jwilzewske: mahler

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Philip West’s Chamber Ensemble Arrangement of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder

T he performances here, leaving aside the emotional circumstances of their provenance, are priceless. [DeGaetani’s] illness had done nothing to dim the lustrous quality of her instantly recognizable mezzo voice nor her impeccable musicianship. West’s chamber reductions of the orchestral scores are skillful and effective. This is one of my ‘desert isle’ recordings [ —one that, were I marooned on a desert isle, I would salvage as one of the but few things I could take with me from the wreck].”
— J. Scott Morrison, 2003.

I spend part of Easter Sunday listening to the chamber ensemble arrangements of Mahler’s ‘Fünf Lieder nach Texten von Friedrich Rückert’ by Jan DeGaetani’s husband, Philip West (oboe, English horn, shawm, and krummhorn; long-time Professor of chamber music at Eastman School of Music), sung by DeGaetani, accompanied by the Eastman Chamber Ensemble. These are the last recordings made by DeGaetani, several months before her death from leukemia. The recording was done in 1989 and released on Bridge Records in 1993. Coincidentally, Philip West died also of leukemia 14 years later, on 26-JUN-2004. He was 73. At the time of her death, she had been 56.

The movements are as follows:

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! − Do not look at my songs! (June 1901)
Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft − I breathed a gentle fragrance (July 1901)
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen − I am lost to the world (August 1901)
Um Mitternacht − At midnight (August 1901)
Liebst du um Schönheit − If you love for beauty (August 1902)

W est’s arrangements enhance the suppleness of line, delicacy of texture, and uncertainty of intermittent admixtures—they emphasize these qualities even more than in the original Mahler orchestrations.

In fact, if you hear DeGaetani’s rendering of the West arrangements, you will rethink whether the original full-orchestra Mahler manuscripts were as good as these—rethink whether any of the many superb orchestral performances of the originals are anywhere near this good. In some ways, West’s arrangements are like expert ‘novelizations’ of a screenplay—faithful transductions after-the-fact, which not only are true to the original intent but in many ways improve upon the originals or reveal shades and nuances that were not fully developed in them.

Chronologically, these lieder hail from a time in Mahler’s life when he was in progressively worse health, and the precariousness of his prognosis totally changed his outlook and his compositional style—from the more extroverted ‘early’ Mahler, to the introverted and otherworldly ‘late’ Mahler. Four of these five songs were written in the summer of 1901; Liebst du um Schönheit in summer of 1902. The first four were originally issued individually, in versions for voice with piano and orchestra; Liebst was only in piano manuscript and was orchestrated posthumously in 1916.

Unlike his ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’ or ‘Kindertotenlieder’, Mahler’s five Rückert Lieder do not form a cycle. And their other-worldliness is not some beatific transcendental vision; rather, it is an existential despair—a profound relinquishing; a near-total cessation of desire; a hebephrenic hymn, inconsolable, announcing the futility of any attempts to provide solace.

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder’ confides that the poet/composer/performer mistrusts her/his own judgment as frail or unreliable—confides an irreducible uncertainty, such that anything she/he might say does not bear overmuch scrutiny. A life’s story, retold in the waning days, may be marked by revisions and changed perceptions—priorities reset and substituted in recollection, priorities that may not have been quite as they are now being recounted.

The orchestral version of these lieder is thinly orchestrated—mostly single winds, horn, harp, plus a few violins and violas; in some songs a celesta is added. The string parts are ethereal, atmospheric. ‘Um Mitternacht’ is dark, midnightly in its coloration. Here, Mahler specified an orchestra without strings, just pairs of woodwinds (with a single oboe d’amore instead of an oboe section), three horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a solitary tuba, tympani, plus harp and piano.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’, the most hebephrenic, regressive, and despondent of the Rückert songs, is serene only by way of withdrawal from society. We infer that the withdrawal is natural result of the protagonist’s struggle in the preceding two stanzas. This song, dark and weighty, has an English horn but no flute. It presents a pensive upward melodic line, up from two notes to three, and then arcing toward the line’s melodic peak, followed by descent. This is beautiful in all of the various versions. But it seems best of all in a thinner chamber ensemble arrangement, like Philip West’s, or in the original piano version. The Jan DeGaetani—Eastman Ensemble performance (this arr. by Philip West) is my favorite. Or, a close ‘second’, the Lorraine Hunt Lieberson—Roger Vignoles one—also very intimate. In the case of the latter version, Lieberson’s own failing health informed her interpretation, in much the same manner as Jan DeGaetani’s health informed the 1989 Eastman performance. ‘Desert isle’ material, indeed!

