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"Breakthrough" as Critique of Form: The Finale of Mahler's First SymphonyAuthor(s): James BuhlerSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 20, No. 2, Special Mahler Issue (Autumn, 1996), pp. 125-143Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746904

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 Breakthrough

s

Cri t ique

o f

F o r m

T h e F i n a l e o f

M a h le r s

i r s t

ymphony

JAMES

BUHLER

Of

the

many enigmas

in

Mahler's

First

Sym-

phony, perhaps

the most

perplexing

is the

first,

almost

overwhelming,

appearance

of a

D-major

chorale in what has

generally

been called the

development

of the finale

(mm.

375ff.).

So

pow-

erful

is

this moment that it has

prompted

many

critics

to

find

the finale

imperfect

because the

movement does

not

immediately

conclude with

it but instead

unexpectedly

delves back into

the world from which

the

chorale

has

sprung,

only

to return to

the same

chorale

at the actual

conclusion.

Indeed,

Henry-Louis

de La

Grange

argues

that

the

structural

unity

of the work

is

weakened

by

"the recurrence

..

of the climac-

tic

D

major

passage."

Both

D-major

passages,

de la

Grange

continues,

"achieve the effect of a

'final

victory' and,

in the first

instance,

the

listener

already

feels that he is

headed toward

the final

coda."'

The first

passage

is thus out of

place

and

premature,

a

transgression

against

traditional

symphonic procedures

that reserve

such moments of manifest transcendence for

the

peroration

of the coda. De La

Grange

s

not

alone in

finding

the movement

wanting

on

these

grounds.

Two

pieces

of evidence

suggest

that

even

in

Mahler's time the movement was

per-

ceived

as

at least

anomalous,

if not deficient:

an

analysis

of the movement

by

Paul

Bekker,

one of Mahler's most

sympathetic

earlycritics,

and

a

letter

of Mahler

to Richard Strauss.

Bekker

anticipates

de

La

Grange

in

suggest-

19th-Century

Music

XX/2 (Fall 1996).

O

by

The

Regents

of

the

University

of California.

A shorter version of this

essay

was

presented

at the 1992

annual

meeting

of

the

Society

for Music

Theory.

I would

like to thank Malcolm

Brown,

Carlo

Caballero,

Peter

Hoyt,

BrianHyer,MarianneKielian-Gilbert,KristinKnittel, Jus-

tin

London,

and

Eugene

Narmour

for their comments on

earlier

drafts.

'Henry-Louis

de

La

Grange,

Mahler,

vol.

I

(Garden

City,

N.Y.,

1973),

p.

757.

125

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

ing

that the first

appearance

of the chorale

pos-

sesses

something

of a

closing

function.2

Unlike

de

La

Grange,

however,

Bekker does not fault

Mahler

for

extending

the movement

beyond

this

signal

event.

Instead,

Bekker offers a

strange,

if still

provocative,

solution: he

ana-

lyzes

nearly

half

the movement

(mm.

428ff.)

as

an extended

coda,

which

"looks back" over the

entire

symphony, encapsulating

the

whole,

as

it

were,

within its

own

structure.3

For

Bekker,

this "backward

ook"

(Riickblick)

serves not so

much to

establish

thematic

unity

as to

trans-

pose

the thematic

sounds

from the

world

of the

first movement into that of the finale.4 This

extended

coda-of "such

gigantic proportions

..

it

could

pass

for a finale

itself"5-replays

the

whole course of the

symphony

from the

Naturlaut of the first-movement introduction

to the

triumph

of the

D-major

chorale.

The

backward

ook

disengages

the

chorale from the

interpretive

horizon of the

finale,

integrating

it

into the sound-world

of the

symphony

as a

whole so

that its

return

functions as the culmi-

nation

of the entire

symphonic

process

rather

than

just

that of the

finale. Bekker

recognizes

that he cannot both do

justice

to the first ar-

rival

of

the

chorale

and assimilate

it to conven-

tional

descriptions

of

sonata

form. Hence he is

willing

to

forego

the

sonata-form schema

in

order

to

explain

the

significance

of this first

arrival.

His

analysis, moreover,

however cava-

lier

it

may

be

in

disposing

of sonata

form,

can

find

support

within the movement

itself,

for all

significant

motivic transformation

does cease

with the first arrival of the

chorale.

In

calling

everything

that

occurs after

this

appearance

a

part

of a

huge

coda,

Bekker

merely

draws a

formal

consequence

from the thematic

pro-

cesses that occur

in

the movement.

The second piece of evidence supporting

de La

Grange's

position

is a letter from

Mahler

to

Richard

Strauss in

which Mahler

responds

to

Strauss's

objections

to

this

movement. Un-

fortunately,

Strauss's letter to Mahler seems to

have been

lost,

but Mahler's

reply

is clear

enough

to reconstruct the

gist

of Strauss's ar-

gument:

At

the

place

n

question

he

solution is

merelyap-

parent in

the full sense a 'false

conclusion'),

nd a

change

[Umkehr]

and

breaking

[Brechung]

of the

whole essence s

needed

beforea true

"victory"

an

be

won after

uch a

struggle.

My intentionwas to show a struggle n which

victory

s furthest rom

he

protagonistust

when

he

believes

it

closest.-This

is

the essence of

every

spiritual

[seelischen] struggle.-For

it

is

by

no means

so

simple

o become

or to be a

hero.6

If

nothing

else,

Strauss's

objection

indicates

that the continuation of the

movement after

the first

appearance

of

the chorale raised

inter-

pretive problems even for Mahler'scontempo-

raries.

Assuming

that Mahler also realized that

the formal

layout

of the movement was

atypi-

cal,

one

might

ask

why

he

nevertheless chose

to write it as he did. Rather than

either

dis-

missing

the

piece

because of the

problem

or

denying

that the

problem

is

at

its heart

prob-

lematic,

we

might

instead

explore

how the

prob-

lem

itself functions as a

critique

of sonata

form

as Mahlerinherited it.

THE

MIMESIS

OF "SPIRITUAL STRUGGLE"

Mahler's letter to Strauss carries

a

polemical

edge.

It

suggests

that

spiritual struggle

rather

than

victory per

se is

the

key

to

becoming

a

hero.

Simply attaining

victory

is not sufficient

to establish that

a

spiritual

struggle

has taken

place. Instead, Mahler insists that every spiri-

tual

struggle

must somehow

indicate

that

vic-

tory

remains distant when the

hero

thinks it

near. How to write music that

might

invite

such a

listening-this

is Mahler's

challenge.

Paul

Bekker,

Gustav

Mahlers

Sinfonien (Berlin,

1921;

rpt.

Tutzing, 1969), p.

61.

3Ibid.,pp.

55-56.

4Ibid.,p.

62.

Bekker'saccount

may

not be as odd as

it

first

seems.

Scott

Burnham,

or

instance,

senses a similar

shift

in

tense-a

sign

of a

narratingpresence-in

the

recapitula-

tions of

Beethoven,

which

he understands as

an

"epic

re-

telling" of earlierevents (BeethovenHero[Princeton,N.J.,

1995], pp. 22-23).

SBekker,

Mahlers

Sinfonien, p.

56.

6Mahler,

letter dated 19

July

1894,

in Gustav

Mahler-

Richard Strauss: Correspondence1888-1911, ed. Herta

Blaukopf,

trans.

Edmund

Jephcott

(Chicago,

1984), p.

37

(trans.modified).

126

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In a

discussion recorded

by

Natalie

Bauer-

Lechner,

Mahler

describes the first

approach

o

the entrance of

the

chorale

in

more technical

language:

Again

and

again,

the music had

fallen

from brief

glimpses

of

light

into

the

darkest

depths

of

despair.

Now,

an

enduring,riumphal

ictory

had o be won.

As

I

discovered fterconsiderable

ain

groping,

his

could

be

achieved

by modulating

rom one

key

to

the

key

a whole tone above

(from

C

major

to D

major,

he

principal

key

of

the

movement).

Now,

this

could

have been

managed ery

easily by using

the

intervening

emitone

and

rising

from C

to C

sharp,

hen to D. But

everyone

would haveknown

that D

would

be the next

step. My

D

chord,

how-

ever,

had to sound as

though

it

had fallen from

heaven,

as

though

t

hadcome fromanother

world.7

Obviously,

there are some inconsistencies be-

tween the

account

given

here and the one con-

tained

in

the

letter

to Strauss.

Perhaps

some of

these can be attributed to an inaccurate tran-

scription on the part of Bauer-Lechner.It is

more

likely, however,

that

they

stem from the

fact that Mahler is not

engaging

the

same issue

in

both cases. To

Strauss,

he is

explaining

why

the

symphony

did not conclude

immediately

with the first

appearance

of

the

D-major

cho-

rale;

to

Bauer-Lechner,

he is

explaining

how he

managed

to make

this first

appearance

of D

major

sound "as

though

it

had fallen from

heaven."

From the

standpoint

of motivic transforma-

tion

it is clear that

the

movement could have

concluded,

as Strauss

evidently

wanted it

to,

with

the first

appearance

of the

chorale,

since

the chorale marks

the end

point

in

the

Symphony's process

of motivic transformation.

Although

motivic

development

continues after

this

arrival,

the chorale

represents

the

defini-

tive

shape

of the thematic

material,

a

shape

that is

regained

but not

really

surpassed

at the

close. Hence the first

statement

of the

chorale

functions somewhat like a

recapitulation

in

sonata

form,

where,

according

to

formal

theory

at

least,

a return to

thematic

identity

likewise

halts the

essential

thematic

work

of the

devel-

opment.

(Motivic

development

occurring

dur-

ing or afterthe recapitulation s incidental rather

than

essential to

the

identity

of

sonata form

as

such,

because the form

remains

recognizable

whether

or not motivic

development

occurs

during

or after the

recapitulation.8)

In

these

terms,

Strauss's

objections

to

the double

ap-

pearance

of the

chorale are

perfectly

under-

standable. Yet

they

also lead to an

obvious

question:

what troubled Mahler

about

ending

the piece herewith the transcendentchorale so

fortuitously

thrust on the scene

"as

though

it

had fallen

from

heaven"?

