabolus in
musica—might, with some justice, be called, from a tonal perspective, “der Ton der stets
verneint.”
13 See endnote 38.
14 With typical forethought, Beethoven presages this moment in the earlier movements.
Consider (as one instance of this) the motif of Horn II in measures 441-446 of the Scherzo, with
its alteration of G# and A, leading up to the return of the principle section of the Trio in D.
15 La Grange, H.L. (1995), p. 602. For mention of earlier performances by Mahler see La
Grange (1973), pp. 297, 315, and 504.
16 Along with their dramatic and central use of symmetrical tonalities, there are also more
immediate links—passages in Mahler that are plainly audible allusions to the earlier Beethoven
work. For example, compare this powerful re-transition passage in Beethoven’s Finale (m. 180-
188), with their striking use of sequentially rising chromatic thirds, and these passages in
Mahler’s work—from the first movement (beginning m. 281), and from the third (beginning m.
156.). And on phenomenological grounds—the sonic impact of a moment in time—there is an
also a clear, audible relation between the A minor 6/4 chord which hangs in mid-air at the start
and the end of Beethoven's second movement, and the final minor chord of Mahler’s symphony,
which similarly fades off into the vastness of space. (Technically, of course, Mahler’s chord is
scored in root position.)
17 Especially where Italian and German notions of musical theory predominated.
18 See, for example, the Kantian categories. They are all organized in terms of opposites and
their reconciliation, and comprise, according to that great German philosopher, the very structure
of our mental life. Mahler, incidentally, cared deeply for Kant. According to Alma, the only
books he kept in the “composing shed” at Maiernigg were the collected works of Goethe and
Kant. See Mitchell, D. (1971), p. 45.
19 In large measure through the influence of Heidegger, both direct and indirect, Ontology has
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lost its universal meaning—the Heideggerian “Dasein” being bound up irreducibly with specific
social and historical realities. While this concept has proved in some ways fruitful to the “New
Musicology,” it has also limited its philosophic depth and made it—unintentionally, one hopes—
a body of scholarship whose implications are often ethically suspect. If the “Ontology” of any
given epoch in human history, and of any individual culture, is fundamentally removed from that
of other epochs and cultures, then we are in danger of establishing the false idea that the
differences among people are deeper and larger than their kinship. We are also in danger of
implying that no one can authentically grasp the meaning of an artwork which arose in a time or
place distant from their own. We would be wiser to return to the classic humanist position that,
ultimately, humanity is one and that even as our position in history varies our “angle” on reality,
it doesn’t change the fact that the ontological depths of reality remain what they are, and are
perceptible from any angle.
20 We know from Alma that he would quote Schopenhauer. See Mitchell (1971) p. 47.
21 An important salient in recent musical scholarship has been the resurrection of the ancient and
medieval idea that music is somehow an embodiment in microcosm of what reality, as
macrocosm, both is and contains. We can see this, for example, in the concluding paragraph of
Scott Burnham’s Beethoven Hero, as the author enjoins us, in our search for a new paradigm for
musicology, to “look away from the Work as a world and towards the World in the work.”
(Burnham, S. (1995), p.167) This, as I see it, is entirely in harmony with the basic thrust of
Aesthetic Realism.
22 For a detailed technical study of this point as it pertains to all music in the Western tradition,
see the much undervalued Cooke, D. (1959). In more general philosophic terms, Eli Siegel has
explained: “In reality opposites are one, art shows this.” See Siegel (1961), p.1.
23 As Eli Siegel has explained, “The resolution of conflict in self is like the making one of
opposites in art.” Siegel, E. (1981), p.83. The issue is richly explored in pages 91-122 of this
work, in the chapter entitled “The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict.”
24 That art arises fundamentally from the perception of the oneness of opposites, is a key point in
Perey, A. (1973). The studies of East Asian art which observe the interpenetration of opposites
are simply too plentiful to enumerate. See, however, Green, E. (2004/2005), in which I interview
the distinguished composer precisely on the topic of the relation of Asian aesthetics to those
presented by Eli Siegel. Related is Green, E. (1999).
25 For an illuminating explanation of how Beethoven’s music embodies “heroism” through
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(among other means) moving from an open, and initially unstable tonic to a closed, and firmly
defined concluding tonic—a tonal strategy “writ large” in this symphony of Mahler—see
Burnham (1995).