Ich atmet' einen linden Duft!	I breathed a gentle fragrance!
Im Zimmer stand	In the room stood
Ein Zweig der Linde,	a sprig of linden,
Ein Angebinde	a gift
Von lieber Hand.	from a dear hand.
Wie lieblich war der Lindenduft!	How lovely was the fragrance of linden!

Wie lieblich ist der Lindenduft!	How lovely is the fragrance of linden!
Das Lindenreis	That twig of linden
Brachst du gelinde!	you broke off so gently!
Ich atme leis	Softly I breathe in
Im Duft der Linde	the fragrance of linden,
Der Liebe linden Duft.	the gentle fragrance of love.

Liebst du um Schönheit,	If you love for beauty,
O nicht mich liebe!	Oh, do not love me!
Liebe die Sonne,	Love the sun,
Sie trägt ein gold'nes Haar!	She has golden hair!

Liebst du um Jugend,	If you love for youth,
O nicht mich liebe!	Oh, do not love me!
Liebe der Frühling,	Love the spring;
Der jung ist jedes Jahr!	It is young every year!

Liebst du um Schätze,	If you love for treasure,
O nicht mich liebe.	Oh, do not love me!
Liebe die Meerfrau,	Love the mermaid;
Sie hat viel Perlen klar.	She has many clear pearls!

Liebst du um Liebe,	If you love for love,
O ja, mich liebe!	Oh yes, do love me!
Liebe mich immer,	Love me ever,
Dich lieb' ich immerdar.	I'll love you evermore!

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!	Do not look at my songs!
Meine Augen schlag' ich nieder,	My eyes I lower,
Wie ertappt auf böser Tat.	as if I've been caught in an evil deed.
Selber darf ich nicht getrauen,	I can't even trust myself
Ihrem Wachsen zuzuschauen.	to watch them grow.
Deine Neugier ist Verrat!	Your curiosity is a betrayal!

Bienen, wenn sie Zellen bauen,	Bees, when they build their cells,
Lassen auch nicht zu sich schauen,	also do not let anyone observe them;
Schauen selber auch nicht zu.	even themselves.
Wann die reichen Honigwaben	If the rich honeycombs
Sie zu Tag gefördert haben,	are brought out to the light of day,
Dann vor allen nasche du!	then you shall taste them before everyone else!

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,	I am lost to the world
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,	with which I used to waste so much time,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,	It has heard nothing from me for so long
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!	that it may very well believe that I am dead!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,	It is of no consequence to me
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,	Whether it thinks me dead;
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,	I cannot deny it,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.	for I really am dead to the world.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,	I am dead to the world's tumult,
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!	And I rest in a quiet realm!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,	I live alone in my heaven,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!	In my love and in my song!

Um Mitternacht	At midnight
Hab' ich gewacht	I awoke
Und aufgeblickt zum Himmel;	and gazed up to heaven;
Kein Stern vom Sterngewimmel	No star in the entire mass
Hat mir gelacht	did smile down at me
Um Mitternacht.	at midnight.

Um Mitternacht	At midnight
Hab' ich gedacht	I projected my thoughts
Hinaus in dunkle Schranken.	out past the dark barriers.
Es hat kein Lichtgedanken	No thought of light
Mir Trost gebracht	brought me comfort
Um Mitternacht.	at midnight.

Um Mitternacht	At midnight
Nahm ich in acht	I paid close attention
Die Schläge meines Herzens;	to the beating of my heart;
Ein einz'ger Puls des Schmerzes	One single pulse of agony
War angefacht	flared up
Um Mitternacht.	at midnight.

Um Mitternacht	At midnight
Kämpft' ich die Schlacht,	I fought the battle,
O Menschheit, deiner Leiden;	O Mankind, of your suffering;
Nicht konnt' ich sie entscheiden	I could not decide it
Mit meiner Macht	with my strength
Um Mitternacht.	at midnight.

Um Mitternacht	At midnight
Hab' ich die Macht	I surrendered my strength
In deine Hand gegeben!	into your hands!
Herr! über Tod und Leben	God! over death and life
Du hältst die Wacht	You keep watch
Um Mitternacht!	at midnight!

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Open-Ended ‘Present’: Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A Minor

I deology seems to pop up precisely when we attempt to avoid it, while it fails to appear where one would clearly expect it to dwell.”
— Slavoj Žižek, in Mapping Ideology, 1994, p. 4.