In

his

response

to

Strauss,

Mahler

suggests

that

relying only

on

such fortune or

fate,

such

an

unexpected

turn

of

events,

is inconsistent

with the

"spiritual

struggle" necessary

to

becoming

a

hero. The

usual

deployment

of

the chorale

would

create a

moment whose

"transcendent"

haracterwould

be constituted only by an arbitraryand willful

(ex machina)

intervention from

outside.9

What

I

believe

Mahler

articulates in

both the letter

and

the

music-and this is

the critical

force of

his

new

conception-is

that

merely

accepting

luck as it

happens

to

come is

in

no

way

heroic.

Perhaps

a

hero

needs the

help

of

Providence to

become

heroic,

but a hero

must also

seize such

opportunities

when

they

arrive and

make them

his or her own. Fate alone is not sufficient to

produce

a true

hero within Mahler'sworld

view.

If

the

transcendent

chorale is to

become some-

thing

that is no

longer contingent

or

arbitrary,

its

deployment

must be

completely

rethought.

JAMES

BUHLER

Finale of

Mahler'sFirst

7Natalie

Bauer-Lechner,

Recollections

of

Gustav

Mahler,

trans. Dika Newlin

(London,

1980), p.

31. It

is

somewhat

strange

that

Mahler

says

that

D

major

is "the

principal

key

of the

movement,"

since this moment marks the first

appearanceof the key in the movement. Of course, from

the

moment

of

its

entry here,

D

major

does control the

overall

trajectory

of

the

movement.

8Burnham

presents

a

good

discussion of the

Beethoven

exception

to

this formal norm in

Beethoven

Hero.

A

Beethovenrecapitulation, he suggests, "is no mere return

but

rather another twist

of the

spiral;

the

emphasis

is no

longer

on

the

syntactic

business of sonata form but on

the

progressive

trajectory

of a

linear

history"

(p. 51).

As

Burnham

recognizes,

this

claim makes sense

only

when

evaluated

against

the

background

of

a normative under-

standing

of

sonata

form,

with its literal

recapitulation.

9Burnham

s

similarly

ambivalent

about

the

perorations

of

the Beethoven

coda:

"Regardless

f

the formal

function

we

ascribe

to the

coda,

the

suspicion

remains that the coda is

in fact not the

strictly

necessary,

organically

and

structur-

ally

inevitable continuation of

that

which

precedes it,

and

that there is a willful aspect to Beethoven's codas that is

of

great

moment

precisely

because it is

supererogatory"

(Beethoven

Hero,

p. 53).

127

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

Late-nineteenth-century symphonic

works

provide

evidence

that

composers

were at

least

partially

aware of the arbitrarinessof

gestures

such as

the

transcendent

chorale. The

typical

response,

however,

was to direct attention

away

from the

compositional difficulty

rather than

to

attempt

a solution.

Indeed,

t could be

argued

that the

triumphalatmosphereproduced

by,

say,

the

bombastic

scoring

of the

Tsar's

Hymn

in

Tchaikovsky's

1812 Overture'o

was

designed

primarily

to conceal

the

arbitrariness

of

the

hymn

or even to

mitigate

the

compositional

anxiety springing

from

a

fear

that it

lay

outside

the formal

logic

of the work."

Likewise,

the

acceptance

of

programs

by

all but the most

dog-

matic

critics

may

be viewed

as another

attempt

to overcome formal arbitrariness.12

erhaps

the

insistence that the

chorale be

integrated

thematically,

an

integration

made

possible by

advances

in

the

compositional

technique

of the-

matic

transformation,

is

most

characteristic.

Linking programs

o the

technique

of thematic

transformation does

permit

composers

to ad-

vance

a

provocative

aesthetic

thesis: thematic

integration may

replace

formal

and tonal inte-

gration

as

the

binding

force of

music,13

espe-

cially

when

a work

also follows a

well-known

compositional schema,

such as

that of dark-

ness-to-light.

(Anthony

Newcomb

convincingly

argues

that this

schema was less

a

program

n

nineteenth-century

music

than a

"plot

arche-

type."'4)

In

any case,

it is sufficient to note that

problems

of the

arbitrary

nature of the tran-

scendent chorale

remain unresolved

in

the tra-

ditional

"solutions."'5is

n

Mahler's

finale,

on the

contrary,

he dramatic

entry

of the

D-major

cho-

rale-"as

though

it had fallen from heaven"-

articulates the transcendent chorale

as

a formal

problem.

This

is

a

problem

that the

acceptance

of the

conventional schema of the darkness-to-

light

schema

mitigates

but does not solve.

'0By

noting

this,

I do

not

disparageTchaikovsky's

Over-

ture.

At

the same

time,

it

seems undeniable that

making

sense of this compositional aesthetic in a way that does

not

denigrate

t

will

necessarily

involve

developing

an

un-

derstanding

of the function and

significance

of

unmistak-

ably

bombastic

gestures.

In

short,

we need a

theory

of

bombast

capable

of

resisting

the

almost

instinctive

urge

to

consign

such

gestures

to

the

realm

of

kitsch.

"The

brass,

which serves as the usual orchestral

guise

of

the

chorale,

is

capable

of

crushing nearly

all

musical

dis-

sent.

As Rose Subotnik

notes,

"brute

orce

can never

quite

dispel

the

suspicion

that its own ultimate

basis

is arbi-

trary" "The

Historical Structure:

Adorno's

French'

Model

for

the

Criticism

of

Nineteenth-CenturyMusic,"

this

jour-

nal 2 [1978],44). For a comparisonof the choralesof Liszt

and Mahler

along

similar

ines,

see

JohnWilliamson, "Liszt,

Mahler and

the

Chorale," Proceedings

of

the

Royal

Musi-

cal Association 108

(1982),

115-25.

The discussion here

is

very

much

indebted

to Williamson's treatment

of

the sub-

ject.

See also

Theodor W.

Adorno,

Mahler:

Eine musik-

alische

Physiognomik

(Frankfurt-am-Main, 960),

trans.

Edmund

Jephcott

as

Mahler:

A Musical

Physiognomy

(Chi-

cago,

1992).

Page

numbers

here and

below in

this

article

refer to

the

original

German

and

then the

English

transla-

tion of the

Adorno book

(thus:

20-3/11-2).

12Leonard

B.

Meyer

makes

a similar

point

to

differentends

in Style and Music: Theory,History,and Ideology(Phila-

delphia,

1989), p.

213.

Likewise,

Susan

McClary

argues

that a

program

offers

composers

and listeners alike an

"alternative

metaphorical grid,"

which

provides

access to

"a

potentially

infinite

range

of

idiosyncratic

formal de-

signs."

As

many

critics

of

program

music have

indicated,

the

program

never

fully

succeeds

in

supplanting

formal

criteria.

This

puts program

music

in

a

precarious

position

because the

program

can

only

substitute

for

formal

prin-

ciples

to the

extent

that

its

symbolism

in

tones can

be

maintained,

that

is,

to the extent that

appeals

to

purely

musical criteria are

delegitimized

(cf.

James Hepokoski,

"Fiery-pulsedLibertineor Domestic Hero?Strauss'sDon

Juan Reinvestigated,"

in

Richard

Strauss: New

Perspec-

tives on the

Composer

and His

Work,

ed.

Bryan

Gilliam

Durham,

1992],pp.

135-75, esp. 136-41).

But

the status

of

absolute

music is

just

as

precarious.

If

a

program

does not

ultimately

displace

formal musical

principles,

it is also

true

that,

as

McClary suggests,

a

program

always

"threat-

ened to

blow

the lid off the

metaphysical

claims

of

[abso-

lute

music],

for

tone

poems employed

the same

codes,

the

same

gestural vocabulary,

[and]

the same

structural

im-

pulses,"

while

"acknowledging

.

.

.

what"-or at least

that-"they signified" ("NarrativeAgendasin 'Absolute'

Music:

Identity

and Difference in

Brahms's

Third

Sym-

phony,"

in

Musicology

and

Difference:

Gender and

Sexu-

ality

in

Music

Scholarship,

ed. Ruth A. Solie

[Berkeley

and

Los

Angeles, 1993],pp.

333, 334).

13See,

or

instance,

Wagner's

defense

of

Liszt's

symphonic

poems

where

he

argues

that a "dramatic

dea,"

rather han

a "formal"alternation of thematic

material,

is

responsible

for

the

coherence

of Liszt's

compositions

("Uber

Franz

Liszts

Symphonische

Dichtungen

[18571,"

in Richard

WagnerDichtungen

und

Schriften,

ed.

Dieter

Borchmeyer

[Frankfurt-am-Main,983],pp.

8, 22-39, esp.

27-34).

'4AnthonyNewcomb, "OnceMore 'Between Absolute and

Program

Music':

Schumann's

Second

Symphony,"

his

jour-

nal

7

(1984),233-50, esp.

234.

Likewise,

McClary

suggests

that

sonata

form

"adheres

...

to

the most

common

plot

outline

and

the

most fundamental

ideological

tensions

available

within

Western

culture: the

story

of

a hero

who

ventures

forth,

encounters

an

Other,

fights

it

out,

and

finally

reestablishes

secure

identity" ("Narrative

Agendas

in 'Absolute'

Music,"

p.

333).

5

Nineteenth-century

composers

found

many elegant

ways,

of

course,

to circumscribe

the

problem

by

transforming

t

into

a nonissue without

actually solving

it. The

point

here

is that the potential arbitrarinessof the choraleremained

a

powerful

but

unexposed

tension

within those

composi-

tions that used

it.

