# Mahler Symphony No.15



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

What if Mahler lived long enough to make it to Symphony No.15? What direction do you think he would have gone in; what do you think the work would sound like? Do you think it would contain choir? Would he have unequivocally demonstrated that he was the absolute master of tonality and expression? Damn, too bad he didn't live longer... without a doubt one of the most original and substantive composers I have ever encountered.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Klassic said:


> What if Mahler lived long enough to make it to Symphony No.15? What direction do you think he would have gone in; what do you think the work would sound like? Do you think it would contain choir? Would he have unequivocally demonstrated that he was the absolute master of tonality and expression? Damn, too bad he didn't live longer... without a doubt one of the most original and substantive composers I have ever encountered.


It's an interesting question. He said, in interviews near the end of his life, that he was planning on taking time off from conducting to focus on composition for a while, and I would love to have seen what he could have done if given the chance.

As for his future direction, we can speculate based on his Tenth that he was interested in pushing the limits of common practice tonality further. I agree with Pierre Boulez that he probably would not have gone in Schoenberg's direction, though he certainly was interested in what his friend was doing say, in the Second Quartet.

If he had survived to see the 1920s, would he have responded to the climate of the times and written music that was leaner, of smaller dimensions, and so forth? Perhaps. He had already pared down his textures in the Ninth and Das Lied von der Erde, and if he had lived, he might have even condensed his canvases, so to speak.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> If he had survived to see the 1920s, would he have responded to the climate of the times and written music that was leaner, of smaller dimensions, and so forth? Perhaps. He had already pared down his textures in the Ninth and Das Lied von der Erde, and if he had lived, he might have even condensed his canvases, so to speak.


I was wondering this myself. Maybe he would have practiced the art of Webern, though not quite so lean, weaning everything down to a concise beautiful expression of phrasing. And then again, perhaps by the time he did this for symphonies 11, 12, 13 and 14, when it came to 15 he might think, "I have not yet expanded my canvas far enough!" Perhaps he would have tried to surpass the 8th Symphony in volume.

However, I also think he would have eventually gone more in the direction of what I will call a "stretched tonality." Not quite Schoenberg, but leaning in that direction... an "advanced dissonance" we might say. One things for sure, whatever he did he would have continued to advance music. I love thinking of stuff like this. I can never get enough of Mahler.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Another equally interesting question ... had Mahler lived to produce more, would Schoenberg, Berg & Webern have moved quite as far as they did?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Becca said:


> Another equally interesting question ... had Mahler lived to produce more, would Schoenberg, Berg & Webern have moved quite as far as they did?


Well, within Mahler's lifetime, Schoenberg had already written Erwartung, Five Pieces for Orchestra, Drei Klavierstucke, and the Book of the Hanging Gardens song cycle. Webern had written the early lieder, the Six Pieces for Orchestra, and the Five Movements for String Quartet. Berg had written the String Quartet, the Piano Sonata, and the Four Lieder Op. 2.

All of these works are already in their mature expressionist style. I'm wondering what you would consider as "moving further" than that.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Are you saying that their styles were fixed as of 1910? That they didn't evolve further?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Becca said:


> Are you saying that their styles were fixed as of 1910? That they didn't evolve further?


Not at all. I guess I don't know what your question meant. You seemed to be implying that Mahler would have restrained them from going out beyond...something. The main difference between them and Mahler, writing music that is not in keys, was already there by Mahler's death, though.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think he would almost certainly have used the choir again. His biography shows he preferred to write for large scale orchestral and choral pieces.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> It's an interesting question. He said, in interviews near the end of his life, that he was planning on taking time off from conducting to focus on composition for a while, and I would love to have seen what he could have done if given the chance.
> 
> As for his future direction, we can speculate based on his Tenth that he was interested in pushing the limits of common practice tonality further. I agree with Pierre Boulez that he probably would not have gone in Schoenberg's direction, though he certainly was interested in what his friend was doing say, in the Second Quartet.
> 
> If he had survived to see the 1920s, would he have responded to the climate of the times and written music that was leaner, of smaller dimensions, and so forth? Perhaps. He had already pared down his textures in the Ninth and Das Lied von der Erde, and if he had lived, he might have even condensed his canvases, so to speak.


I think that he would have been so affected by the mass carnage of WW1 that the resulting music would have been apocalyptic, despairing, and perhaps nihilistic, instead of combining the first two traits with redemptive finales


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Klassic said:


> what do you think the work would sound like?


like Shostakovitch?


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## Johnhanks (Feb 21, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, within Mahler's lifetime, Schoenberg had already written Erwartung, Five Pieces for Orchestra, Drei Klavierstucke, and the Book of the Hanging Gardens song cycle. Webern had written the early lieder, the Six Pieces for Orchestra, and the Five Movements for String Quartet. Berg had written the String Quartet, the Piano Sonata, and the Four Lieder Op. 2.