26 A recent and, in many regards, highly valuable work which nevertheless largely eschews the
question of the direct personal meaning of the work to its author is Samuels, R. (1995).
27 From her Erinnerungen und Briefe, cited in Floros C. (1997), p. 163.
28 This, naturally, implies the need to consider the historical context: the “state of the language”
at the time of the creation of the art. A simultaneous major third in 1206 did not convey the same
message as one in 1906. For more on the subject of sincerity and music see my “Prokofiev’s
Classical Symphony—and the Abiding Question of Sincerity in Music” in the journal Three
Oranges (Green, E. (2006)).
29 As Terence said so usefully 2,000 years ago: “Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.”
Walter, speaking about Mahler, alludes to this very quotation. See Walter (1973), p. 68 ..And
perhaps Terence would not mind this expansion of this thought, which Aesthetic Realism would
see as equally apt: “Ego sum species ontologiae; nihil ontologici alienum est mihi puto.”
30 They were married on March 9, 1902.
31 Each reader of this essay can supply his or her own examples of how this notion has been
present in the causation of social and economic injustice—also internationally.
32 Cf. Siegel, E. (1981), p.276, where he notes: “The self does not want to be strong by the
weakness of others. It wants to be strong by what it is, rather than by what others are not.
Wrongfully to be contemptuous of other humans beings is inviting mental unhealth for oneself.”
33 See the “Preface: Contempt Causes Insanity” to Siegel, E. (1981), pp. 1-20. The hope for
contempt—the hope to depreciate the world and other people as a means of self-increase—is
presented here as the key factor in mental trouble.
34 Quoted in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, issue 565, p.1. (February 1, 1984.)
See also Siegel, E. (1981), pp.169-192—the chapter “Love and Reality.”
35 The loss of his eldest daughter, Maria Anna; the diagnosis of his heart disease; and the need to
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resign from his position at the Vienna State Opera.
36 The author of this article is grateful for his own education through Aesthetic Realism on this
very point concerning the relation of art and life, and how to make the two an integrity. See
papers posted at: http://www.edgreenmusic.org
.
37 Unless otherwise indicated, I am using the 1998 revised Kahnst edition.
38 A related similar tonal drama plays out at the start of Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony—which
likewise has a strong implication of D minor in its opening measures. Mahler conducted the
premiere of Bruckner’s work in 1899, and—along with Beethoven’s Seventh—there is no other
work which appears so much to have directly influenced the musical substance and design of
Mahler’s Sixth. Again, it is centered tonally on A; both symphonies make much use of
symmetrical key relations; they have similar proportions (and qualities) in their four movements;
they each significantly display, across their movements, multiple thematic cross-references;
and—of course—each is designated number 6. The most interesting kinship involves the
question of major and minor, and its dramatic employment as a key structural device. Both
composers keep the ultimate modality of their tonic in play until the very last moment.
Bruckner’s first movement is in A major; his finale, however, is in A minor and only returns to
the major in its concluding measures. Mahler begins in A minor, but ends his opening
movement blazingly in A major. At bar 773 of the finale, after much tonal struggle, we are led to
believe the symphony as a whole will likewise end in the major. The hope, however, proves
vain; the symphony ends desolately, and also searingly, in the minor.
39 See La Grange (1999), pp. 813-14. The author (or his proof-reader) misidentifies, however,
the placement Mahler considered for the first of the five hammerblows. It was not, as the text
indicates, planned for m. 9 of the “introduction to the first movement,” but rather m. 9 of the
introduction to the Finale.
40 This hammerblow was in m. 783.
41 An interesting question is raised by the comment of the critic of the Musikalisches
Wochenblatt, who speaks of it as the “two-hammer-blow Symphony.” (La Grange (1999), p.
413) The review, seemingly, is of the premiere. Why then two, and not three hammerblows?
Were perhaps three were present in the dress rehearsal, and two at the actual concert? It is a
subject requiring more investigation.
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42 In his essay (Hailey, 1988), Hailey points to the technical “deflection from D” in the two
remaining hammerblows. He writes that these hammerblows “had acted to avert the desired goal
of D, with its implied resolution to A major.” (p. 273). My understanding of the key of D in this
symphony as antithetical to A major, leads to a very different reading hermeneutically. As to the
hammerblow that Mahler dropped from the coda of the movement (at the return of the “Fate
Motif”) Hailey comments: “Now that A minor had been firmly established it had become
superfluous.” (p. 273) My understanding is that since here there is no longer a need to “stave
off” the “false tonic” of D, there is thus no need for the hammerblow.