128

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BREAKTHROUGH:ADORNO

AND

SPONHEUER

With these

preliminaries

in

mind,

I

turn now

to

the

analytical category

of

Durchbruch or

"breakthrough"to illustrate what Mahler ac-

complishes

in

this

movement. The

category

of

"breakthrough"

permits

a

reading

of

the finale

of the First

Symphony

as a

critique

not

just

of

the usual

deployment

of the transcendent cho-

rale but also of sonata form itself-or at least of

the

metaphysical principle

that underlies the

organic conception

of the

form, namely,

re-

turn. The

concept

of

breakthroughpresented

here develops certain ideasadvancedby Adorno

in his

highly

influential book on Mahler.16As

Constantin

Floros, among others,

has

pointed

out,

the use of

breakthrough

as an

analytical

category

did not

originate

with

Adorno,

but

rather

with Paul Bekker's

reading

of

the first

movement of

this

symphony."7

Still,

the con-

cept

receives

a

completely

new

interpretation

when

positioned

within Adorno's aesthetic

sys-

tem,

which

emphasizes

the artwork'srelation

to the social

totality,

the fundamental

broken

quality

of all art that is

true,

and the

ability

of

an artworkto constitute

a

critique

of the soci-

ety

that

provides

the

conditions

for its

produc-

tion.is

Breakthrough

is

a

moment

of

structural

re-

orientation,

a deflection or

"turning-aside"

(Ablenkung)

from the

expected

formal course

of a

piece.19

It differs from

simple interruption

in

having

not

just local,

but

also

large-scale

formal

consequences.20

The

opposite

of

tragic

reversal

or

catastrophe,

breakthrough

s an

un-

foreseen

event,

a sudden

turn

toward

transcen-

dence

from

an

expected

formal

trajectory

of

tragedy.21More philosophically, Adorno sees

breakthrough

as a

temporarysuspension

of

the

artistic

logic

of a

work.

Such a

suspension

at-

tempts

the

paradoxical

ask of

rendering

appar-

ent

what

a

work's

artistic

logic

has

excluded in

terms still

consistent

with

that

logic.22

n

short,

breakthrough

is

an

attempt

to

represent

tran-

scendence

through

immanent

means.23

In

spe-

JAMES

BUHLER

Finaleof

Mahler'sFirst

'6See

n. 11

above.

"'Constantin

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler II: Mahler

und die

Symphonik

des

19.

Jahrhunderts

in

neuer

Deutung

(Wiesbaden,1977),

p.

110;

see also

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler:

The

Symphonies,

trans. Vernon Wicker

(Portland,

Ore.,

1993),

p.

35. For

Bekker's

use

of

"breakthrough"

n his

analysis of Mahler'sFirst, see Gustav MahlersSinfonien,

pp.

44,

45,

and62.

'8For

a

discussion of

how

the

category

of

breakthrough

operates

within Adorno's

thought,

see

my

review article

on Adorno

in

Indiana

Theory

Review 15

(1994),

139-63.

'9Adorno,

"Mahler"

n

Quasi

una Fantasia

(1963), rpt.

in

Gesammelte

Schriften,

vol.

16,

ed.

Rolf Tiedemann

(Frank-

furt-am-Main, 1978),

trans.

Rodney

Livingstone

(London,

1992),

pp. 343/102-03

(all

trans. from "Mahler"

are

mine).

On

turning-aside,

Adorno

writes: "The

path

of music as

one

of

turning-aside,

however,

is much more

compelling

than the force of its

open logic

because

turning-asidebrings

realexperienceto aesthetic language; t demonstrates that

every

life runs

at

right angles

to its own

premises.

What is

inescapable

is

turning-aside

tself."

20Compare

Hepokoski,

"Strauss's Don

Juan

Rein-

vestigated," pp.

149-52. See also

the discussion

of sonata

deformation n

Hepokoski,

Sibelius:

Symphony

No.

5

(Cam-

bridge,

1993),

pp.

5-9.

2

As

such,

in

musical

works,

the actual

moment of

break-

through

does not

usually

coincide with an arrival

of a

chorale.

Rather,

t

precedes

and

prepares

he

appearance

of

that chorale.

In

this

regard,

Adorno's account of

the break-

through

of the

second movement of the

Fifth

Symphony

is

an

exception

to

his more

typical separation

of

breakthrough

and chorale. "The fanfare of the breakthrough,"Adorno

writes

of this

movement,

"assumes musical

shape

as

cho-

rale,

no

longer extraterritorially,

but

by thematically

me-

diating

the whole"

(Mahler,

pp. 20/11;

all

trans. from

Mahler

are

mine).

At least

preliminarily,

the first mea-

sures

of

the chorale

(5,

movt.

II,

mm.

464-65)

are to be

understood as fanfare and

thus

as

the moment of break-

through. Subsequently,

these

measures

become so thor-

oughly

incorporated

nto the chorale-in the

process

be-

coming

an

integral part

of

it-that

they

are transformed

from

fanfare nto chorale.

Breakthrough

ndchorale

briefly

achieve

identity.

22FollowingAdorno, I construe artistic logic here as the

way

in which a

particular

moment

of

a

composition

fol-

lows from

earlierones.

In a

sense,

artistic

logic

is an

imple-

mentation of the rules of the

system

and is thus the

very

definition of its

immanence. See Asthetische

Theorie,

ed.

Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann

(2nd

edn. Frankfurt-

am-Main, 1973),

trans.

C. Lenhardt

as

Aesthetic

Theory

(London,

1984),

pp.

205/197.

23As

used

here,

the terms immanent and transcendent

are

defined

by

two of the three

forms of

critique generally

practiced by philosophy:

the

immanent,

the

transcendent,

and

the transcendental.Immanent

critique

is

the

evalua-

tion of a system by the criteria it purportedly sets for

itself.

Inevitably,

such

a

critique

entails

revealing

internal

contradictions

within

that

system.

Transcendent

critique

is the evaluation of

a

system by

a

set

of criteria

coming

from outside

of

that

system.

Such

a

critique

entails

posit-

ing

a

new

system

and

asserting

its

superiority

over the

system

under

critique.

For

Adorno,

effective

critique

man-

ages

to retain moments of both transcendence and

imma-

nence: without

transcendence,

the

possibility

of

real cri-

tique

is

thwarted because we

would

remain

unaware that

things

could be other than

they

are;

without

immanence,

the critical

gesture

is

empty

and

repressive,

arbitrarily

forcedonto the material from outside. For a discussion of

this

necessity

of

retaining

moments of both

transcendence

and immanence

within

critique,

see

Adorno,

"Cultural

129

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

cifically

musical

terms,

it

is a

procedure

whereby

what is

excluded

by

an immanent

musical

logic

nevertheless

manages

to assume

musical form.24 t is therefore

a

technique

for

breaking-openthe hermetically sealed world of

a musical

artwork to

expose

the

contingencies

and the arbitrariness

f its

binding

forces.

Break-

through

tries to

expose

the

attempt by every

artwork to conceal

the inevitable

ideological

moment contained

in

its

production

of artistic

illusion

or

appearance

Schein),

an illusion that

at its

very

core

requires

the exclusion of con-

tingency,

"what

might

be

otherwise."25

The

paradoxical

task of

breakthrough

is to realize

within the bounds

of artistic illusion what that

very

artistic illusion

attempts

to

suppress:

the

idea that the

work

might

have

proceeded

other-

wise than it

did.All this must be

accomplished

within the

constraints of artistic

logic

because

such

logic

is

necessary

to sustain

illusion,

the

very

mode of

being

of

the artwork without

which

art

itself

would cease even

to

exist.

Adorno tracesthe

origins

of

breakthrough

as

a

compositional technique

to Beethoven.

In

par-

ticular,

he

proposes

the

entrance of the trum-

pet

in

the

dungeon

scene from

Fidelio

and the

caesura on the octave

A

in

the scherzo of the

Seventh

Symphony

(movt. III,

mm.

145-48,

405-

08, and641-44) asprototypical nstances.26That

the

moment

of

breakthrough

s

not

necessarily

identical with the moment of

transcendence

is

especially apparent

in

the case of

Beethoven's

Seventh,

since a

musically

transcendent

ges-

ture does not follow the

incipient

breakthrough

there.

Instead,

motivic

unfolding

simply

ceases

with the arrival on the octave A. In

Fidelio,

where transcendent

gestures

do

ensue

(and

plenty

of

them),

the moment of

breakthrough

occurs when the entrance of

an

offstage

trum-

pet

momentarily

halts the motivic and

dra-

matic action of the

opera.

Perhaps

even

more

startling

is the

parallel

moment

in

the

Leonore

Overture,

No. 3. After

having

worked its

way

to C

minor,

the minor tonic

(m.

248),

the mu-

sic

suddenly

veers to

Bb

or the entrance of the

offstage trumpet

call

(ex. 1).

Except

for

a

brief

foreshadowing just

prior

to this

entrance,

the

trumpet

call here is

starkly

differentiated

in

both timbre and motivic

content from

all that

has

preceded

it.27

In

particular,

its motivic

con-

tent is drawn from the common stock

of fan-

faresratherthan from the thematic materialof

the

exposition.

That

is,

the

trumpet

fanfare

challenges

a

normative

understanding

of

so-

nata

form,

codified

in

the doctrine

of the

Formenlehren,

which dictates that all

signifi-

cant

motivic content of the

development

sec-

tion

be

derived in some fashion

from

the

mate-

rial

of the

exposition.28

Because the

trumpet

Criticism

and

Society"

n

Prisms,

trans.Samuel and

Shierry

Weber

(1967,

rpt.

Cambridge,

Mass., 1983),

pp.

19-34,

esp.

31ff.

The third form of

critique,

namely,

the

transcenden-

tal,

involves an

investigation

into the conditions

of

possi-

bility

of

a

system.

The transcendental

critique

thus looks

at what must

be

the

case

in

orderfor

a

theory

to be true.

The transcendent, mmanent, and transcendental orms of

critique

are often associated with foundationalist

philoso-

phy, Hegel

and

Kant, respectively.

For a brief but useful

overview

of these three forms of

critique,

see Lambert

Zuidervaart,

Adorno's

Aesthetic

Theory:

The

Redemption

of

Illusion

(Cambridge,

Mass., 1991),

pp.

xvii-xix.

