the farewell story of mahler's ninth symphony

8/20/2019 The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony

1/24

The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth SymphonyAuthor(s): Vera MicznikSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 20, No. 2, Special Mahler Issue (Autumn, 1996), pp. 144-166Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746905

Accessed: 28/07/2010 14:59

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.org/stable/746905?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucalhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucalhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/746905?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/24

h e

Farewel l

S t o r y

o

M ahler s

i n t h

ymphony

VERA

MICZNIK

From the earliest

contemporary accounts,

the

question

of

meaning

in

Mahler's

symphonic

music has puzzled public and critics alike, and

his

symphonies

have

become

subject

to

the

most

extravagant

extramusical

interpretations,

often formulated

along

biographical,

philosophi-

cal,

or

programmatic

lines. In

particular,

an

almost

unprecedented

aura

of

superstition

and

mystification

surrounds

the Ninth

Symphony,

his last

completed

work.

Whether couched in

metaphorical

or

analytical

language,

one

spe-

cific interpretation appears consistently in all

the

extramusical

elaborations: the

symphony's

expressive

content

is

pervasively

viewed as

a

representation

of

Mahler's

"farewell

to the

world and to life." This view of the meaning of

the work

has been so

influential

that it

re-

mains

unchallenged

even in

today's

critical

lit-

erature.

The fourth

edition of

the

History

of

Western

Music

by

Grout and

Palisca,

for

ex-

ample,

tells students

without further

explana-

tion that

the

Ninth,

Mahler's

ast

completed

symphony (com-

posed 1909-10), flows in a mood of resignationmixed

with

bitter

satire,

an

indescribably

strange

and

sad

farewell to

life,

symbolized

by

deliberate

reference

to the Lebe

wohl

(Farewell)

heme of the

opening

of

Beethoven's

Sonata

op.

81a.

This

motif,

or

reminis-

cences

of

it,

pervades

the

first and

last

movement

(both

in slow

tempo)

of the Ninth

Symphony,

as

well as that other

"farewell"

work of Mahler's

last

years,

The

Song of

the

Earth.'

19th-Century

Music

XX/2 (Fall

1996)

?

by

The

Regents

of

the

University

of

California.

For

many helpful

suggestions

on

reading

an earlier

draft

of

this

essay,

I

would

like to thank Krin

Gabbard,

State Uni-

versity

of New

York at

Stony Brook,

and

Michael

Fellman,

Simon FraserUniversity;andfor additional valuablecom-

ments on this later

version, many

thanks

to

my colleague

David

Metzer.

'Donald

J.

Grout and Claude

V.

Palisca,

A

History

of

West-

ern Music

(4th

edn. New

York, 1988),

p.

760.

144


3/24

Here is a case

in

the

history

of

symphonic

works where an extramusical

interpretation

of

an

allegedly nonprogrammatic piece

survives

unadulterated,

because

of the

complicated

threads that have constantly reinforced the ini-

tial

responses,

and

despite

the

predominantly

formalist

trends

of

twentieth-century analyti-

cal

methodologies

that dismiss such

interpre-

tations as

"impressionistic."

While

the characterization

of

the

meaning

of

the

symphony

as a "farewell"

might

have

seemed

perfectly

natural

n

the context in

which

it was

first

formulated,

and

to

the

public by

whom it was perceived, in today's context, the

apparently simple

terms on

which these

views

depended (e.g.,

symbolization,

reference,

"fare-

well

work")

have

become

much

more loaded

and need

to

be

unpacked.

In the

climate

of

our

time,

they

touch

on

central issues

of

concern:

musical

meaning

and

representation,

narrative

dimensions of music and music

criticism,

pat-

terns of

reception

and transmission

of

works,

myth formation, ideological and aesthetic is-

sues,

and

problems

of artistic value andhistori-

cal

evidence.

Throughout

this

study,

I

substitute

the "fare-

well

meaning" assigned

to the

symphony

with

"farewell

story,"

because

in

my

view,

the idea

of

"farewell to

life,"

even

if

not fleshed out

in

a

narrative,

suggests

a

sequence

of events or a

basic

structure

similar to that

of

many

stories:

a main character

(Mahler)

lived, suffered,

put

all

his

suffering

into his

creativity,

and know-

ing

that

he

would

die,

imprinted

the

knowl-

edge

of his

impending

deathonto his last works.

But could such a

story

be read from the

music

itself? Or could it

result from

a

set

of

condi-

tions

surrounding

the

musical

work?

In

an

at-

tempt

to

answer these

questions,

by

gathering

and

problematizing

the various

kinds of

knowl-

edge currently

available about the Ninth

Sym-

phony,

I

undertake an examination of the com-

plex

circumstances that kindled

the

farewell

story

and

prompted

its transmission and

per-

petuation.

Using

this work and the

interpreta-

tions of

its

meaning

as a case

study,

the discus-

sion will

shed

light

on more

general

historio-

graphical issues,

specific

not

only

to the

works

of

Mahler

and his era but also to other histori-

cal

periods.

The

creation of the

farewell

story

and

its

transmission will

be

interrogated

on

the

basis

of

different

kinds of

evidence

available in

three

domains:

the series of

receptions

of

the

work,

that

is,

the

interpretive

critical

reactions

to

it;

contemporarydocumentspertaining o Mahler's

biography,

such as

letters or

testimonies that

have

survived;

and the

music

itself,

with the

specific

kinds of narrative

meanings

it can

con-

vey

to us

today,

which

might

have

contributed

to the creation of

this

story.2

The

point

of

juxtaposing

these three

types

of

accounts is not

necessarily

to refute or to

rein-

force the

validity

of

one

in

terms of the

others,

or hierarchize them in terms of their potential

truth value

or

conformity

to an

objective

his-

torical

reality

they may

be said

to

represent.

Embedded in

this

enterprise

is an

attempt

to

question

and

contextualize,

rather than

priori-

tize,

the truth value of these

accounts,

by

not

giving privileged

status to one

versus

another.

For it is not the

validity

of

the farewell

story

itself that I

find

problematic

in

statements

of

the kind cited above, but the kind of unques-

tioned

privileged

status it is

given.

Once one

understands he contexts in which

various

opin-

ions have

originated,

the

question

of

truth or

validity

becomes

marginal.

This

is

not

to

sug-

gest

that critical

judgments

should be

arbitrary

or

valueless,

but

that,

rather than

claiming

uni-

versal

validity, they

should

exploit

to a maxi-

mum

what

they

can

achieve,

that

is,

isolate

sensible distinctions of

validity

within the con-

straints of

a restricted continuum

of

possibili-

ties of

information

given

to

us.

All

accounts

(interpretive,historical,analytical)are,

after

all,

themselves

"stories,"

which,

in

the

words

of

Jerome Bruner,

do not

correspond

to

reality,

but to

fabricated

constructs

arising

from

our

desireto

give

coherence to

sequences

of

events,

and

thus,

"unlike

the

constructions

generated

by

logical

and scientific

procedures

that can be

weeded

out

by falsification,

narrativeconstruc-

tions

can

only

achieve

'verisimilitude'."3

VERA

MICZNIK

Story

of

Mahler's

Ninth

2Obviously,

his

separation

s

in

part

artificial,

for

often

in

the

various commentaries the

interpretive-analytical

and

documentarydata areintertwined.

3Jerome

Bruner,

"The

Narrative

Construction

of

Reality,"

Critical

Inquiry

18

(1991),

4.

