# Understanding Mahler, Part 5



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Understanding Mahler

*Part 5: Mahler's Orchestra

Size and Character*

The score of Mahler's 8th Symphony in E-flat major calls for the following:

4 flutes, 2 piccolos, 4 oboes, english horn, E-flat clarinet, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, 3 cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam (orchestral gong), deep bells tuned to A and A-flat, glockenspiel, celesta, piano, harmonium, organ, 2 harps, mandolin, and strings, 8 soloists (SSSAATBarB), 2 full mixed choirs, and children's choir.

Additionally, there is a part for an off-stage group consisting of 4 trumpets and 3 trombones.

This is the kind of group that has given Mahler his somewhat undeserved reputation as concerned with gigantic gestures, although composers before (with the exception of the above 8th) and since have written for forces just as large or larger. The nickname "Symphony of a Thousand" is both unsanctioned by the composer and inaccurate in many performances, and should sink into oblivion, as Mahler's 8th is far more than the sensationalism that such a name might suggest. Indeed, long passages of it are scored as lightly as possible, with the double choir used more for its antiphonal potential than for the simple thickening of texture. What Mahler was truly interested in was not the sensation of a "big" sound, which can be easily obtained by a smaller ensemble, as Bruckner's music shows, but a maximal expansion of combinations and possibilities.

Before Beethoven began to treat the winds of an orchestra as equal with the strings, the foundation of the orchestra was considered the five-part string choir, consisting of first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and basses. One could often ignore the rest of the parts while looking at the score, as these were present far more for support or coloration than structure. Beginning with Beethoven, the winds began to take a more important role, which seemed strange to some of his contemporaries. The invention of the modern valve horn expanded the possibilities of the brass section, leading to its prominent use by composers such as Wagner and Bruckner. The final section to expand was percussion, previously relegated (aside from the timpani) to occasional touches of exotic color as seen in the "Turkish" marches that had a brief surge in popularity in the late 18th century. These changes made their way into the world of operatic and programmatic music first, but only slowly into the classical realm of the symphony. Even Bruckner's percussion was nearly always limited to timpani, and it is worth noting that the cymbal crashes (that most Wagnerian of effects) found only rarely in his scores are controversial with some.

Mahler began his career as an operatic conductor, and he came to be intimately familiar with all of the possibilities a modern orchestra. Unlike his contemporary Richard Strauss, whose lush, polished orchestration flowed naturally and attracted immediate attention, Mahler's use of the orchestra was hard won, and although it garnered respect, it also attracted suspicion and criticisms of "over-intellectualization". Unlike Strauss, Mahler revised the orchestrations of his works continually throughout his career, in response to rehearsal and performance, but unlike Bruckner, he never altered a single bar of their complex structures. He knew what he wanted to express, but he was always looking for a better way to express it.

The main difference between Mahler's orchestration and that of his predecessors or even contemporaries was the utter individuality of every instrumental part. The instrumentation is constantly changing, and, accordingly, the location of the main melodic voice shifts throughout the orchestra, practically from bar to bar. The Trio of the 1st Symphony's Scherzo (second movement) begins with a swaying figure in the violins in thirds, which is answered by an upward swing in the violas. Over the repetition of the violins' figure, an oboe echoes the violas' line. Now the violins split, and the first violins are doubled by flute, the violas by clarinet, as the bottom notes of the cellos' pizzicato arpeggiations are now doubled by the basses. This amount of nuance (in 12 bars!) is only a small and relatively staid example of the wealth of orchestral detail throughout Mahler's scores.

A section from Mozart's 41st Symphony, 1st movement:








A section from Beethoven's 4th Symphony, 1st Movement:








The aforementioned Mahler Trio:








*Technique and Color*

Mahler's expansion of the timbral possibilities of the orchestra was not limited to instrumentation alone. He also made full use of common instruments in previously uncommon ways. Some of these include: artificial string harmonics (producing a clear, high-pitched tone), fluttertongue on wind instruments (including brass, which creates a snarling sound), striking the side of the bass drum with a birch beater, and the use of extreme or unusual registers, particularly the bass notes of the harp.

Mahler's contemporaries were perturbed, if not by the sounds themselves, by their frequency in his works, and especially by the composer's unwillingness to provide any sort of programmatic associations which could justify these "effects". When composers such as Strauss utilized these techniques, they were usually for pictoral effect, like the fluttertongued horn representing bleating sheep in Don Juan or the squeaking double bass accompanying Jochanaan's beheading in Salome.

But Mahler provided no programs with his symphonies, and after his first "Wunderhorn" period (#1-4), none were even devised, not, at least, outside of Mahler's own mind. This baffled critics, who wanted to find ways to explain all of the stranger elements of Mahler's art, including these very new sounds. Today, all of these techniques (and more) have come into common use, and they are accepted on their sound alone. No program is necessary to explain these or any of the other timbres employed by Mahler, which are used with care for the good of a whole work or movement, not merely for effect or shock value, as was supposed.

An exception may be made here for Mahler's use of off-stage brass, which was only ever used in programmatic contexts. It appears in Das Klagende Lied, the finale of the 2nd, and the ending of the 8th. In the first of these, the band is used simply as a band that plays at the wedding feast, oblivious to the tumult within. In the 2nd Symphony, the band is an intrusion of the "worldly", and its banal, stereotyped figures come into conflict with the orchestra and especially with the flute solo that floats ethereally above. All of these elements are subsumed into the orchestra after the ultimate intrusion of the chorus. In the 8th, the brass only appears at the very end, calling Faust on "to higher spheres", and here it plays a chorale on the first movement's main theme, far removed from the popular marching band material of the above.

The next installments will deal specifically with Mahler's most popular work, the Symphony No. 2, known coloquially as the "Resurrection" Symphony.

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