24The

oncept

of

breakthrough

presented

here has much

in

common with Adorno's deason dialectics

in

general:

"Dia-

lectical

thought

is

an

attempt

to break

through

the coer-

cion

of

logic by

its own means. But since

it

must

use these

means,

it is at

every

moment

in

danger

of

itself

acquiring

a coercive character: he ruse of reason

would

like

to

hold

sway over the dialectic too" (MinimaMoralia[Frankfurt-

am-Main,

1951],

trans. Edmund

Jephcott

[1974;

rpt.

New

York, 1989],

pp.

284/150).

Similarly,

the notion

of

suspen-

sion is

integral

to

Adorno's

concept

of dialectics. Lambert

Zuidervaart

writes:

"[Adorno's] emporary

uspensions

[of

dialectical

logic]

are

philosophical

attempts

to acknowl-

edge

the

presence

and

possibility

of what

escapes

the net

of

logic ....

There is

a need to

unite

spontaneous experi-

ence and

critical

argumentation,

even when

experience

threatens he

consistency

of an

argument."

Thus,

"Adorno's

thought

. .

. aims

for the

conceptual

rigor

of dialectical

logic

even while it

suspends

dialectical

logic

in

order

to

express what things would be like if freed of dialectic"

(Adorno's

Aesthetic

Theory,

p.

52).

25"Was

anders

ware"

(Adorno,

Mahler,

pp. 11/5).

26Ibid., p. 12/5.

27Burnham

ears

the

trumpet

call "as

a

truly

narrating

disjuncture,

or it is motivated

externally

and sounds liter-

ally

as

an external voice"

(Beethoven

Hero,

p.

178,

n.

25).

This externality is markedby the "impossible"key of the

fanfare:

he orchestral

rumpets

(in

C)

would be

physically

incapable

of

playing

the

passage

in

question

without

first

changing

crooks.

280f

course,

many

actual

compositions

violate

this

doc-

trine,

perhaps

most

notably

the

first movement

of

Beethoven's

Eroica,

which

has had a

great

impact

on

for-

mal

theories.

Still,

the

E-minor heme of the

Eroica

devel-

opment

remains an

anomaly

to be

explained

outside

for-

mal doctrine because

formal

theory

offers no

coherent

ac-

count of

it. Even A. B.

Marx,

Burnham

writes,

"acknowl-

edges

the

disruptive

effect

of this

theme

on his notion of

sonataform and seeks to assuagehis discomfortby appeal-

ing

to Beethoven's

ability

to

create

dramatically

compel-

ling

Sdtze: each Satz

leads to the next

in

such

a

way

that

130

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272

Trpt.

Example

1: Leonore

Overture,

No.

3,

mm.

272-77.

278

283

-

-__

t it

Iao

289

-MI

-

2

8

-C

Example

2: Leonore

Overture,

No.

3,

mm.

278-94.

call

of the Overture occurs within the

interpre-

tive horizon of sonata

form,

its lack of motivic

connection with what has been heard earlier

may carry

more

import

here than it does in the

opera

itself.

Indeed,

through

its

very

conven-

tionality

the

fanfare

momentarily

neutralizes

motivic

substance,

temporarily suspending

the

process

of

motivic

development.29

This breach

in

motivic

development,

however,

serves

a

higher

compositional purpose:

it

prepares

the

entrance of a new theme in Bb(ex. 2) and the

subsequent

shift to the

thoroughly unexpected

JAMES

BUHLER

Finale of

Mahler's

First

the listener

is

prepared

o

'take

it

up.'

The

new

theme is

thus

made to sound inevitable

or,

at

least, credible,

and

that

which is

unjustifiable

in

terms of formal

analysis

is

justified

in

terms

of

dramatic

process" (Beethoven

Hero,

p.

10).

Likewise,

Adorno notes

that

it is

not

by

chance

that

"analysts

always

sought

to derive

[the

new theme of

the

Eroica]from the material of the exposition. The classical

idea of the

symphony

relies

on a

definite,

self-contained

variety just

as

Aristotelian

poetics presumes

the three uni-

ties. To

put

it

simply,

a

newly arriving

theme

violates the

classical

principle

of

economy,

the

reduction

of all events

to a

minimum of

compositional material,

an axiom of

completeness

that

integral

music

adopts

as its own

much

as

systems

of

knowledge

have ever since Descartes's

Dis-

course

on Method.

Unforeseen thematic

components

de-

stroy

the

fiction

that

music is a

purely

deductive

system,

that

everything

follows with

unequivocal necessity"

(Adomo,

Mahler,

pp. 100/71-72).

Burnham cites

August

Halm, Heinrich Schenker, and Robert B. Meikle as three

analysts

who have tied the new theme to the

exposition

material

(Beethoven

Hero,

p. 171,

n.

20).

29Hans

H.

Eggebrecht

notes that

breakthrough

usually

as-

sumes

musical

shape

in

a

highly

conventional

thematic

figure

such

as the

fanfare.This is one of the

primary

rea-

sons he

prefers

to

call

it

a

"signal,"

an instance of one of

his

musical

Vokabeln.

The

deployment

of conventional

figures

also offers a

way

to

mark

the

suspension

or neu-

tralization of motivic developmentin thematic terms. See

Die

Musik

Gustav Mahlers

(Munich, 1982), pp. 82-91,

esp.

87ff.

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

key

of

GC

(mm.

300ff.).30

The

trumpet

call in

the third Leonore Overture is thus

a

prototypi-

cal

example

of

breakthrough.

But,

within the

Overture at

least,

this

trumpet

call

functions

more on a thematic level than on a formalone,

because

what formal effects the call has are

played

out

entirely

in

the

development

section.

They

do not

impinge

on the sonata form of

the

Overture as

a

whole.31

As this brief

example

demonstrates,

one must

read between

the lines

in

order o

link

Adorno's

provocative analytical

suggestions

to

concrete

musical substance.

Fortunately,

Bernd

Sponheuer

has

already

done much of this work.

According

to

Sponheuer, breakthrough

estab-

lishes

a

type

of musical

coherence that com-

petes

with the traditional

binding

force of so-

nata form. It is characterized

by

the

"bursting

open

of the closed

immanence of form

through

the unmediated

.

..

peripeteia-like

turn

toward

chorale-like transcendence."32

his

account ac-

cords well with

Adorno's,

which

likens break-

through

to a moment when the music

"fights

through

.

. . the wall of the

securely

built

form."33

Sponheuer argues

that,

in the

first

movement of

Mahler's First

Symphony,

break-

through

and sonata-form

procedures

ie for over-

all

control.

Only

in

the

finale

does

breakthrough

manage

to

usurp

the

authority

of sonata

form.34

Sponheuer

also

convincingly

demonstrates that

the

disparate

strands of

thematic material coa-

lesce only at those moments in the Symphony

when the

procedures

associated with

break-

throughpredominate.35

ence he

concludes that

breakthrough

n Mahler's First

is

an

immanent

procedure,

one

that borrows from

the trium-

phal

schema of

much Romantic

music.

At the

same

time, however,

breakthrough

also trans-

forms the

arbitrary

deus ex machina of that

conventionalschema into a

proceduregoverned

by

the immanent

logic

of the material.Accord-

ing

to

Sponheuer,

breakthrough

s

an

attempt

to

redeem and revitalize the

triumphal

schema

itself.

The

success of

a

breakthrough,Sponheuer

says,

is determined

by

its

ability

to transcend

compositional logic through

purely

immanent

means.

Formulatingbreakthrough

as a

critique

of form would therefore seem to

require

an

extension of this immanent

transcendence,

al-

ready

applied

to

motivic

logic,

to formal

pro-

cesses.

Once

again Sponheuer

has done much

of this work for

us,

although breakthrough

un-

der his scheme remains

an

incomplete

critique

when

evaluated

against

the criteria of

formal

ratherthan motivic immanence.

Despite

the

presence

of

breakthrough,

Sponheuer

inds

the

first

movement of Mahler's

First

lacking

in

terms of form.

For all the the-

matic

immanence,

he

suggests,

the

procedures

associated with

it introduce

an

alien,

inter-

nally

unmotivated

formal

element

into

a

rela-

tively homogeneous,

modest,

and

unprob-

lematic formal

plan.

The movement as

a whole

lacks

"the

problematic

sharpening

[problem-

atische

Zuspitzung]

that could have

legitimated

such

a

breakthrough."36

n

particular,

the

the-

matic

materialof

the

development

belongs

more

to the

finale

than to the

first

movement

proper.

30This

xample

and the one

from

the scherzo

of Beethoven's

Seventh seem

to

suggest

that for Adorno motivic neutral-

ization is an important, perhaps even indispensable,ele-

ment

of

breakthrough.

It is not so much

an

emphatic

ar-

rival

of

something

radically

new

as a

suspension

of motivic

development

that marks the crucial

moment of break-

through.

In

the

third Leonore

Overture,

the arrival of a

new theme

therefore

simply

confirms

a

breach

already

opened by

the

trumpet

call.

31Wagner

riticizes

the

"form" of the

Overture

on

pre-

cisely

this

point:

the

traditional ormal

procedures,

he

says,

remain

unaffected

by

the

revolutionary

impulses

of the

dramatic

idea.

In

particular,

he writes that the

recapitula-

tion in this

work "is a weakness that distorts the

[dra-

matic] idea of the work into something almost incompre-

hensible"

("Ober

Franz

Liszts

Symphonische

Dichtungen,"

p.

31).

For

Wagner,

he

recapitulation

cannot

take account

of this

revolutionary

dramatic

dea

here

because

every

re-

capitulation

necessarily

retains

a formal residue

from

the

dance,

which

is alien

to that idea.

For an extended discus-

sion of

Wagner's

nterpretation

of the thirdLeonoreOver-

ture,

see

Thomas

Grey, "Wagner,

he

Overture,

and

the

Aesthetics of Musical

Form,"

his

journal

12

(1988),

3-22.

32Bernd

Sponheuer,

"Der Durchbruch

als

primdire

Form-

kategorie

Gustav

Mahlers,"

in

Form und

Idee in Gustav

Mahlers

Instrumentalmusik,

ed. Klaus Hinrich

Stahmer

(Wilhelmshaven, 1980), pp. 117-64, 120 (all trans. from

this article are

mine).