145


4/24

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

WHAT THE CRITICS

TELL

US

Mahler

did not live to

hear his Ninth

Sym-

phony performed.

t

was

premiered

under Bruno

Walter

during

the "Wiener

Musikfestwoche,"

on 26

June

1912

in

Vienna,

more than a

year

after Mahler's

death.

It is

likely

that

only

a few

of the

composer's

closest

associates

were

fa-

miliar with the work before the

premiere,

since

only

a four-hand

piano

score

appeared

n

1912,

and the

full

score

was not

published

until

1913.

In

any case,

the first critical comments about

the work date

from after the

premiere.

In

his

review of the concert in

Die

Musik,

Richard

Specht

appreciates

the

variety

of moods

present

in the

symphony,

from the

"irony"

and "infer-

nal

Witz"

of the middle

movements,

to the

"found Gotteslied"

in

the first

and

last move-

ments.

In

the

first

movement,

"the

enigmatic

bell-sounds of the

beginning

return later with

a

terrible

echoing force,

as

if

they

were

tolling

for

death . .

a

lullaby

that the master

has

sung

to

himself,

for

his

peace, 'protectedby

God'shand'

('von

Gottes

Hand

gebettet'[sic];

it

should be

gebecket),

in

the

mother's house."4

Not

only

reviewers,

but also

biographers

ollow the

same

ideas.

In the

one-page

commentary

on

the Ninth

Symphony

that Paul

Stefan added after

the

completion

of

the

symphony

to the third

(1912)

edition of his

1910

Mahler

monograph,

he char-

acterizes the

overall

meaning

of the

symphony

as

"a

brazen

calmness,"

"a farewell without

bitterness,"

and the last

movement, Adagio,

is

Mahler's swan

song: "[it] brings

absolute

and

overwhelming

peace,

.

..

a

distinct

farewell,

[which]

bears

a remarkableresemblance

to the

last

song

of

Das Lied

von

der

Erde."5

Specht,

in

his

1913

enlarged monograph

Gustav

Mahler,

describes

the

symphony

in

a similar

vein,

al-

though

he

shows

a

closer

familiarity

with the

score,

as he

supports

some of his observations

with

actual musical

examples.6

He

interprets

literally

the

rhythmically repeated

As in the

horn and

cello

that

open

the

first movement as

"Distant

bells;

like

the soil that falls on a

fresh

grave."

Other

similarly

evocative

images

char-

acterize the

symphony

as

a

"large

Kindertot-

enlied,"

and

as a

"lyrical prelude

to

a

grave-

song."7

And even the

unusual distribution

of

the movements in the

symphony,

two

fast

middle movements surrounded

by

two

outer

slow

movements

(and

particularly

the

sym-

phony's ending

with

a

slow

movement),

is ex-

plained

as a

reflection of Mahler's

thoughts

retracing

his

life

while

standing

before

death:

Here,

one who stands at the last

gate,

which

will

close on both his

happiness

ndhis

suffering,

ooks

backatthe Inferno ftheworld; tthe hellofevery-

day ife,

with all

its

corrupt

ower,

ts brutal

medioc-

rity,

its tumultuous

emptiness,

ts untruthful

eal

thatdistorts ll lovelinessandkindness nto acarica-

ture.

... The

closing song

of a

life,

filled with

a

worn-

out

yearning

or

peace,

rather han

with the

joyfully

enrapturedreeting

f a

new,

purer

xistence.8

Alban

Berg's

often-cited reflections

on

Mahler'sNinth Symphony are to the point in

4Richard

Specht,

"Die

Wiener Musikfestwoche"

in Die

Musik

11/21 (1912),

160-61.

The last words

are a

quota-

tion

from

the last

song

of

Kindertotenlieder,

a

constant

source

of association

between the fate of the

dead children

and that of

Mahler. Constantin

Floros has identified sev-

enteen reviews after

the

premiere,

n

Austrian

newspapers

and

journals

alone,

which

had

in

common

the

topics

of

farewell

and of death

and

transfiguration.

See his Gustav

Mahler

III: Die

Symphonien

(Wiesbaden, 1985),

p.

267;

Engl. version Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies, trans.

Vernon Wicker

(Portland,Ore., 1993),

p.

272. Unless

indi-

cated

otherwise,

all translations

are mine.

5Paul

Stefan,

Gustav

Mahler:

Eine Studie

fiber Pers6n-

lichkeit

und Werk

4th

edn.

Munich,

1912);

he

quotations

are from the

English

trans.,

Gustav Mahler:

A

Study of

His

Personality

and

Work,

trans. T. E. Clark

(New York,

1913), pp.

142-43,

and 124-25. For

a

discussion

of

the

relationship

between Das Lied

and the

Ninth,

see

my

Meaning

n

Gustav

Mahler's

Music:

A Historical and

Ana-

lytical Study Focusing

on the

Ninth

Symphony

(Ph.D.

diss., State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1989),

pp.

440-44.

6Specht,

Gustav

Mahler

(Berlin, 1913), pp.

355-69.

Later

editions of

the

book

do not contain

any

musical

examples.

7"Ferne

Glocken;

gleich

Schollen

fiillt

es auf

ein

frisches

Grab"

Specht,

Mahler

[1913],

pp.

365

and

364).

8"Hier

lickt

einer,

der an der etzten Pforte

steht,

die

gleich

iiber

all

seinem

Gliick

und

all

seinem

Leid zufallen

wird,

auf das Inferno

der Welt

zuriick;

auf

die

Hblle des

Alltags

in

all seiner

unreinen

Kraft,

einen

brutalen

Gewbhnlichkeit,

seiner liirmenden

Leere,

seiner

verlogenen,

alles Holde

und

Giitige

zur Fratze verzerrenden

Geschiftigkeit.

.

. . Der

Schlussgesangeines Lebens, voll

miider

Sehnsucht nach

Ruhe,

nicht der

freudig

verziickte

Gruss

eines

neuen,

erhbhten,

reineren Daseins"

(Specht,

Mahler,

p.

358).

146


5/24

this context. To

Berg,

the first movement

"is

the

expression

of his

[Mahler's]

extraordinary

love of the

earth,

his

yearning

to live on it

in

peace,

to

enjoy

nature most

profoundly-be-

fore death comes." The entire movement is the

"premonition

of

death,"

which

incessantly

an-

nounces

itself.

Mahler's

dynamic

mark

mit

h6chster

Gewalt

(m.

314) represents

for

Berg

the moment

where

"death

imposes

itself

right

in the middle of the

deepest,

most

painful

de-

sire

for life."

While

Berg's

story

is

indeed

based

on his

recognition

in the musical

substance of

constantly

"new out

bursting

climaxes

erupt-

ing like surges after the most delicate pas-

sages,"9

the

emotional

interpretation

he

gives

to the musical

ideas

would,

again,

be

difficult

to

explain,

unless

triggered

n

Berg by

the aura

surrounding

the

symphony

and the

reality

of

Mahler's

death.1'

The influence

of

the ideas created

by

these

first reactions

was

apparent

within a

few

years.

Even

the

analytically

minded

musicologists

Guido Adler and Paul Bekker, both of whom

stated

in

the

prefaces

to their

Mahler mono-

graphs

that

they

were not concerned

with bio-

graphical

or

psychological

matters,

still

asserted,

if

only

in

fragmentary

guises,

the ideas of

death

and

farewell,

partly

on the basis

of their draw-

ing

a

stylistic

analogy

between

the Ninth

and

the

last

movement,

"Der

Abschied,"

of

Das

Lied von der Erde.