DSM: This Quartet was written in 1876, when Mahler was around 16 years old . . . when he was a student at the Vienna Conservatory. It was written in A minor, a key Mahler believed symbolized the ‘unconscious anticipation of things to come.’ The melancholy end of the movement is clairvoyant—premonitory of sad things ahead for Mahler, the death of his children, sad things ahead for his country, for Europe, and the world. This quartet is the only chamber piece known to be composed by Mahler. And, as you know, it’s incomplete; only the first movement was finished.

CMT: There’s an intensification of the emotion in this Piano Quartet—an increase in the magnitude of what Žižek would call ‘disturbances of the real.’ The ‘real’ manifests itself in this Piano Quartet as an innocuous cadence whose presence becomes uncanny only when the cadence keeps recurring. Its constant presence disrupts the other motifs and symbolisms, and serves as a continual reminder that these realities are only constructions. The rendering of the ‘real’ seeps into the core of the Quartet, through the ‘leaping’ motif (in the left hand of the piano in this snippet):

which irrupts on the surface again and again, setting into motion the final passage which becomes a materialization of a pure, singular drive. What was abstract in the opening becomes pernicious and concrete motive by the end—a psychological ‘fixation.’ Yes, it’s a ‘fixation,’ monotonously dominating the Quartet. This motive, an empty signifier, represents the kernel upon which Mahler’s modern subject’s reality is grounded. Irruptions of the ‘real’ become an pervasive feature in Mahler’s musical discourse in this Quartet, to the exclusion of most everything else.

DSM: This Quartet may have been written in his young student days, but it isn’t ‘juvenilia.’ It does show some emulation of Dvorak, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. It has a dark consonance that grows denser toward the end. Mahler’s transitions into remote keys occur unexpectedly. This lends a sense of vulnerability and uncertainty to the piece. Uneasiness.

CMT: Look at this tenuto combined with a marcato—a ‘portato’—intermediate note-lengths, detached but not staccato. Accentuated one way or another, more détaché than martelé—it’s played on one bow stroke, but each note is gently articulated, used when a feeling of “carry” from one note to the next is needed. The portati consume the bow—moving from the bow tip back up to the frog, say—running out of time, running out of life. This is emotional writing (violin staff in snippet below).

DSM: The melodic elements sink deeper and deeper into the bass register until all energy is spent and only a quiet malignant evocation of the minor third of A minor is left. Grim pathos here!

CMT: To a certain extent, the Quartet finds its own means of managing and containing the ruptures of the ‘real’ within its constructed musical universe. But with the increase in the size of the ruptures, the ‘real’ affects the Quartet on an more and more ‘pathological’ level. The Quartet’s means of integrating the little piece of the real into the constructed universe is not so pathological. But by the middle of the movement, we have a recapitulation for the sonata form—a kind of ‘payment of symbolic debt’ that brings an end to the pure emotional ‘drive.’ By the end, the emotional devastation wrought by the ‘real’ in this Quartet is catastrophic. The piano’s last two chords are a poignant fatalism. All other meaning has been obliterated by the end of the movement, leaving only an empty husk. In a sense, the Quartet documents an almost complete destruction of the musical universe.

DSM: As such, its drama feels a bit like Barber’s Adagio. But, your qualifier ‘almost’ is important: history is not closed here with those last two piano chords. What was to be a suicide note, a work commemorating something or someone in memoriam, has failed: in the final chords we find that the work is a testament to the author’s, and to humanity’s, resilience and ability to survive.

CMT: Ultimately, the end of the Quartet proves the continued existence of the Quartet’s subjects—the composer; the performers; the listeners—by showing that the subject still remains, despite all that’s happened. So, while the Quartet argues convincingly that catastrophes definitely do happen, the catastrophes don’t bring about a complete end. In Lacanian psychoanalysis no act is ever totally complete: something always remains. For Žižek, there’s always a survivor or survivors, however damaged they may be. As the Quartet pushes towards its final notes, a conclusive End is an impossibility. The End doesn’t come. The exhausted survivors are left to carry on.

DSM: In Lacanian terminology, the survivors of the apocalypse represent the “the excess that cannot be accounted for by any symbolic idealization”—embodiments of the ‘real.’ With the apocalypse, the exhausted survivors, having survived The End, become representatives of a rendering of the ‘real’—they are the ‘ruptures’ in this symbolic reality.