33Adorno,

Mahler,"pp.

326/84.

34The

opposition

between

sonata

form and

the structure

associated

with

breakthrough

s

further

intensified

in the

finale because

the

F-minor

exposition

of

this

movement,

with its

sharply

demarcated

second-theme

area,

is

clearly

more indicative

of a traditional

sonata-form

schema,

at

least

by

end-of-the-century tandards,

han is the

more-or-

less monothematicexpositionof the first movement.

35Sponheuer,

Durchbruch," .

155.

36Ibid., .

139.

132

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A

large

section

of

the

movement,

stretching

from the

introduction

of the new thematic com-

plex

in

the

development (movt. I,

mm.

209ff.)

to

its

reappearance

at the

beginning

of the re-

prise (mm. 358ff.) after the actual moment of

breakthrough

(mm. 352-57),

reappears

in the

finale in near-literal form

(cf.

movt.

I,

mm.

305-51

and movt.

IV,

mm.

574-622).

This

pro-

leptic

use of

material

from

the finale

only

heightens

the sense

that a

large

section

of

the

first movement

has intruded from

outside;

in-

deed,

this material

actually

sounds

quite

for-

eign

when considered

in

relation to

the

other

thematic material of the movement. Because

the

breakthrough

has

been

integrated

into nei-

ther the formal

nor

the

motivic

logic

of the

first

movement,

Sponheuer

suggests

that it is

comprehensible

only

in terms

of

its relation to

the finale. It

"points

to

that which is still to

come;

it is a

herald,

yet

in

no

way fulfilling."37

In the

finale, however,

Sponheuer

notes

that

a

variety

of factors

provide

just

the

"problem-

atic sharpening"that the first movement lacks:

the dissonant clash

that

begins

the

movement;

the

developmental

character

of

the

main

theme;

and,

most

significantly,

the marked

contrast

between the

main

theme

and the second theme.

The initial

brash arrival of the

breakthrough

motive and

chorale,

Sponheuer

says,

is

only

a

further

complication

in an

already complicated

formal

process. (Figure

1

presents Sponheuer's

formal layout of the movement.38) ndeed,the

very complexity

of

this

movement is also

what,

according

to

Sponheuer,

allows the break-

through

to recast

the finale

in

its own

image.

The sheer transcendent

power represented

by

the entrance of the chorale

undercuts the

sig-

nificance

of the

recapitulation

to such

a

degree

that this

recapitulation

can no

longer

serve its

traditional

function of resolution.

The inser-

tion of material from the introduction of the

first

movement

into

the

finale,

the

reversal of

themes

in

the

recapitulation,

and

finally

the

nearly

verbatim

reappearance

of

the

long

inten-

sification

process

from the

first

movement-

these compositional devices, Sponheuer sug-

gests,

help

establish

the

thematic

immanence

of both the

breakthrough

motive and

the

cho-

rale

by demonstrating

how

the

motivic content

of both has been

directly

evolved

from

the

ba-

sic thematic material of the

symphony.

As a

comparison

of ex. 3a and b

demonstrates,

the

dissolution of the

chorale into a

recurrence of

materialfrom the

introductionof the

first move-

ment makes the obvious thematic connection

between

the two

passages

difficult to

ignore.

a.

mm.

388-91.

"Chorale"

Im

Tempo

tJ

II

b. mm. 428-31.

Sehr angsam

t)

Example

3:

Mahler,

First

Symphony,

movt. IV.

Strangely,

however,

Sponheuer's

analysis

maintains a strict

separation

between the for-

mal function of the material andthe mediating

function that establishes

thematic

immanence.

This

separation

of function

ultimately prevents

Sponheuer

from

completing

a

reading

of break-

through

in

terms of formal immanence. For

example,

he notes that an

interpolation

of

the

Naturlaut material from

the slow introduction

of the first movement

immediately

precedes

both the

development

(mm.

238ff.)

and

the

re-

capitulation (mm. 428ff.)of the finale and thus

helps

articulate a sonata-form

layout.

At the

same

time, however,

he also

completely

de-

taches the

mediating

function

of the second

interpolation-the

role

that it

plays

in

estab-

lishing

thematic immanence-from

a

form-ar-

ticulating

function that

would also

integrate

this

interpolation

into

sonata-form

technique.

In

other

words,

the

thematic-mediating

func-

tion of this interpolation, which is associated

with

establishing

the thematic

immanence of

JAMES

BUHLER

Finale

of

Mahler's

First

37Ibid.

t

should

be

pointed

out

that for

Sponheuer

this

"deficiency"

is not an

artistic flaw

in

the usual sense.

Instead,

because this is

a

first

movement,

it

is

presumably

artistically necessary

to introduce some

kind

of

deficiency

or

"lack"

in

order

to

prevent

a

sense

of insurmountable

closure

at the

end of the

movement that would

in turn

make the integration of the first movement into the sym-

phonic

whole

problematic.

38Ibid.,

.

143.

133

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that

transforms

breakthrough

into

a

highly spe-

cific

compositional

technique.

Breakthrough,

he

writes,

involves abandoning or profoundly correcting the

originally

proposed

sonata

(the

one

proposed

in

the

exposition) through

the

inbreaking

of an

emphatic,

unforeseen

dea at

some

post-expositional

point,

usu-

ally

during

the

space

customarily given

over to

the

development.

The

mid-piece

inbreaking

of

the new

from

outside the

proposed structure,

sundering

the

piece's

immanent

logic,

is

sufficiently

powerful

to

rendera

default

recapitulation

nadequate.

The

break-

through

thus

triggers

a

recomposed

or

totally

recon-

sidered

recapitulation,

in which the

breakthrough

idea itself

usually plays

a

prominent

role.39

All

the

elements

for

conceiving

breakthrough

as an

immanent

critique

on a

sonata-form level

are

present here,

although

the exact

functional

disposition

of these

elements

remains

to be

fully

specified.

(There

is,

however,

a

suggestion

offered in

the

context

of the

Don

Juan analysis

that the

breakthrough

material of the

recapitu-

lation is

"more

fully

realized" there

as "an

apotheosis,

or true

breakthrough. "40)Hepokoski

certainly

recognizes

a

close connection

between

breakthrough

and

sonata form

in

Don

Juan,

where,

according

to his

analysis,

the

"break-

through"

Heldenthema

in C

major

initiates a

sonata-form

process

that

ultimately usurps

the

interpretive

authority

of the

E-major

rondo with

which the work

seemingly

begins.

Still,

while

Hepokoski's

interpretation

of

breakthrough

ad-

mirably

furthers our

understanding

of

Strauss's

work,

it

may

not be

easy

to

generalize

to

other

kinds of

music,

in

particular

to

works

that

rep-

resent

sonata form

as

traditionally

conceived

rather

than

to "sonata

hybrids"

that

invoke

breakthrough

as does

Don

Juan.41

For

it is

only

by

assuming

the

guise

of a

"normal"

sonata-

form element

that a

breakthrough

can

critique

the sonata

principle

from

within,

that

is,

im-

manently.

Unless

it is formulated

in

terms

in-

ternal to sonata form, breakthrough must be

posited

as an

alternative,

transcendent

formal

procedure

intruding

on sonata form

from

out-

side. The

result would lack

the

autonomy,

in-

stitutional

authority,

and historical

prestige

of

a

"pure"

sonata

form,

and

anyone

who

wanted

to contain the critical

force

of

breakthrough

could

readily

declare

it to be an artistic

flaw-

precisely

the move

of those

dissatisfied

with

the finale of Mahler's First

Symphony.

An im-

manent

critique

therefore

requires

confronting

the central theoretical

question

of how to

con-

ceptualize

breakthrough

such

that its own

in-

ternal

structure is constituted

in

terms

of

so-

nata-form

procedures.

Such

a

theory

would

al-

low

us to transform

the

immanent

critique

of

the

transcendent

chorale embodied

in

Mahler's

idea

of

"spiritual

struggle"

into

an

immanent

critique

of sonata form embodied in the

theo-

retical

concept

of

breakthrough.

METAPHYSICS

OF RETURN

First,

however,

those

traits

of

sonata

form

that

need to

be

replicated

for a

breakthrough

to

func-

tion

as an immanent

critique

of sonata

form

must

be

determined.

I will concentrate

on

one

such trait in

particular,

return,

because

there

seems

to be a

general

consensus

on

its

funda-

mental

importance,

at least

in traditional

con-

ceptions

of sonata form.

Indeed,

James

Webster

states

that

the

simultaneous

return of the

key

and

the main

theme,

the "double

return,"

is

"the central aesthetic

event

of the entire

move-

ment." Return

yields

the

metaphysical

import

of

justifying

what

is most characteristic

about

the

form,

namely

the

development

section;

Webster writes

that "without

the

return,

the

development

has no

point."42

Drawing

on a similar

tradition,

Adorno

too

acknowledges

the

important

role that

return

plays

in

sonata

form when he

states

bluntly:

JAMES

BUHLER

Finaleof

Mahler'sFirst

39Hepokoski,

"Strauss'sDon

Juan

Reinvestigated,"

p.

149.

40Ibid.,p.

150. While

Hepokoski's

comments make

sense

with

respect

to

Strauss's

music,

such

valorizationsare

prac-

tically

inconceivable

within Adorno's

system. Still,

in de-

fending

Strauss

against

Adorno's

critique

("Strauss's

Don

Juan

Reinvestigated,"

pp.

163-66),

Hepokoski

also

pro-

duces

analytical

evidence that

reveals the

very

strong

mu-

sical

basis for

Adorno's

deep

misgivings

about the com-

poser.

41"Sonata

hybrids"are one of the classes of sonata defor-

mations

that

Hepokoski

discusses

in

Sibelius:

Symphony

No.

5,

p.

7.

42JamesWebster,"SonataForm," n The New Grove Dic-

tionary of

Music and

Musicians,

ed.

Stanley

Sadie,

vol.

17

(London,

1980),

pp.

497,

498.