Adler wrote

in

1918:

"Before

the

angel

of death had

grazed

him he composed

the

concluding

movement

of Das Lied von der

Erde

and the Ninth

as a farewell

to

life,"

and

"in

the

Ninth,

after

presenting

varying

images

of

existence,

the artist

bids it

farewell;

the

work

closes

'dying away' [ersterbend]."" Similarly

invoking

the connection with Das

Lied,

but

also

quoting

almost verbatim from

Specht,

Bekker

(in 1921)

wrote

about

the

Ninth as "the

apotheosis of Death," as a "Kindertotenlied,"

and,

by

using

an allusion to the titles of the

Third

Symphony,

he

proposed

that

"the un-

written

title of the Ninth could be 'Was

mir

der

Tod

erziihlt'

[What

Death told

me]."'2

All sub-

sequent

discussions

of the

meaning

of this

sym-

phony

were

tinged by

these first accounts.

A different

type

of evidence

unexpectedly

reinforced the

farewell

story:

the

personal

effu-

sions written by Mahler himself on the draft

scores

of the Ninth and Tenth

Symphonies

(omitted

in

the

final

scores).'3

Specht,

who

ap-

parently

had access to some

of

Mahler's manu-

scripts

immediately

after the

composer's

death,

was the first

to allude

to

a connection

between

the words "Leb'wohl

mein

Saitenspiel"

in-

scribed

by

Mahler on a

sketch for

the Tenth

Symphony,

and the

spiritual

content of the late

VERA

MICZNIK

Story

of

Mahler's

Ninth

9"Es ist der Ausdruck einer unerhdrten Liebe zu dieser

Erde,

die

Sehnsucht,

in

Frieden

auf

ihr zu

leben, sie,

die

Natur,

noch

auszugeniessen

bis

in

ihre tiefsten

Tiefen-

bevor der Tod kommt."

"Wo mitten

hinein

in

die

tiefste,

schmerzvollste Lebenslust

'mit

h6chster

Gewalt' der

Tod

sich anmeldet."

"Die immer

wie neue

Aufwallungen

ausbrechenden

Steigerungen

nach den zartesten Stellen"

(letter

to

his

wife

dating

presumably

from

the autumn of

1912:

see Alban

Berg,

Briefe

an seine Frau

[Munich,

1965],

p.

238).

l0Berg's

"reading"

was made

public

for the

first time

only

in

the issue

of

23,

Eine Wiener

Musikzeitschrift

nos.

26/27

(8 June 1936). See Henry-Louis de La Grange, Gustav

Mahler:

Chronique

d'une

vie,

vol.

III:Le

genie

foudroyd:

(1907-1911)

(Paris,

1984),

p.

1180.

"Guido

Adler,

Gustav

Mahler,

trans. as Gustav

Mahler

and

Guido

Adler: Records

of

a

Friendship,

ed. and

trans.

EdwardR.

Reilly (Cambridge,1982), pp.

61

and

69.

'2Paul

Bekker,

Gustav

Mahlers

Sinfonien (Meisenheim,

Glan,

1921;

rpt. Tutzing,

1969),

pp.

339-40. It is worth

noting

that in their

analyses Specht,Adler,

and Bekker

do

not

go through

the trouble of

arguing

how death

and

fare-

well are incorporatedwithin the musical substance. That

the

music was about

these matters is taken as

a

given,

as

an

axiom that does not

need

to

be

demonstrated.

'3In

he orchestral

draft of the first

movement,

the

follow-

ing inscriptions appear:

above

the

equivalent

of mm. 267-

71

in

the

final

score-"O

Jugendzeit

Entschwundene

O

Liebe

Verwehte "

(0,

youth

Vanished

Oh,

Love Blown

away );

and

above

the

equivalent

of

mm. 436-38-"Leb

wol

[sic],

Leb wol "

(Farewell,

Farewell).

See Gustav

Mahler,

IX.

Symphonie:

Partiturentwurf

der ersten drei

Sidtze,

Faksimile

nach der

Handschrift,

ed.

Erwin Ratz

(Vienna,1971),1/29

and

1/52;

and Hans Heinrich

Eggebrecht,

Die Musik Gustav Mahlers(Munich, 1982), p. 29. Similar

inscriptions appear

in

the draft score of

the last move-

ment: above mm. 159-61-"O

Schonheit "

(O,

Beauty);

above

mm.

159-60-"Liebe "

(Love );

above

mm. 162-68

"Lebtwol Lebt wol "

[sic]

(Farewell;

or is it

perhaps

a

pun

on

"lives

well"?);

above m. 178-"Welt "

(World);

nd

above

mm. 180-81-"Lebe

wohl "

(Farewell).

For a

description

of the

draft score of the fourth movement of

the

sym-

phony

recently

discovered

by

Henry-Louis

de

La

Grange,

see

James

L.

Zychowicz,

"The

Adagio

of Mahler's

Ninth

Symphony:

A

PreliminaryReport

on the

Partiturentwurf,"

in Revue

Mahler

Review

1

(1987),

77-91.

For the

inscrip-

tions on the sketches of the Tenth Symphony,see Gustav

Mahler,

X.

Symphonie,

Faksimile nach der

Handschrift,

ed.

ErwinRatz

(Munich, 1967).

147


6/24

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

works.14

Of

course,

Specht interpreted

these

"painfully

leave-taking

words" as Mahler's ex-

plicit

musical

farewell to

life.

(Curiously,

he

seems not to have known the

inscriptions

on

the Ninth Symphonydraft.)Moreinfluentially,

the Dutch conductor Willem

Mengelberg,

Mahler's friend and

partisan,

used the

inscrip-

tions on

the drafts and

sketches as evidence for

the musical

meanings

he tried to communicate

in

his

interpretive performing

decisions. On

the score

of the Ninth

Symphony

from

which

he conducted

in

1918,

Mengelberg

inscribed

programmatic

remarks

similar to those found

in Mahler's

manuscripts:

for

example,

"9te

symphonie

ist:

Abschied von

allen die Er

iebte,

von

der

Welt";

and

[in

the fourth

movement]

"Mahlers Seele

singt

ihren Abschied "

Mengelberg explicitly

connects

these remarks

to

Mahler himself

by

noting

that

they "origi-

nate

in

sketches

and

manuscripts

which

I

stud-

ied

thoroughly,

given

to

me

in

Vienna

by

Alma

M."'5 Endowing

Mahler's

markings

with the

status of

highest

historical

authenticity

because

they supposedly

revealed the

composer's

mind

at its

closest,

Mengelberg

performed

Mahler's

Ninth

with the

slowest

tempi

in

history,

thus

initiating

a

lasting

trend

in

its

performance

practice,

strongly

affected

by

the

initial

recep-

tion

of the

symphony

as

Mahler's

tragic

and

grievous

swan

song.16

With the

rekindling

of

interest

in

Mahler

after the

Second World

War,

the increased at-

tention

given

to

original

manuscripts

as evi-

dence for the

interpretation

of

the music led to

a wide dissemination of the contents of these

inscriptions.

At the same

time,

the

develop-

ment of

analytical

methodologies

concentrat-

ing uniquely

on the

structural or

stylistic

char-

acteristics of the work led

analysts

either to

ignore

the farewell

story

as irrelevant

to

a

purely

musical

analysis,

or

to

attempt

to reconcile

the

two

meanings

by

looking

for the roots of the

extramusical

story

in

the music

itself.

Paradoxically,analysis eventually

brought

to

light

what

appeared

to be still more evidence

supporting

the

original

farewell

story:

a musi-

cal

"discovery"

seemed to

provide

a final solu-

tion to the farewell

puzzle.