CMT: The devastation pushes Mahler’s apocalyptic narrative to its limit, as the Quartet’s narrative concludes with a catastrophic act. To continue the intensification process of the apocalyptic narrative is, I think, not possible. Maybe that’s why Mahler never wrote other Piano Quartets: how does one write after the apocalypse? How does one compose a sequel to an ‘end’ that does not bring The End?

DSM: Along with the narrative break, there’s also a dissolving of the barrier of the distance created by the apocalyptic trajectory of this Piano Quartet, and a humanizing of the pathological irruptions of the ‘real.’

CMT: I think so. And, in his book, Dialogic Imagination, Mikhail Bakhtin differentiates between the stylized, ‘absolute’ past of the epic and the open-ended, solvent-like ‘emergent’ or continuing reality found in the novel. An ‘epic’ is set in a past that is so distant that the ‘gap’ created is unbreachable. It is a place where everything is “absolute and complete…everything is finished, already over.” It’s a place of unwavering protagonists and narrative trajectories that never divert from the path. The beginnings of epics are “idealized” or “brightened” and the endings are “darkened.”

DSM: On the other hand, ‘novels’—or in this case, novelistic musical compositions—don’t speak to a remote experience but instead address current reality. Epics have one language, an omniscient voice that knows and tells all. In the novel there are multiple languages, a variety of voices caught in the act of development. In short, the epic is a single-voiced discourse; the novel a multi-vocal discourse. Where the epic prophesies, the novel predicts; while the epic must end in death, the novel depicts “a life process that is imperishable and forever renewing itself, forever contemporary;” the epic is closed and complete, while the novel contains “an unrealized surplus of humanness.”

CMT: Following Bakhtin we can think of this Mahler Piano Quartet as a narrative trajectory of an epic form. Its opening begins with stylized innocence, referring to an absolute past. In the middle of the piece there’s a narrowing of focus to the singular (epic) story where no provision is made for varied voices or points of view. The epic distance is solidified at the end of the Quartet as the world of the past becomes completely inaccessible. At the end there is the violin cadenza—a “canonizing of events” that leads up to the catastrophe or apocalypse.

DSM: But, if we continue following Bakhtin, a novel has discursive features that are capable of seeping into other genres, including the epic. What happens at the end of the Quartet is not the end of history but, to use Derrida’s words, “the end of a certain concept of history,” in this case the epic history of the apocalypse. Mahler’s 16 year-old premonition is of modernity itself. That’s what I hear in this!

CMT: So we have a ‘novelization’ of the Quartet’s discourse when a single voice no longer speaks monologically from an absolute, epic past, but instead multiple voices now sound from current reality—life in the aftermath of the apocalypse. The process follows Attali’s notion of innovative music, leading to “a…conception of history…that is open, unstable.”

DSM: The Quartet strikes me as a searing elegy, a dirge where “death chords” are interrupted by laments equal in their emotional force. The individualistic utterances that are set apart from the surrounding music (both physically and emotionally) have their lyrical and harmonic beauty effaced by the irruptions. The ending passage opens the way for the diffuse finale that represents an unfinished, still-evolving contemporary reality.

CMT: The finale is the longest section in the Quartet, and in it material from earlier movements returns cyclically. The increase in tempo over the five movements combined with the cyclic return of themes, the intensity and sheer length of the finale create an end-oriented trajectory for the work culminating in the final movement that is an exhausting tour de force. The movement is a sonata form in which every section has developmental tendencies and the recapitulation returns themes not only from earlier in the movement, but also the cyclic returns.

DSM: Well, ‘long’ is a relative term. Melissa Rose and her fellow ensemble members who performed yesterday in Kansas City performed this Quartet in 9 minutes and 20 seconds. By contrast, Christoph Eschenbach’s performance with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra last year was 13 minutes. Various other artists’ performances of this Quartet are also 12 to 13 minutes long. So it was a tremendous disappointment to hear Rose compress this piece by more than 30% and, in so doing, extinguish the portato and the emotional drama. The ‘arc’ of the recurrences lacked dignity, and the existential impact that the piece should have was blunted by this interpretation. The last two chords became no more than appendages. Regrettably, it retained nothing at all of the depth that Eschenbach projects:

[30-sec clip, Eschenbach, 2.6MB MP3]

T he dignity of Mahler’s music lies in the fact that it can be understood and understands itself, but eludes the hand that would grasp what has been understood.”
— Theodor Adorno

H ow can an artist expect that what he has felt intuitively should be perfectly understood by other people, since he himself feels in the presence of his work—if it is genuine art—that he is faced by a riddle about which he too may have illusions?”
— Richard Wagner, letter dated 25-JAN-1854, to August Roeckel