135

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19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

"The

reprise

was the

crux of sonata form." He

continues:

It revokedwhat had been decisive since Beethoven-

the dynamic quality of the development section-in

a

manner similar to

the

effect of

remaining

after

the

ending

of a film

in

order o see the

beginning

all

over

again.

Beethoven mastered

this

by

means

of a

tour

de

force

that

became

his

overarching

rule:

n

a fertile

moment

at the

beginning

of the

reprise,

he

presents

the results

of

the

dynamic

unfolding

of

the

develop-

ment,

of that

process

of

Becoming,

as

the confirma-

tion and vindication of

an

earlier

moment,

of

what

had,

in

any

case,

already

happened.

That is his

com-

plicity

with the

guilt

of the

great

idealistic

system,

with the dialectician

Hegel

in

whom the essence

of

negation,

and

thereby

of

Becoming

itself,

ultimately

amounts to a

theodicy

of

the

existent.

In

the

reprise,

music,

as

the ritual of

bourgeois

freedom, remained,

like

the

society

in

which

it

exists

and

which exists

in

it,

enslaved to

mythic

unfreedom.

It

manipulates

the

cyclic

coherence

of

nature

as

though

the

return-

ing,

on the mere

strength

of the

return,

were

greater

than what

it

is,

as

though

it

were

metaphysical

mean-

ing

itself,

the "Idea."43

Like

Webster,

Adorno sees

development

and

reprise

as

ontologically

bound to one another.

For

Adorno,

however,

this connection remains

a

thoroughly ideological

one;

return is inflated

into

the

metaphysical

"idea" of the form

by

means

of

the

imitation

and

"manipulation"

of

the

cyclical

structures

of the

natural

world.

Reprise

halts the

dynamic unfolding

of the de-

velopment

section

by

imposing

an

architec-

tonic

identity-a

thematic iteration that

is

the

very

gesture

of

return itself.

Commenting

on

this same

passage,

Fredric

Jameson

writes: "The sonata

form,

then,

works

to

produce

an Idea of

a

feeling

of

necessity

which is

socially ideological,

and

confirms and

justifies the totality of what is: at the same

time ... this

ideological

function

and

mendac-

ity

of the sonata

form is itself but a distorted

historical reflection or manifestation of the

deeper metaphysical

dilemma of all art." This

dilemma,

Jameson

says,

is

notunique

to sonata

form but

is bound

up

with artistic illusion

(Schein)

itself,

or rather with the

authenticity

of such illusion.

"Fictionality,

in

music,

is then

simply temporal duration,

which is

also Schein

or aesthetic

appearance

of

the

musical work."

But

what constitutes

authentic

musical time?

Jameson

suggests

that

Adorno's

reading

of

so-

nata form gives a paradoxical answer, "imply-

ing

that

the

phrase

or

theme is not

really

ut-

tered,

even

for the first

time,

until it is

some-

how

(after

suitable

variation)

repeated

and con-

firmed."44

Return carries the

heavy

burden not

only

of

creating

musical

time

but also

of

en-

gendering

and

making

possible

the

totality

of

the work.

Musical time

(as

opposed

to

empiri-

cal

or

clock

time)

does not

exist

apart

from that

totality,

which also forms a

part

of its context.

Such a

totality,

moreover,

is

only

available

ret-

rospectively

once some

kind of

architectonic

closure has

been secured

through

return. Re-

turn

thus

possesses

a

metaphysical import

that

brings

into existence the

appearance

of the

prop-

erly

musical,

even

though

it can

do so

only

by

affirming

what has

already happened,

and

so

what

already

exists.

By doing

so, however,

the

reprise

of sonata form-even in its most

inge-

nious

manifestations,

such as

Beethoven's

mu-

sic-remains,

for

Adorno,

complicit

with the

status

quo,

with what

is, or,

in

any

case,

with

what has

already happened.

Still,

recapitulation

cannot

simply

be

dis-

missed, either,

for

it

remains

essential

to the

constitution of authentic musical time. Adorno

is

clear about this

point. Simply

negating

re-

turn, abandoning

it on account of its

complic-

ity,

he

suggests,

results

in

an

abrupt

moment,

a

canceling

of all the

potential

musical time

that

has accrued.45 Without

return,

there is no

way

to redeem this musical

time,

and

so,

in a strict

phenomenological

sense,

music as such

ceases

even

to

exist. Understood

thus,

the architec-

tonic function of

return,

the

imposition

of

iden-

tity,

turns out

to

be bound

to,

and

necessary

for,

the

dynamic

function

of

the

development

section,

the

very

section,

that

Adorno charac-

terizes as the

progressive

element of the

form.46

What

emerges

from this short

excursus on

the

metaphysics

of return

is, first,

the

neces-

43Adorno,

Mahler,

pp. 127/94.

44Fredric

Jameson,

Late

Marxism:

Adorno, or,

The Persis-

tence of the Dialectic (London, 1990), p. 170.

45Adorno,

Mahler,

pp. 128/94.

46Ibid.,

pp.

101/72.

136

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sity

of return as a condition of

possibility

of

the

musical

totality,

a

totality

that

presupposes

an

organic conception

of the

whole;

and, second,

the

dependence

of musical

time

on return

for

its very state of being. Return is the artistic

(and

ideological)

device

that,

according

to

Adorno,

overcomes the arbitrarinessof

empiri-

cal

time and

thereby engenders

the

organic

con-

cept

of the

autonomous musical whole.

Such a

reading

of return

allows

us

to look more

closely

at

Mahler's

critique

of

the

arbitrary

nature

of

the transcendent chorale. What is

lacking

in

the

usual

deployment

of

the

chorale,

what is

arbitraryabout it, goes beyond its mere failure

to

correspond

to

an

authentically "spiritual

struggle."

Indeed,

the

very concept

of such a

failure

illicitly

elevates

spiritual struggle

itself

into a

transcendent

principle.

Rather,

the

cho-

rale remains

arbitrary

because it stands

outside

of,

and has

not been

properly

integrated

into,

the

authentic musical time

that,

according

to

the

ideology

of the

organic work,

can

be

pro-

duced only through return. That the transcen-

dent moment is not at the same time a

mo-

ment of return is

ultimately

what condemns

the chorale

to arbitrariness.47

It

is

something

of a dialectical

reversal,then,

that,

when the traditional transcendent cho-

rale

attempts

to

step

outside the artistic illu-

sion of

the musical

whole,

it

merely repro-

duces artistic

illusion at a

higher

level: the

illusion of stepping outside musical illusion.

The

insistence on thematic

integration,

on the

production

of

intensification sections

(Steiger-

ungsgruppe)

that assimilate the

chorale to the

work's

dynamic by

transforming

it

into

the

goal

of the

intensifying process,

and,

finally,

the overarticulation

of the

point

of

arrival

through

the

deployment

of the force and

power

of

the

heavy

brass-all these

artistic

devices

serve merely to integrate the chorale, to rein-

force

the chorale as

a

part

of a

whole,

as

not

having escaped

artistic

illusion,

and

so as

not

having

achieved

the

very

compositional

inten-

tion of transcendence

hat the

chorale was

origi-

nally

introduced

to

realize.

Similarly,

a

critique

of

return and

with it

a

critique

of artistic

illusion

would

seem

pos-

sible

only by

accepting

the

necessity

of

illusion

as a part of artistic production. The rigorous

application

of the constraints

of

artistic illu-

sion

could then

reveal the

inherent

contradic-

tions within such

illusion-could,

in

short,

con-

stitute

a

completed

immanent

critique.

The

notion of

breakthrough pursued

here

hypoth-

esizes that such

a

critique

might

be

located

wherever

an authentic

transcendent

moment

coincides with an

authentic

moment of

return,

because at such a moment the transcendent

gesture

would no

longer

be

arbitrary.

If this account of return

is

accepted,

then

the

double

appearance

of the

chorale

in

the finale

of Mahler's First

Symphony

begins

to

make

sense not

only

as an

imitation

of the

"spiritual

struggle"

that

I

have

argued

Mahler

sought

but

also as an

imitation of the basic

outlines

of

sonata form as well. The

first

entrance

of the

D-major chorale in the development possesses

the

arbitrary

effect of

any

transcendent mo-

ment,

only

intensified-"as

though

it had fallen

from heaven."

BREAKTHROUGHS

IMMANENT

CRITIQUE

OF

FORM

Example

4

presents

the three

guises

in

which

the

breakthrough

motive

appears

during

the

movement.

Clearly

in

C

major,

ex. 4a is

the

"model,"

or initial

version,

of the

motive

that

permits

implications

for

subsequent

appear-

ances

of the motive

to be

projected.

The second

time this

motive

appears

(ex.

4b),

something

more

interesting

occurs. The first

phrase

is more

or less

identical to

the model. But

in

the second

phrase,

a new

harmonization

of

the motive

ap-

pears, deflecting

the tonal motion toward F

even while

the motive itself remains

unchanged.

JAMES

BUHLER

Finaleof

Mahler'sFirst

47PeterBrooksprovidesadditionalsupportfor the account

of

return

given

here.

Drawing

on

Freud,

Brooks

argues

that

a

return to an

event

(say

in

a

novel)

is what

releases that

event

from

contingency

and

arbitrariness. ee

Brooks,

Read-

ing

for

the

Plot:

Design

and Intention in

Narrative

(1984;

rpt.

Cambridge,

Mass.,

1992),

pp.

90-112.

In

a recent

study,

Anthony

Newcomb

explores

some of the

implications

that

follow

from

applying

Brooks's Freudian framework to

Mahler's Ninth. In

particular,

Newcomb finds

Brooks's

account of Freud

useful

in

explicating

the

frequent

recur-

rences of

the main

theme

in

the first movement of that

piece.

See

Newcomb,

"Narrative

Archetypes

and Mahler's

Ninth Symphony," in Music and Text: Critical Inquiries,

ed.

Steven Paul Scher

(Cambridge,1992),

pp. 118-36,

esp.

132ff.

137

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a.

"Model,"

mm. 297-302.

33

297

b. "Rupture,"

mm. 370-75.