In

1956

Hans Redlich

pointed

out that the

passage

in the first

move-

ment of the Ninth

Symphony

where Mahler

had inscribed

his

first

"Leb'wol "

in the or-

chestral draft

presents,

in

fact,

motivic

simi-

larities to Beethoven's Piano

Sonata,

op.

81a,

"Les Adieux."

In

the context of

the

already

established

myth,

Redlich

gave

this observa-

tion

more than

just

a

musical

significance:

he

wrote that "to

quote

the motif used

by

Mahler

is to show that he made this allusion

quite

deliberately

and was

fully

conscious of

its

im-

plications."

Thus

he identified what

he

thought

were Mahler's

intentions,

by underlining

how

"unmistakably

the

imprint

of death had

stamped Symphony

IX"and

by remarking

that

"the

ubiquitousness

of death

is here even

more

noticeable

than

in

the former

work

[Das

Lied

von

der

Erde]."'17

orthose

who took for

granted

the "farewell"

meaning,

this was

a definitive

14Specht,

Mahler

(1913),p.

356.

'sFor

a

complete

account

of the

inscriptions

on

Mengelberg's

core,

see

Peter

Andraschke,

Gustav

Mahlers

IX.

Symphonie:

Kompositionsprozess

und

Analyse

(Wiesbaden, 1976),

pp.

80-84

(quotes,

p.

81).

A

partial

ac-

count

in

Englishappears

n

Zychowicz,

"Adagio

f

Mahler's

Ninth,"

p.

90,

andin

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler,

English

rans.,

pp.

273-74

(Germanedn., pp.

268-69). Mengelberg

oo con-

fuses the sketches for

the last two

symphonies,

as the

inscription

"Leb'

wohl

mein

Saitenspiel" appeared

on

the

sketches for the Tenth, and not for the Ninth Symphony,

as he seems to

imply.

16The

tempi given

here

are from

Andraschke,

Gustav

Mahler

IX.

Symphonie,

p.

84:

Mengelberg

movt.

I

34'

(Walter

1961,

29'15",

and

Bernstein, 28'15");

movt.

II

18"

(Walter

17'35",

Bernstein

15'48");

movt.

III 17'

(Walter

13',

Bernstein

12'28");

movt.

IV

26'

(Walter 21',

Bernstein

22'55").

A

totally

different

side

of Mahler's

music surfaces

when the

symphony

is

played

with faster

tempi.

For dis-

cussions of the

need for a

reappraisal

of the

performance

practice

of Mahler's

symphonies

in

light

of their

content

of

ideas,

and,

in

particular

for

an

argument

in

favor

of

faster tempi for the Adagietto of Mahler'sFifth, see Paul

Banks, "Aspects

of Mahler's

Fifth

Symphony:

Performance

Practice and

Interpretation,"

Musical Times 130

(1989),

258-65; and GilbertE. Kaplan,"FromMahlerwith Love,"

in

Adagietto:

Facsimile,

Documentation,

Recording,

ed.

Kaplan

New York, 1992), pp.

11-29.

Foran excellent

dis-

cussion of

tempo

in

performance

practice

(focusing

on "au-

thentic"

performance

practice

of

Beethoven),

see

Richard

Taruskin,

"Beethoven

Symphonies:

The

New

Antiquity,"

Opus

3

(1987),31-43,

63.

17H.

R.

Redlich,

Bruckner

and

Mahler

(London,

1963), pp.

220,

226. Musical

examples

pointing

to this

connection

can

also be

found

in

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler,

English

trans.,

p.

281

(German

edn.,

pp.

276-77),

and,

together

with

a

more

detailed

discussion

of the

relationship

between

op.

81a and this passage,in my, "Is Mahler'sMusic Autobio-

graphical?

A

Reappraisal,"

Revue

Mahler

Review

1

(1987),

53-61.

148


7/24

confirmation of

Mahler's wish to communi-

cate his death

premonitions

to the

world.18

One can

argue

that

since the

practice

of

using

plots to describe the musical meaning of an

instrumental

work was a common critical

methodin the nineteenth

century,

there is noth-

ing

unusual about this

approach

to Mahler.

What is unusual

here, however,

is the consis-

tent transmission

of

the

same

story

line, and,

moreover,

of a

story

whose content

is

more

concrete

by

far than

the

archetypal plots

such

as

"struggle-victory"

often

assigned

to

sym-

phonies of Beethoven or Schumann.19The case

of the farewell

story

seems to

be different.

The

reconstruction

of the context

and

moti-

vations

leading

to the

farewell

story

suggests

that the

early

critics

who

appreciated

the man

and his

music could

not

dissociate their

griev-

ing at the unfortunate loss of the man from the

appreciation

of his work.

Despite

Specht's

and

Berg's

occasional

musically

informed com-

ments,

it is

obvious that such

fictional

descrip-

tions could not have been

derived

through

purely

musical

analytical

reasoning

but,

rather,

that

these

musicians'

vision of

the

symphony

was

affected

by

their

personal feelings

of

dis-

tress over Mahler's

death.

This

complex

mecha-

nism has been called by W. K. Wimsatt and

Monroe

Beardsley

"the affective

fallacy":

the

projectionby

critics of

their own

feelings

onto

works of art and then the

reading

of these feel-

ings

into their critical

interpretation.

The

con-

sequence

of such an

approach,

Wimsatt and

Beardsley note,

is a

"confusion between the

[work]

and its

results,"

and,

consequently,

the

derivation

of

"the standard of

criticism from

the psychological effects of the [work].

20

The farewell

story

was reinforced

by

another

historiographical

prejudice-that

of

giving privi-

leged

status

to

contemporary nterpretations

as

undeniable

proof

of

historical

authenticity.

Under the illusion that

contemporaries

under-

stood the

composer

best, and, thus,

that their

interpretation

was

inevitably

the

most "cor-

rect,"

subsequent

critics

followed the same sto-

ries of reception, invested them with the au-

thority

of historical

authenticity,

and

gave

them

absolute aesthetic

value

as well. The

point

is

not

whether the

contemporary

accounts were

"right"

or

"wrong,"

but ratherthat

they

do

not

constitute the definitive

answer for the inter-

pretation

of

a

work.21

VERA

MICZNIK

Story

of

Mahler's

Ninth

'"The

transmission of these ideas informs even the more

recent extensive

analyses

of the

expressive meaning

of the

Ninth

by

Jack

Diether

in

"The

Expressive

Content of

Mahler's

Ninth: An

Interpretation,"

Chordand Discord

2

(1963),

69-107;

and

by

David

B.

Greene,

Mahler,

Con-

sciousness

and

Temporality

(New

York, 1984), chap.

4.

Unlike earlier

writings,

both

these

analyses

have

attempted

to derive the expressive meanings from close analysis of

the music.

Both writers

suggest

that two motives

that

pervade

the four movements of

the

symphony-the

de-

scending

motives

3-2-i

(called by

Greene

the

"Lebewohl"

motive)

and

3-2

(called

by

both the

"Ewig" motive,

in

reference to

its

similarity

to

the

ending

of Das

Lied)--

incorporate

musically

the

"gesture

of farewell."

In addi-

tion,

Greene believes that

"by

Mahler's

day,

[the

"Lebewohl"]

motive had become

a

conventional

way

of

alluding

to the word 'Lebewohl"'

(pp.

263-64).