43 These hermeneutic comments are informed deeply by Cooke (1959). See p. 45, 73-4, and 81.
44 At its second appearance (reh. 120) Mahler varies the upper aspect of this sonority; its upper
member is here a “major chord with added sixth” rather than a German 6 th.
45 Very interestingly, Mahler spells it here not as a German 6th in A, but as a “dominant 7th” in
Bb. We hear it, of course, in A—but the spelling could imply that Mahler would wish a “scorereader”
to remember how important Bb was in the center of the recapitulation, and also to
presage the Bb vs. A drama of middle of the coda: reh. 165.
46 Measures 56 through 99 of movement three is the first "B" section of that movement. Its most
essential key areas are E minor and E major--(Fb minor/Fb major)--surrounded by two "A"
sections, whose predominant tonality is Eb. Therefore the "E" here is really a flatted neighbor
tonality. It is worth noting Mahler's artistry in foreshadowing this dramatic structural
modulation with an unexpected "Fb" at the very outset of this movement's main melody.
47 Scriabin was beginning to explore it, and Strauss, writing Salome essentially at the same time,
would also touch upon such "bitonal" chords. But neither composer had yet used these
sonorities with as much boldness as does Mahler in this score. Stravinsky's Petrushka, of
course, is still years away: 1910-11.
48 As many have observed, Mahler's procedure in this Scherzo--taking the thematic material of
an earlier movement and subjecting it to distortion--is very much indebted to Liszt's example
from the Faust Symphony.
49 Zemlinksy had been Alma Schindler’s teacher.
50 Of course, so was the original printing of the full score by Kahnt.
51 This is the surmise of La Grange (1999), p. 816.
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52 See Frisch W. (1993), p.220. Schonberg worked, as is well-known, very rapidly in those days,
and the score was completed on July 25th, 1906 – a full two months after the Essen premiere.
53 See Del Mar, N. (1980), p. 109: ”At some time after the completion of the score, Mahler
seems further to have contemplated adding to the orchestration of the Finale two extra tubas
(possibly Wagner tubas) as well as a tenor-horn.”
54 The coda of Chopin's Nocturne in B major, Op. 31, #2 may have been a model; as a student at
the Vienna Conservatory Mahler won prizes for his pianism and undoubtedly knew the work.
55 This also is Christopher Hailey’s view.
56 All eleven tonalities, in fact, appear in movement one.
57 Interestingly, Mahler also presages the “tonal arc” of Eb→C→A, which is the very essence of
the concluding half of the symphony, in the Coda to the first movement.
58 There are other Wagnerian references in the score and they all prove, upon analysis, to be
“hermeneutically apt” to the unfolding drama. Consider, for example, reh. 21 in the first
movement. Mahler’s use of Herdenglocken here evokes the most pastoral pages of Tannhäuser.
Simultaneously, the brass harmonically transform the Chorale heard earlier at reh. 7 in a manner
that clearly brings to mind Wagner’s motif for the Tarnhelm. This, in Wagnerian dramaturgy, is
both a visual and a musical symbol of deception. Combining the two references it seems Mahler
is implying, to an alert listener, that this sudden, idyllic respite in the midst of the bracing,
combative storminess of the movement must be heard as a moment of deceptive peace. The
hermeneutics of the reference to Tristan und Isolde, I trust, are already clear. Another possible
reference is to the character of Fafner. The low tuba at rehearsal #84 of the Scherzo clearly
references the melody and the instrument which Wagner used to characterize Fafner in his
Siegfried. Fafner, an embodiment of evil, appears in this symphony in the midst of the mocking
Scherzo, which (perhaps on the model of the "Mephistopheles" movement of Liszt's Faust
Symphony) mercilessly distorts music of an earlier movement.
59 This new production was premiered on the 21st of February, 1903.
60
The uselessness of his consultation with Freud on this point is apparent. There is no
documentary evidence that their conversations clarified these ethical matters for Mahler; in fact,
one must presume they did not, for Freud saw ethics as arising from the superego, and thus
being a secondary psychic phenomenon. Freud’s writings on art show a basic ignorance of the
inseparability of ethics and aesthetics.
49