370

Luftpause

Motive

remains consistent

Motivic

logic (completion)

mplies

the

with both C and

F;

nner

parts

note

G

here,

which

is

incompatible

with

continue

to

suggest

F. the

harmonic deflection toward F.

Motive,

as in

model, suggests

374 3

C

major,

hough

it is also

initially consistent with F.

m u s i c r f u s s

the harmonic and

mo

Conflict in model:

C

vs. Innerparts, by analogy with

D

major ( ) steps

outs

deflection

toward

F.

model,

suggest

harmonic

"as though

it had fall

deflection towardF.

-

Luftpause

C

major;

deviant bass

in F.

Bass

joins

upper

parts,

Harmonic ogic implies F.

securing

the deflection of

the

harmony

toward F.

c. "Breakthrough," mm. 631-36.

3

631 3

Rupturerepaired

by transp

into

D

major.

Ratherthan

f

A

to conform to

the

logic

of

_o

o"__"

_

_"

_ _

__

_ _

__

logic of the piece

reorients

11 a LL

Example

4:

Breakthrough

motive:

model,

rupture,

breakthrough.

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This harmonic deflection

begins

as a

polytonal

conflict between the bass

note, G,

which

is

consistent with

the C

major

of the

model,

and

the

implied

harmony

of the

upper parts, which,

by analogy with the "model," would seem to

suggest

F. With the next

chord,

the

bass

joins

the

upper parts

in

articulating

this tonal deflec-

tion

toward

F. The

resulting

BM

hord

is,

of

course,

the subdominant of

F

and so is

roughly

equivalent

to the subdominant

ii6

of C

that

occurs in

the

analogous

position

of the model.

The

harmonic

implications

of the

model,

its

"harmonic

ogic," suggest

that an

F-major

hord

should arrive on the downbeat of m. 375. But

there is a

problem.

Although

the

breakthrough

motive

in

the

trumpet seemingly

fits with

the

F-major harmony

in m.

374,

correct motivic

completion

would

require

a G on the

downbeat

of

the next measure. And this

implied

G is

incompatible

with

the

implied

F

triad of

the

harmonic

logic.

Here,

as so often

in

Mahler's

music,

the

Luftpause

marks a

moment of inde-

cision that nevertheless decides everything.

Ratherthan

favoring

either harmonic or motivic

logic,

Mahler

"solves" the

quandaryby

annul-

ling

both. He lands in D

major,

creating

a musi-

cal

motion

inexplicable

from the

perspective

of

either

of these musical

logics.

The

very

dis-

juncture

calls attention to the arrival

of

D

ma-

jor,

liberating

it

from control of the F-minor

sonata

form. This

freedom, however,

comes

only at the expense of a certain feeling of for-

mal

extraterritoriality,

a

feeling

accentuated

by

the

unmediated character of the chorale's ar-

rival.

Example

4c

suggests

that Mahler ulti-

mately

mends this

"rupture" by

transposing

the

"model"

so as to

position

the arrivalof D

major,

wholly

unmotivated

in

its first

appear-

ance,

within the

bounds of musical

logic.

In-

stead of

making

the arrivalof D

major

conform

to the strictures of musical logic, that musical

logic

is

instead

adapted

to conform to the ar-

rival

of

D

major.

The

"ruptured"

breakthrough

motive and the

subsequent

arrival of the chorale initiate a

po-

tential

alternative sonata

process paralleling

the

unfolding

of

the F-minor sonata form. This

po-

tential, however,

can

only

be

actualized

in

re-

turn. In other

words,

the

parallel

process

can-

not be fully realized until it is confirmed by the

return of the

chorale at the end of the

move-

ment

(movt.

IV,

mm.

631ff.).48

The

alternative

sonata

form

begins

with the

"ruptured"

break-

through

motive and

the chorale that

immedi-

ately follows;

it

continues

with its

own

quasi

development (which comprises among other

things

the

reprise

of the F-minor

sonata

form);

and it

finally

culminates in a

return to

the

breakthrough

motive

and chorale

material.

These

two

sonata-form

layouts

are

compared

in

fig.

2. The

layout

of the

"breakthrough"

D-

major

sonata form

closely

parallels

that of

the

principal

form in F

minor in at

least three re-

spects:

1. In both

forms,

the

exposition

s

marked

by

a

significant

sonic

event,

the

first

by

the

dissonant

chord

hat

begins

he

movement,

he

second

by

the

jarring

ffect of the

ruptured

reakthrough

motive

itself

(movt. IV,

mm.

370-75).

2. In

both

forms,

the

development

ection

begins

with material rom

he

first-movement

ntroduction

(cf.

mm.

238ff.

and mm.

428ff.).

3. In both forms, the

breakthrough

motive and cho-

ralecome at the

end of a

long

intensification

pro-

cess,

the

first one

(mm.

317-70) momentarily

seem-

ing

to deflect

toward and

suggest

the

return of the

tonic

F,

and the second

one

(mm.

574-631)

preparing

the return of D.

Moreover,

every significant

formal event

be-

tween

the two

appearances

of the

chorale func-

tions as an integral and necessary partof both

sonata

forms. The

effect is that of

two coher-

ent,

but

competing

and

opposed,

sonata

forms

simultaneously

interwoven with

one

another.

As

noted

above,

Sponheuer

points

to

the dif-

ficulty

of

recapitulation

after

the

appearance

of

the

chorale:the chorale's

arrival

simply

seems

to

overwhelm

any

residue of the traditional

structural

significance

of the

F-minor

sonata

form. Even so, Mahler appearsto have feared

that this residue

from the

traditional

structural

function of

the

recapitulation

was

potentially

strong enough

to overcome

the

disruptive

in-

JAMES

BUHLER

Finale of

Mahler's

First

48Likewise,Hepokoski

notes

the

importance

of

the

reprise

in

securing

sonata form's

displacement

of rondo n

Strauss's

Don

Juan.

"It is

only

at

the

moment

of

reprise

.

. .

espe-

cially

at

the

moment

of

the Heldenthema

apotheosis,

that

we realize

that

the rondo

principle

has

been supplantedby

that of

the sonata"

("Strauss's

Don

Juan

Reinvestigated,"

p.

151).

139

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EXPOSITION

DEVELOPMENT

REPRISE

175

238 253

290

317

370 428

458

533

574

MODEL

RUPTURE

Main Second Intro.

Develop- Breakthrough

Intensi-

Break-

Intro.

second Main

Intensi-

F-minor

Theme Theme material mental motive; fication 1 through material theme theme

fication 2

Sonata

from first

transformation

(develop- motive from first (reworked)

(fugato)

(cf.

1,

305-

Form

movement of main theme

mental) & Chorale movement

51)

Key:

f D

g

C

c

,'

C-D

,"

d

F

f

(f)

(Boldface

epresents

change

n

key

signature)

(C

pedal)

EXPOSITION DEVELOPMENT

"Breakthrough"

Break-

Intro.

material

Developmental

Intensification

Sonata

form:

through

from first

(fragmented

2nd

(from

just

&

Chorale

movement

theme and

first

before the

theme

in

fugato)

Reprise

of the

first

movement)

Figure

2:

F-minor

and

D-major

sonata

forms

compared.

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fluence

of

the

interpolated

chorale.

Hence he

took

deliberate

steps

to

destabilize

the

reprise.

The

inversion

of

the order of the themes in

the

recapitulation;

the

reworking

of

the second

theme and its placementover an extended domi-

nant C

pedal;

the

recapitulation

of the

princi-

pal

theme

in

fugato,

a

technique

normatively

reserved or

development

procedures

ather

han

recapitulation;

and the smooth

transition

from

the

recapitulation

of the main

theme into a

recall

of

the

intensification section taken from

the

development

section

of

the

first

move-

ment-these

four

steps

each

help

weaken the

recapitulatoryfunction of the F-minorreprise,

making

it less secure than

it

might

have other-

wise

been.49

Stephen

McClatchie has

recently

demon-

strated that the

recapitulation

of the F-minor

sonata form was the

portion

of this

movement

that Mahler

revised most

heavily.5s

Mahler's

alterations

have the effect

of both

strengthen-

ing

and

weakening

the sense

of

recapitulation.

In the earlier manuscript, he had marked the

return

of

the main

theme

with the

same

disso-

nant

clash that

opened

the

movement;

the re-

prise

then

paralleled,

in

somewhat truncated

form,

the course of

the

theme's

presentation

in

the

exposition

until

finally

linking up

with the

intensification

section

imported

from the

first

movement

(movt. IV,

mm.

574-622).51

More-

over,

in

the earlier version

as in

the

final

one,

the return of the second theme grew out of an

extended

section

of

reminiscences from the first

movement. In

many

other

respects,

however,

the return of the

second

theme

differed

signifi-

cantly

from the

definitive

form

that

it

was to

take in the

published

version. In

the

earlier

incarnation,

for

instance,

material from

the sec-

ond theme returned in a different order and

was

interlaced

with

material derived

from the

first

theme;

even

in

those

passages

retained

in

the

final

version,

everything

originally

occurred

a

step higher,

over a

D,

rather

than

the

C,

pedal

of the

published

score.52

The

overall

structural

effect of this

earlier

version

would

have been to

make the "return"

ound

like

a

continuation of

the

development.

The

reappearance

of the

con-

spicuous clash from the opening of the move-

ment

would have therefore thrown

the

full

structural

weight

of

recapitulation

onto

the re-

turn

of the

first theme-so much so

that

F

minor would have threatened

to reclaim

struc-

tural

control of the

movement in this

version.

Mahler

evidently

felt

that

the

return of

F

minor

was

too well

articulated;

when

revising

the

movement,

he

removed the

strict

parallelism

between the appearanceof the first theme in

the

exposition

and the

reprise,

introduced the

fugato presentation

of the

first

theme,

and,

in

the

process,

so

weakened the

impact

of

the F-

minor sonata form that it

could no

longer

seri-

ously challenge

the

D-major

chorale

in

terms

of

ultimate

interpretive

import. By

thus

under-

mining

the return of the F-minor

theme,

how-

ever,

Mahler also

lost access to an

important

source of structural tension between D and F.