Besides

the

problems

raised

by

the mechanical translation of

motivic

similarities from

music with

words

(Das Lied)

or

from

music with a disputableprogramBeethoven's"LesAdieux"

Sonata),

into semantic

meanings

of a

nonprogrammatic

piece,

it

is

obvious

that

both Diether's

and Greene's con-

ceptions

are marked

by

their a

prioriknowledge

of Mahler's

alleged psychological

obsession

with

death,

as

originating

in

the

reception story. Inevitably dependent

on this as-

sumption

for Diether

is the claim

that

"Der Abschied"

from Das Lied von der

Erde

is "Mahler's arewell

to 'the

beloved

earth',"

and that the

Ninth

Symphony

is

perme-

ated

by

the "funereal read"

p. 74)

of its

opening,

reflecting

"Mahler'swhole

perspective

... altered

by

his sentence of

death"

(p.

81).

Similarly,

Mahler's "evocation

of a

gentle

resignation [is transformed] nto a fiercecryof anguish"(p.

77).

For

Greene

too,

the

knowledge

of the

biographical

myth

governs

the musical sense: since "the

composer

of

the Ninth

Symphony

was a

dying

man,"

the work contains

Mahler's "final farewell and the

anticipation

of

death"

(p.

275).

I

am

citing

here

only

the studies that

in

their

dealing

with the

issue

of

the

extramusical

meanings

of

the Ninth

aremost influenced

by

the transmissionof the earlier deas.

For another view of

farewell, death,

and

transfiguration

as

central

topoi

in Mahler

reception,

see

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler

(German,

pp.

267-70,

English,

pp.

272-77).

"1See, .g.,

Anthony

Newcomb,

"Schumann

and

Late

Eigh-

teenth-CenturyNarrativeStrategies,"his journal11(1987),

164-74;

and

Scott

Burnham,

Beethoven Hero

(Princeton,

N.J.,

1995).

20W.

K.

Wimsatt,

Jr.

and Monroe C.

Beardsley,

"The Affec-

tive

Fallacy"

in

Critical

Theory

since

Plato,

ed. Hazard

Adams

(New

York, 1971),

p.

1022.

Published

also in

Wimsatt and

Beardsley,

The Verbal Icon: Studies

in

the

Meaning

of

Poetry

(Lexington,

Ky., 1954),

p.

21.

21As

Dahlhaus

explains,

the

"authorityprinciple"

that un-

derlies historians' "mortal fear"

of

disparaging

"authen-

tic"

opinions,

and

their manifest

acceptance

of

"the

ori-

gins

of

a

view as a

seal

of its

authenticity" prevents them,

in

fact,

from

giving

a

view

of their

own

(Foundations,

p.

159).

And

also,

"documents on

contemporary

reactions

or

statements from composers as to their professed inten-

tions are

nothing

more than material

for

the

historian,

and

they

are not the final arbiter of his

interpretation" (pp.

149


8/24

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

Just

as

important

for

the

understanding

of

the

origins

of the

farewell

story

is

acknowledg-

ing

the distinction

between

the

historical con-

texts of the

various

interpretations,

and the

intrinsic signifying qualities of the work itself,

a

distinction

that

has been

blurred

in

the un-

critical

manipulation

of the

story.

For the

story

that

the

critics

tell

about the music

converges

around the

biographical

event-Mahler's

de-

parture

from

this world-that

is

wrapped

onto

the music.

The

story

thus

asks our assent

on

grounds originating

in

the

facts

surrounding

the

work,

rather than

in the work itself.

The

approach

to

meaning displayed

by

the

promot-

ers of

the farewell

story especially

in

the

early

stages,

subordinates

the aesthetic

autonomy

of

the

work to the

sociobiographical

context

in

which it

originated.

Standing

exactly

at the

opposite

pole,

Carl

Dahlhaus

exemplifies

an

understandable

reaction of the critics

in the

mid-twentieth

century

to this

so-called

subjec-

tive

nineteenth-century

criticism,

when

he

states that "the

meaning

of a work resides in

its

aesthetic

essence,

not

in its

historical

reper-

cussions."22

He

thus

elevates the

meaning

of

the

work above its

context.

Such extreme

positions

become

more

recon-

cilable

if

the

ideologies

that

support

them

are

understood.

Conforming

to the

progressive,

"positivist"

trend

in humanistic

disciplines

at

the

time,

late-nineteenth-century ideology

ad-

vocated the

search for the

recovery

of the

composer's

intentions. Within

this

system,

the

early

critics

based their

story

on what

they

thought

was

in Mahler's

mind

while

he wrote

the

symphony,

and

on the

assumption

that

this

was translated

directly

into

the music.

Thus

the

popularized

versions

of Mahler's

personal

problems

during

his last

years

constituted

evi-

dence

for

the

composer's

obsession

with

death,

and the late works were

a

review

of the

story

of

his

life,

a

saying

of

farewell,

and an

anticipa-

tion

of his

end. The

method

by

which such

assertions are made relies on inferences about

the composer's intentions, but it lacks "crite-

ria

for

distinguishing

this

intention

from

an

interpretation

advanced

by

an historian

which

is

equally

in

harmony

with

the received

text."23

Moreover,

as will be

seen,

the

"external

sources"-that

is,

the circumstantial

biographi-

cal

evidence

supposedly

documenting

Mahler's

intentions-do not

necessarily

prove,

or even

support,

the

assumptions

of the critics.

Attempting

to counter such extreme

opposi-

tions between

context

and

content,

Hans

Rob-

ert

Jauss

formulates

a

more

comprehensive

view,

which better establishes

the

balance

be-

tween the

sociobiographical

ontext

of the

work

and

the "aesthetic

autonomy"

of

the musical

text.

He

proposes

that

the

understanding

of

a

text

should not be reduced to the

"knowledge

of

the facts"

surrounding

the

text,

but

should

consist of a constant "confrontation"of those

facts

with

the text

itself.24

Such

confrontations

offer different

interpretations

by

readers

of dif-

ferent

periods,

which

form a

historical

series

exemplifying

the

Wirkungsgeschichte

(the

ef-

fective

history)

or

the

afterlife of a

work,

result-

ing

from

particular

subjects'

interactions

with

it.

Borrowing

rom

Collingwood

the

concept

of

historical

mediation

through

question

and

an-

swer, Jauss

conceives the historical

continuity

between

the

past

work and its

progressive

in-

terpretations

as various answers

given

to the

questions

posed

by

the

same

"aesthetic

object"

to various

generations:

"Forthe

implicit

ques-

tion,

which

in

fact

is what

first awakens

our

present

interest

in

the

past

work,

can be

ob-

tained

only through

the

answer that

the

aes-

thetic

object,

in its

present

materialization,

holds or seems to

hold

ready

for

us."25

With

respect

to the

farewell

story

of Mahler's

Ninth,

159-60).

Using

a

different

type

of

argument,

Zoltan Ro-

man

similarly

dismisses

the farewell

meaning

of

Das

Lied.

See

his

paper

"Between

Jugendstil

and

Expressionism:

The

Orient

as

Symbol

and

Artifice

in Das

Lied von der Erde

or: 'Warum

ist Mahlers

Werk so schwer

verstindlich'."

Thanks to

Professor

Roman for

allowing

me to read a

version

of

this

paper

delivered

at

the International

Musi-

cological Society

Meeting

in

Osaka,

July

1990,

before

its

publication in the proceedingsof that conference.

22See

Carl

Dahlhaus,

Foundatiolns

of

Music

History,

trans.

J.

B. Robinson

(Cambridge,

1983), p.

133,

but also 27-28.

3Ibid.,

p.

159.

24Hans

Robert

Jauss,

Toward

an Aesthetic

of Reception,

trans.Timothy Bahti(Minneapolis,1982), p. 21.

25Jauss,

History

of Art and

Pragmatic

History,"

n

ibid., pp.

68-69.

150


9/24

Jauss's

view

suggests

that,

without

considering

the "answers"

given

by

the

early

critics to

the

"questions"

posed

by

the Ninth

Symphony,

we

would not

interrogate

the work the

way

we do

today. Once the various (contextual) answers

have

become common

knowledge,

"individual

disruptions"continuously

transformthem

into

new

questions

and

this,

in

turn,

keeps

alive

the

interest

in

the work. This

approach

then al-

lows

both text and context to

participate

in

the

interpretation

and thus counters the

prioritiz-

ing

of one

interpretation

over

another,

acknowl-

edging

that a work's

meanings

are not

fixed,

or

inherent in either the work itself or in its origi-

nal

context.

Regarding

historical

relevance, intention,

and

position

between "text" and

"context,"

Mahler's

inscriptions

on the scores

occupy

an

especially

precarious place.

As

comments

writ-

ten

in

the musical text

(even

though

not

in

the

final

text),

they

could

belong

to the

text,

in

which

case

they

should

be

incorporated

n

the

musical understanding just as a programwould

be. On

the other

hand,

because

they

are verbal

and

thus

express

the

composer's

nonmusical

thoughts, they

could

have

the status of

private

contextual/biographical

evidence similar to

let-

ters.

Further

yet,

because these

inscriptions ap-

pear

above

certain

passages

of

the

music,

it is

tempting

to consider them

part

of the

"explana-

tory"

section of the

text,

the

composer's

own

"reception," and this is how they have been

generallyinterpreted.

Unlike the

letters,

which

refer

mostly

to events exterior to

Mahler's

work

on the

Ninth

Symphony,

the

inscriptions

cre-

ate an

interesting dialogue

between

the com-

poser

and

his own text. But

the "truth" meant

in

that

dialogue

with

regard

to the

meaning

of

the music will never

be known as it is not

known

exactly

what

Mahler

hadin

mind

when

he wrote them: Did he refer to the

genesis

of

his musical

ideas? Did

he

try

to tell what the

music

meant? Did

he

mean to record what was

going through

his head as he was

composing

the

music?

Despite

these

ambiguities,

the

in-

scriptions

were

given

a

privileged position by

the

advocates of the "farewell"

meaning,

for

whom,

according

to the laws of historical au-

thenticity

outlined

above,

they

had the

status

of

nearly

sacred

testimony

for the "true" mean-

ing

of

the Ninth

Symphony.

To

circumvent such

unsystematic

privileg-

ing

of

the

context,

which

at

every step

has

contributed to the

reinforcement of

the fare-

well

myth,

a better

understanding

of

the rela-

tionship between a text and its accessories is

necessary.

In his book

Seuils,

G6rard

Genette

offers an

ingenious interpretation

of this

rela-

tionship.

He

identifies what

he calls

"the

paratext"-a

broad

category

of

"productions

.

..

such as the name of the

author,

a

title,

a

preface,

illustrations . . .

which . .

surround

and

prolong [the

text],

precisely

in

order to

present it,

.

.

. to

ensure its

presence

in

the

world, its reception andits consumption." The

paratext

is "a

threshold

[seuil]

. . . an

'indeci-

sive zone'

between the inside and

the

outside

[of

the

text],

without a

rigorous

border either

towards the interior

(the

text)

or

toward the

exterior

(the

discourse

of

the world

about the

text).

. . . This

fringe [of

the

text]

. .

always

bearing

an authorial

commentary, constitutes,

between text and

con-text,

a zone

not

only

of

transition, but also of transaction:a privileged

place

of

pragmatics

and

strategy,

of an

action

upon

the

public

in

the service . . . of

a

better

reception

of

the

text."

Among

the

various sub-

categories

of

"paratext,"

Genette differentiates

between

the

"private

pitext"

consisting

of

com-

mentaries about the work

made

by

the

author

to other

people (e.g.,

in

letters addressed

to

a

correspondent,

or

a

confidant),

and

the "inti-

mate epitext," in which "the author addresses

[himself]

to himself." To

this

latter

category

belong any

comments

inscribed

before,

during,

or

after the

conception

of the

work,

within

manuscripts,

diaries,

or other

such

documents,

"with

or

without the

intention of

ulterior

pub-

lication-the

intention does

not

always guar-

antee the

effect."

Obviously,

Mahler's

inscrip-

tions were

addressed

to

himself,

as he

decided

not to inscribe them in the final

score,

and,

therefore,

they belong

to the

paratextual

"inti-

mate

epitext."

The violation of the

composer's

intentions

by making

those

inscriptions public

does not

change

their

original function;

they

remain a

"paratext... [and thus] only

an auxil-

iary,

an

accessory

to the text." What the critics

have done is

precisely

what Genette warns

people

to

be careful

about,

that

is,

not to let

any

type

of

paratext

"run

over its function and

act as a

screen,

thus

over-playing

its

part

at the

VERA

MICZNIK

Story

of

Mahler's Ninth

151


10/24

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

expense

of

that of its

text."26Thus

no

matter

how

thought provoking

these

inscriptions are,

the automatic

assumption

that

they

communi-

cate

Mahler's

farewell to

the world is mislead-

ing: since we can only speculate about their

meaning,

they

cannot

be

considered

n

any way

as definitive

in

the evaluation of the

final

work.27

Studying

the role of

the

history

of

reception

in

the critical

appreciation

of a

work is of

unde-

niable

importance. Indeed,

this

reevaluation of

the

context and

motivations behind

the

fare-

well story enables us to understandwhy con-

temporary

critics

resorted to

extramusical,

bio-

graphical nterpretations;but,

at the same

time,

it

points

to the need of

being receptive

to other

interpretations

as well. For the

various

recep-

tions are

interpretive

readings

of the

musical

work,

determined

by

evolving

special

circum-

stances and

ideology.2s

Like

other

"interpreta-

tions

made

by

historians,"

the farewell

story

constitutes a historical fact that is "made

part

of an historical

narrative,

or

a

description

of

an

historical

structure."" But

the historical struc-

ture to which this

historical fact

belongs

is

the

history

of

reception (i.e.,

of

interpretations

of

the

music),

which

does not

necessarily

coin-

cide with the historical structure

resulting

from

the

interpretation

of

"documents."

In

order to

revise the

premise

often taken

for

granted,

that

the

reception story

and the

story

told

by

the

historical documents are one and the same

thing,

the next

part

of

this article

will counter

the

gloomy biographical

vision

suggested

by

the

history

of

reception

with the one

resulting

from the

documentary

informationwe

possess.

WHATTHEHISTORICALVENTS

ELL

US

Most

of Mahler's

Ninth

Symphony

was

writ-

ten

during

the summer

of

1909.

At least

part

of

Mahler's

process

of work

on the

symphony

has

survived

in the

form of sketches

and an orches-

tral

draft,

whose

last

page

bears

the date

of its

completion-2 September

1909.30

Revisions

and

orchestration

continued

throughout

the

winter

of

1909

and

during

the

spring

of

1910.

On

1

April 1910,

Mahler

announced

to Bruno

Walter

from New York:

"The fair

copy

of

my

Ninth

is

26"[Ce

texte se

pr6sente

rarement

g

l'6tat

nu,

sans le renfort

et

l'accompagnement

d'un

certain

nombre

de]

productions

.

.

. comme un

nom

d'auteur,

un

titre,

une

pr6face,

des

illustrations . . . qui . l'entourent et le prolongent,

pr6cisement

pour

le

presenter,

....

pour

assurersa

pr6sence

au

monde,

sa

'r6ception'

et sa consommation." "Un seuil.