Perhaps

to

mitigate

this

loss,

he

shifted the

return of

the second

theme down a

step

so

that

it

occurs over

the dominant C

pedal

of

the

final

version. In

the

final

version,

then,

the

second

theme returns in

the context of

an

inverted

recapitulation

n

F,

thereby restoring

something

of

the structural

tension

between

D

and F.

The

structural

and

formal

significance

of

the

D-majorchoraleitself is concretized at its mo-

ment of

return. Rather than

analyzing

the

final

chorale

as

being

primarily part

of a coda-its

most common

interpretation

and its

interpre-

tation here within the F-minor sonata form-I

JAMES

BUHLER

Finale of

Mahler's First

491t

should

be obvious that to

say

that the arrivalof the

chorale overwhelms

the formal

import

of sonata form is

not the

same as

saying

that a

sonata-form

residue is not

present.

On the one

hand,

this section

certainly

does not

entirely relinquish

its

recapitulatory

function. There is

a

very

real

sense in which it

"completes"

the F-minor so-

nata form as a

"recapitulation."

On the other

hand,

this

section

also

bears

unmistakably strong

traces of

develop-

mental

procedures.

Its function

is,

in other

words,

less

than

unequivocal. Moreover,

the

recapitulatory unction,

already

weak at the

outset,

becomes

progressively

weaker

until

it

finally

dissolves into the return of

the

unambigu-

ous

developmental

material rom the first

movement. Ironi-

cally,

the

only

element

that

returns

verbatim n

this whole

section

is thus

clearly developmental

rather han thematic.

•0Stephen

McClatchie,

"The 1889 Version

of Mahler'sFirst

Symphony:

A

New

Manuscript Source,"

his

issue,

pp.

99-

124.

-'Donald

Mitchell,

Gustav

Mahler:

The WunderhornYears

(Boulder,Co., 1976), pp.

205-06.

52My

account

of

the

original

version of the second theme

is based on

the

description

n

McClatchie,

"The

1889

Ver-

sion

of

Mahler'sFirst."

According

to

McClatchie,

Mahler

shifted

this material down to a C

pedal

ratherlate in the

process

of

revising

the

section.

141

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19TH

CENTURY

m u s i c

take

its return within

the

interpretive

horizon

of sonata form

quite literally:

it

recapitulates.

Return redeems

the chorale

and releases it

from

the formal

nothingness,

the

extraterritoriality,

of a coda. The returnof the chorale is a formal

event-indeed

a sonata-form

event-not

one

that occurs

only

after

the

sonata form

proper

has run its course.

Within

a

potential

D-major

sonata

form reduced to the essential elements

of

exposition-development-reprise,

the return

of

the

chorale is a

reprise.

One

last

enigma

remains

to

be solved.

Why

did Mahler choose

to

quote

an extended

pas-

sage from the first movement and one, more-

over,

with

such

subtle

thematic connections

that its status

as

quotation

is hard to detect

in

casual

listening?

In

particular,

the

quoted

sec-

tion

(movt. IV,

mm.

574-622),

although

obvi-

ously

derived

rom

the

main theme

of the

finale,

is more

developmental

than thematic.

Had

Mahler

wanted a

passage

to serve

primarily

as a

quotation,

he

almost

certainly

would have used

a striking theme rather than a long, themati-

cally

diffuse

developmental

section.

If the re-

peated

material, however,

does

not so much

serve

as

quotation per

se but rather solidifies a

functional

parallelism

with

the first

movement,

then

Mahler's

choice

of

material

makes

a

great

deal

more sense.

This

passage

consists

precisely

of the material

that

prepared

he

recapitulation

of the first

movement.53

What this passageinvokes then is a particu-

lar formal function

rather

than the thematic

material

per

se.

In the

first

movement,

this

material

prepares

a

recapitulation,

and

it

does

so

in

the

finale as

well,

so

long

as the two

appearances

f

the

choraledemarcate he bound-

aries of a

D-major

sonata

form. The movement

thus

not

only

presents

two

competing

but in-

terwoven

sonata

forms,

but

also

specifies

their

relationship.

The formin Fminor is

ultimately

subverted

by

and deflected

into the

form

in D

major.54

his

interpretation

at

the level

of

form

confirms and extends Constantin Floros'sread-

ing

of

the movement

in

terms of Mahler's

early

programmatic

title

Dall'

Inferno

al

Paradiso,

afterDante.55ForFloros,Mahler's use of F mi-

nor and

D

major

n

the movement

"expresses

a

programmatic

ntention:

F

minor is the

key

of

the

inferno,

the

contrasting

D

major

character-

izes the

paradiso.

The

dynamics

of

the

move-

ment

represent

the

repeated

efforts to over-

come

the

level

of the

inferno

and

to

arrive

in

the

sphere

of

the

paradiso."

Likewise,

"the

rather forced modulation

[from

C to

D in mm.

370-75] symbolizes that now, with the move

to

D

major,

the

sphere

of

the

paradiso

has

been

reached."56The

"program"

hat Floros

identi-

fies

is

not

merely symbolic,

nor

is

it restricted

only

to

key

relationships.

It is

also embodied

at

the level

of

sonata

form:

in

Floros's

program-

matic

terms,

the F-minor sonata form would

represent

the

sphere

of

the

inferno and the

D-

major

sonata

form

that

of

paradiso,

so that the

displacement of F minor by D majoroccurs on

a formal

as well as a

programmatic

level.

The

finale exhibits no

simple

divide

between

pro-

grammatic

and formal

procedures.

Break-

through,

in

other

words,

adopts

sonata-form

procedures

and so

significantly

affects the

work

on the level of sonata

form.

Consequently,

un-

like

the

breakthrough

n

Beethoven's

Leonore

Overture,

No.

3,

the one

in

the finale of

Mahler's

53There

are other

functional

parallels

in formal structure

between the first movement

and the finale. Of

these,

the

exposition of a new thematic materialin the development

and a later

recapitulatory

treatment of that material

is

perhaps

the most

significant.

54Thus

the structure

of this finale somewhat

resembles

the finale of

Schumann's

Second,

which

Anthony

Newcomb

interprets

as

beginning

like a sonata rondo

and

becoming

more

properly

sonatalike

only

in the

recapitula-

tion

("Once

More 'Between Absolute

and

Program

Music':

Schumann's

Second

Symphony,"

pp. 243-47),

or

Strauss's

Don

Juan,

which

Hepokoski

hears as

a rondo "deformed"

into

a

sonata

("Strauss's

Don

Juan

Reinvestigated,"

p. 160).

In

Mahler's

First,however,

everything

takes

place

in terms

of sonata form: breakthrough"deforms" an F-minor so-

nata into

a

D-major

one

deploying

the

principles

of sonata

form

against

itself.

55Floros ather

heavy-handedly

inks

the

main

motives

of

the finale to

Liszt's Dante

Symphony

and

Wagner's

Parsifal,

a move

that has the

effect of

reducing

Mahler's

composi-

tional

contribution

in the

movement

to

arranging

Liszt's

and

Wagner's

motives

according

to

the

plot

of Dante's

Inferno

(Gustav

Mahler:

The

Symphonies,

pp.

44-47;

see

also

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler

II,

pp.

247-59).

In other

words,

Floros's

reading mplies

that

neither

the form

nor

the mo-

tives are

original

with Mahler.

Compositional

originality

is the steep priceFloros'shermeneuticsexact for allowing

Mahler's

music to become

meaningful.

S6Floros,

Gustav

Mahler:

The

Symphonies,

pp.

45,

47.

142

8/20/2019 Breakthrough as Critique of Form the Finale of Mahler's First Symphony

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/breakthrough-as-critique-of-form-the-finale-of-mahlers-first-symphony 20/20

First

Symphony

serves

as an immanent

cri-

tique

of sonata form.

Although

Mahler's

break-

through

does

not

simply reproduce

sonata

form,

the formal

processes

associated with it do

pre-

serve the central aspects of that form. Yet we

should also not

forget

that the movement taken

as a

whole,

if it

resembles

sonata form at

all,

resembles one

that is

significantly

disfigured.

Adorno locates the critical

force of Mahler's

music

in

its

"broken

tone,"57

in

precisely

this

misshapen

and

badly

broken

state of the whole.

For

Adorno,

this

"brokenness,"

insofar

as it is

the result of a

rigorous

adherence

to the re-

ceived system and not a misapplication of it,

stands

as a

cipher

for the

objective

state

of

society

and thus secures the truth content of

the music. Failure

in

the

eyes

of traditional

aesthetics, brokenness,

is transformed nto suc-

cess

through

the

very

refusal

of the work to

harmonize with the

system

and

thereby

to af-

firm

it.58

In its

broken

structure,

breakthrough

reflects the

negative

image

that

totality

has

become: no

longer

attainable

except

by

deceit,

unbroken

totality

is

a

concept

that

art never-

theless finds itself unable to surrender. "Das

Ganze ist

das

Unwahre"59

[the

whole is

the

untrue]

is a

thought

that

art has

difficulty

ut-

tering

convincingly

because the

very

existence

of

art seems to demand

ts

refutation.The

break-

through

of the

First

Symphony

nevertheless

emphatically

marks

the

fleeting

presence

of

this

thought

in

Mahler's

music-the

ephem-

eral

moment

of

its translation

01C

to music. s

JAMES

BUHLER

Finale

of

Mahler's First

57Adorno,

Mahler,

pp. 48/32.

"sRose

Subotnik discerns a

moment of

futility

in

Adorno's

portrait

of Mahler:

"Mahler,

clearly

the

nineteenth-cen-

tury composer

to whose work

Adorno is

most

sympa-

thetic,

can do no more than

confirm the

greatness

of the

Beethovenian moment of

synthesis

by evoking

its

nega-

tive

image,

so to

speak-an

image

of

totality lost,

of the

negated

or

impossible

masterpiece-by constructing

enor-

mous

'symphonic' patterns

out of elements too discon-

tinuous to effect

any large-scale unity" (Subotnik,

"The

Historical

Structure,"

p. 38).

59Adorno,

Minima

Moralia,

pp. 80/50.

143