.'zone

ind6cise' entre le dedans et le

dehors,

elle-meme

sans limite

rigoureuse,

ni

vers

l'int6rieur

(le

texte)

ni

vers

l'exterieur

(le

discours

du monde sur le

texte).

....

Cette

frange

. .

.

toujours porteuse

d'un commentaire

auctorial,

.

constitue,

entre text

et

hors-texte,

une zone non

seulement de

transition,

mais de transaction: ieu

privilkgi6

d'une

pragmatique

et d'une

strategie,

d'une action

sur

le

public

au service

. . .

d'un meilleur

accueil

du texte." "Le

paratexte

n'est

qu'un

auxiliaire,qu'un

accessoiredu texte."

And "le paratextetend parfoisa d6border a fonction et

a

se constituer

en

6cran,

et

des

lors

a

jouer

sa

partie

au

detriment

de

celle de

son

texte"

(Gerard

Genette,

Seuils

[Paris, 1987],

pp.

7, 7-8, 355, 376).

27In

ny case,

if

the

inscriptions

were

to become

profitable

for

interpretation, they

should be

qualified

more atten-

tively.

In

my

opinion,

the "Leb'wohl"

nscriptions

on

the

draft

score

of the Ninth

Symphony

and

"Leb'wohl

mein

Saitenspiel"

and

the

other

inscriptions

from

the

sketches

for

the Tenth

Symphony

do not have

the same

meaning.

Since

in the Ninth

Symphony

the "Les Adieux

cell"

(a

descending

linear motive

3-2-1

supportedby

a

I,

V,

WVI

progression)s so important hroughoutall the movements,

it seems

likely

that in this case the

inscription

may,

in-

deed,

have referred

o Beethoven's

op.

81a: Mahler's

mark-

ing

"Leb'wohl"

might

have

corresponded

o

his

own

rev-

elation

or

acknowledgment

that

he was

"quoting"

he

pre-

existent motive.

If one follows this train of

thought,

the

reappearance

of

the

"Lebewohl"

inscription

on the last

page

of the last movement

over the turn motives

(4--2-3-

in

mm.

162-63 and

6-5-4-5

in

m.

180),

which

are

embel-

lished versions of the

3-_

suspension

of the first move-

ment,

can

be

also

explained

as Mahler's

acknowledgment

of this connection

to himself.

Along

the same

lines,

most

of the passagesof the Ninth's last pageoverwhich Mahler

inscribed the words

"Schbnheit, Liebe,

Welt" bear close

resemblance

to

passages

with the

same words

in

the last

movement

of Das Lied von der

Erde,

which address

the

delight

and

beauty

of life.

(Compare

mm. 265-76 of "Der

Abschied," bearing

the

words

"O,

Schonheit,

o

ewigen

Liebens,

Lebens drunk'ne Welt "

with

the last

page

of the

Ninth: in both the

ascending

sixth motive

and

the

turn

motive

play

a

predominant

role.)

On the other

hand,

the

inscription

on the

Tenth

Symphony

sketches

might

be

directly

connected

with

Mahler's state of mind.

At that

time

he

was

going

through

a

marital

crisis and feared os-

ing Alma. The lines present a strikingresemblanceto the

lines from

a

poem

he wrote

to

Alma

around

that time:

"Holdeste,

Liebste

Mein

Saitenspiel

etc."

So the lines

could

possibly

be addressed

to Alma. See

Alma

Mahler,

Gustav

Mahler:

Memories

and

Letters,

Donald

Mitchell,

trans.

Basil

Creighton

(enlarged

ev. edn. New

York,

1969),

p.

334.

28See

auss,

Aesthetic

of Reception, p.

25.

29Leo

Treitler, quoting

Droysen

in "What

Kind

of

Story

is

History?" n Music and the Historical Imagination (Cam-

bridge,

Mass., 1989), p.

172.

30See

Zychowicz,

"Adagio

of

Mahler's

Ninth

Symphony."

152


11/24

finished.

"31

Let

us

attempt

to

reconstruct,

inso-

far

as the

available

documentation

allows,

Mahler's life

during

the

period

of

gestation

of

the Ninth

Symphony.

Concerning the state of Mahler'shealth, we

know from de La

Grange's

research that

the

heart

problem

diagnosed

sometime

before

17

July

1907

was in fact

what

is

commonly

called

a

"heartmurmur"

(a

name borrowed

from the

manifestation

of the

disorder

through

which

it

is

normally

detected), or,

in

medical

terminol-

ogy,

a

"mitral valve

insufficiency"

(a

malfunc-

tioning

of the heart

valves),

which

was

prob-

ably due to a bacterial infection duringMahler's

childhood,

but

which was now no

longer

mani-

fest.32

Mahler's death

less than

four

years

later

was

provoked by

a bacterial

endocarditis

origi-

nating

in

a

throat

streptococcus

infection that

ultimately

attacked

his heart and

other

organs,

and which

could not

be

treated because

antibi-

otics had

not

yet

been

discovered.33

Here it

would

be

tempting

to

take the

fact

that Mahler did not die of a heart disease, as

the

critics

thought,

as evidence

for the false

premises

on

which the

farewell

story

was

based.

Yet

we must remind

ourselves that the

reestab-

lishment

of the

actual medical

history

is

im-

portant mostly

for our own

elucidation-today's

medical

knowledge

cannot and

should not be

used

in

arguments

against

the

history

of

recep-

tion. The

early

critics were not

concerned with

reconstituting the medical or historical truth:

their

historical

facts were

Mahler's

alleged

re-

actions

to the heart

diagnosis,

which

they

worked

into

a

mythical

and

fictional,

rather

than

a

historical

and

documentary,

plot.34

Nor

does our

present

knowledge

that the

original

illness was not as dangerousas it might have

seemed at the time

change

the

way

in

which

its

discovery

might

have

affected

Mahler's

psyche.

The medical information

documenting

the extent to which Mahler

was

practically

affected

by

the

supposed

illness

does,

however,

help

us counteract the

view

embedded in

the

farewell

story,

that

the last four

years

of

Mahler's

life

were

spent

under the

shadow

of

death, a view for which the illness itself with

its

manifestations

was not so

much

respon-

sible,

but,

rather,

Alma's confident

post-factum

assertion that "this

verdict

[the

heart

diagno-

sis]

marked

the

beginning

of

the

end

of

Mahler."35

De La

Grange

has

attempted

to

de-

stroy

the fiction

of Mahler's heart

disease,

ar-

guing

that

Alma

intentionally

exaggerated

her

husband's

physical

and

psychological decline,

thus hoping to justify in the face of the world

her

affair with

Walter

Gropius

during

the

last

year

of Mahler's

life.36But

regardless

of

Alma's

intentions,

it

is

important

to show

the

discrep-

ancies between

the facts

and the

myth

of

the

reception

history.

Although

few of

Mahler's

comments

show-

ing

his reaction

to his heart

problem survive,

the

story

emerging

from

the

historical

data is

quite different from that of the work's recep-

tion.

This examination of

the

documents

avail-

able

(what

Mahler

wrote to

people

during

the

conception

of the Ninth

Symphony,

and

what

people

said

about him

during

hat

period)

should

be undertaken

with

full awareness

that

we

might

be

missing

some other

information

that

has not

survived

in

documents,

and

that,

there-

VERA

MICZNIK

Story of

Mahler's

Ninth

31Selected

Letters

of

Gustav

Mahler,

ed. Knud

Martner,

trans.

Eithne

Wilkins,

Ernst

Kaiser,

and Bill

Hopkins

(New

York,

1979), p.

355.

32For

urther medical

details,

see de

La

Grange,

Mahler,

vol.

III,

pp. 84-85,

and

958-61;

and The

Columbia

Univer-

sity

College

of

Physicians

and

Surgeons Complete

Home

Medical Guide (New York,1985),p. 376. According o this

Guide,

"In

many cases,

people

can have a

diseased

heart

valve

for

many years

without

suffering

any

symptoms

or

even

being

aware

of the

problem"

(pp. 375-76).

This was

Mahler's

case,

as

it was

by

pure

serendipity

and not

be-

cause of

any

symptoms

that this

disorderwas

discovered.

33While

t is true that

"endocarditismost

often occurs

in

patients

who

already

have a

damaged

heart

valve," yet

the

serious

streptococcus

infection that invaded

Mahler's

body

could have

killed

him

even if his

heart had been

healthy.

See

The

Columbia

Medical

Guide,

p.

387.

For

more medi-

cal

and other

details about

Mahler's final

illness,

see also

Gustav Mahler's American Years, 1907-1911: A Docu-

mentary

History,

ed. Zoltan Roman

(Stuyvesant, N.Y.,

1989),

docs.

547-48

[pp. 465-66].

34The

biographical tory

of Mahler'sheart disease

was

fur-

ther

promoted

by

Leonard

Bernstein,

and

it influenced

the

way

in

which

he

performed

Mahler,

continuing

the

"mourning"

style

set

up by

Mengelberg.

In the

opening

rhythm

of the

symphony,

Bernstein wanted his audience

to "hear

the

irregularheartbeats, you

hear the

goodbye"

(Leonard

Bernstein,

PBS

Broadcastof

the

Ninth

Symphony

with

the Vienna

Philharmonic).

35For

Alma's

story

of the

discovery

of the

heart

problem,

see Alma

Mahler,

Memories and

Letters,

p.

122.

36DeLaGrange,"InSearch orMahler,"a lecture given for

the New York Mahlerites

at the Austrian Institute

in

New

York,

on

3

February

1986.

153


12/24

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

fore,

even these

"facts" cannot

be said to

assess

the

"objective

truth."

The

first

tragic

event for

Mahler

during

the

summer

of

1907

was

the death of his elder

daughter, MariaAnna, on 12 July.The confir-

mation

of Mahler's

heart disease came a week

later.

Although

the latter news

and the

doctor's

recommendation

that

Mahler

change

his life

style

might

have

provoked

a

great shock,

Mahler's

silent,

interiorized

pain during

the

summer of

1907

described

in

Alma's and other

friends'

testimonies,

as well

as

his lack of mu-

sical

productivity

during

the

rest of the sum-

mer,

tells of a

deep psychological

trauma,

but

one

that

was

more

likely

connected with his

daughter's

death

than with the

heart

disease.37

The radical

changes

in

Mahler's

professional

situation

that

occurred

the next December

(his

departure

for

America

and

the

beginning

of a

new

engagement

with the

Metropolitan Opera)

absorbed

him

to

an

extent

that he

did

not

seem

to have

had much time to reflect

on

his life.

After

all,

since he never had

symptoms

of fa-

tigue

or

palpitations,

the

physical

and

psycho-

logical

adjustment

to the trauma of the

heart

diagnosis

became

simply

an

awareness

that

he

had to lead

a

more

cautious

and

self-preserving

life.3s

Having already

been

on the

verge

of

dy-

ing

from a

hemorrhage

in

1901,

he was

quite

used to

dealing

with the

impending

threat of

sickness.

A

glimpse

into

his

attitude

during

the

next

summer,

in

July

1908,

may

be

gained

from

Mahler's comments made

in

two letters to

Bruno

Walter,

an old

and

trusted

friend.

In the

first

letter,

written

from

Toblach,

Mahler'ssum-

mer

residence,

he

acknowledges

a certain

an-

noyance

at the

doctors'

advice that

he had to

change

his

way

of life:

"You can

imagine

how

hard

the latter

[changing

the

way

of

life]

comes

to

me. For

many years

I have been

used to

constant

and

vigorous

exercise

....

Now

I am

told

to avoid

any

exertion,

keep

a constant

eye

on

myself,

and

not

walk much."

In

the rest of

the

letter,

Mahler

confesses

that

he is not

in

the best of

moods,

particularly

because

"the

solitude,

in

which

my

attention is more turned

inward, makes me feel all the more distinctly

everything

that is not

right

with me

physi-

cally."

He

recognizes,

however,

that

perhaps

he

is

being

too

"gloomy,"

but

altogether

he

cannot hide that "since

I

have been in

the

coun-

try

I

have been

feeling

worse

than

I did in

town,

where all the

distractions

helped

to take

my

mind off

things."

The

new situation

pre-

vented

him

from

practicing

his

old

habits

of

sketching

while

walking

in the

mountains,

and

then

working

up

his

sketches at home.

"Even

spiritual indisposition

used

to

disappear

after a

good

trudge

(mostly

uphill)."39

As

it

appears

from Mahler's

next

letter,

Walter must have taken Mahler'swords to

con-

vey

a crisis much

more

serious

than were

in-

tended to

present

and read

into them

a

"sick-

ness of the

soul,"

as well as a fear

of

death,

recommending

such antidotes as a "Scandina-

vian

journey,"

and

reading

the "Dietetics

of

the

Soul

by

Feuchtersleben,"

all of which

Mahler ridiculed

in

his

reply:

I

couldn't

help

smiling

because seem to

noticethat

you

are

turning

my

own

weaponsagainst

me

..

What

s all this

about

he soul?

And

ts

sickness?

And

where should

I

find

a

remedy?

On

a

Scandinavian

journey?hemost hatcouldhavedone ormewould

havebeen

to

provide

me with some

distraction....

But

fundamentally

I

am

only speaking

in

riddles,

for

you

do not

know what

has

been

and

still is

going

on

within

me;

but it is

certainly

not that

hypochondriac

fear of

death,

as

you suppose.

I

had

already

realized

that

I

shall have

to

die....

Now at

the end

of

life

[I]

am

again

a

beginner

who must find his feet.

.

.

.

I

cannot

work at

my

desk.

My

mental

activity

must be

complemented

by physical

activity.40

37See

also,

e.g.,

de

La

Grange,

Mahler

III,pp.

81ff.

38Otto

Klemperer

mentions

that,

in his

conducting

style

during

his last

years,

Mahler

"was

very

economical

in his

movements, though

not as economical

as RichardStrauss."

Klemperer

attributes

this to the

fact

that

"he

[Mahler]

had

been told by doctorsthat he had a badheartandso he was

very

careful"

(see

Conversations

with

Klemperer,

ed. Pe-

ter

Heyworth

[rev.

edn.

London,

1985],

p.

30).

39Letter

o.

394

to

Bruno

Walter,

undated,

Toblach,

Sum-

mer

1908,

in Gustav

Mahler

Briefe,

ed. Herta

Blaukopf

(Vienna,

1982),

p.

341

(trans.

from Selected

Letters

of

Gustav

Mahler,

pp.

321-22).

40Letter o. 396 to

Bruno

Walter,

Toblach,

18

July

1908,

in

Mahler

Briefe,

ed.

Blaukopf, pp.

343-44;

trans.

from

Se-

lected Letters, p. 324. Parts of this letter appearalso in

Bruno

Walter,

Gustav

Mahler,

trans.

James

Galston

(New

York,

1973;

1st

edn.

New

York, 1941),

pp.

150-51.

154


13/24

It

se

the farewell story of mahler's ninth symphony

Documents