I recall Rattle conducting the Berlin Phil in the Schoenberg 5 Pieces, Webern 6 Pieces and Berg 3 Pieces, all played without a break as though they were a single work. Rattle told the audience it would be like listening to "die elfte Sinfonie Gustav Mahlers", which I seem to remember didn't go down well at all.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

I'd like to think he would have given up focusing on symphonies and moved into the chamber work arena... I really would have loved to see what he would have done with the string quartet or the piano sonata (regardless of his piano playing ability I feel he could have been a marvelous composer for the piano).


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I wonder if Mahler might have gotten around to writing an opera or operas . He was one of the foremost opera conductors of the day though he also conducted concerts regularly , but his youthful attempts at writing an opera were abortive , only a tiny handful of sketches . 
Mahler also completed Weber's unfinished opera "The Drei Pintos " (the three Pintos ") , which has been recorded twice , I believe . 
I have no idea what subjects Mahler might have chosen, but it's a tantalizing thought .


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

superhorn said:


> I wonder if Mahler might have gotten around to writing an opera or operas . He was one of the foremost opera conductors of the day though he also conducted concerts regularly , but his youthful attempts at writing an opera were abortive , only a tiny handful of sketches .
> Mahler also completed Weber's unfinished opera "The Drei Pintos " (the three Pintos ") , which has been recorded twice , I believe .
> I have no idea what subjects Mahler might have chosen, but it's a tantalizing thought .


YES! I've always been curious as to why he didn't write an opera. Perhaps, if he had more time to compose, he would have written some more Modernist masterpieces.


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## drnlaw (Jan 27, 2016)

I've often pondered this question myself, but I am so little into music even as modern as Schoenberg, Berg, or even Webern, that I doubt that I have anything intelligent to contribute, so I won't try. Except to say that Klassic's "stretched tonality" is a good descriptor for where I believe he would generally have gone.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Operatic thinking and symphonic thinking - the way musical ideas are developed and structured in each - are very different. Wagner remarked upon this (as recorded by Cosima in her diary), conscious that his innovations in harmony and form arose for purposes of dramatic writing and skeptical of their adaptability to the symphony (which makes his unfulfilled intention to write symphonies especially intriguing). Mahler, of all post-Wagnerian symphonists, was most successful in hybridizing Wagnerian dramatic methods with traditional symphonic forms (Bruckner's symphonies weren't very Wagnerian at all, any more than Wagner's operas were symphonic), but I think his deep and lifelong veneration of Wagner entailed a full comprehension of what a weighty business writing an opera had come to be after _Tristan_ and _Parsifal_, particularly for a composer in the German tradition. Wagner was a challenge to everyone presuming to write for the stage: Schoenberg didn't attempt a full-length opera until he'd developed a compositional method and idiom which distanced him from his early Wagnerism; Berg chose un-Wagnerian, naturalistic subjects and experimented with applying abstract formal concepts to dramatic music; Strauss had an innate feel for dramatic movement and sidestepped odious comparisons by devoting himself to the sensational and the charming. Mahler, in turn, would have had to find his own personal approach to opera in Wagner's shadow. I suspect he, like Brahms, knew where his gifts were best employed, and that he preferred to be a first-rate symphonist and song-composer rather than risk being a Wagner epigone.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Perhaps it would have been a Chamber symphony! The giant orchestral works seemed to go out of fashion as the 20th century went on, and smaller groupings of instruments were in vogue. Even though Mahler is known for his giant orchestra, he may have went with the times too and made something chambery, for reduced woodwinds and brass, and fewer strings.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Brahms, knew where his gifts were best employed


Except that one time he composed Rinaldo, then he knew for sure.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Of course it would be great if he had lived to compose more, but let's be thankful that he wrote what he did. If I remember correctly, he almost died a couple of times earlier in his life.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Fugue Meister said:


> I'd like to think he would have given up focusing on symphonies and moved into the chamber work arena... I really would have loved to see what he would have done with the string quartet or the piano sonata (regardless of his piano playing ability I feel he could have been a marvelous composer for the piano).


I agree - the idea of string quartets is an especially tantalising thought.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

1) I don't think Mahler would have gone into Opera, precisely because he found all he needed in the Symphony. He would certainly have continued to make use of the human voice. 

2) Even if Mahler did go into Opera I don't believe he would stand in anyone's shadow, but would have created his own shadow. The real question here, is whether or not Mahler would have ever found this medium necessary for his expression? If he did, then he would have composed an Opera. It's as simple as that.

One must also remember that Mahler's Symphonies do something that not all symphonies do: he used them to express his life. For Mahler the creation of music was therapeutic, he used his work to grow. Hence, Mahler's 15 Symphony would certainly contain a deeper experience and expression of life. It would be exceedingly mature in its emotional content, children would not be able to relate.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

With reference to the dichotomy between operatic and symphonic thought, another supportive example would be Sibelius and his abortive attempts at opera, although in his _The Building of the Boat_, he had a wonderful, very Wagnerian topic.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Becca, there s one Sibelius opera called "The Maiden in the tower ", and the libretto is in Swedish , his native language . It's a brief , one act opera which I haven't h heard but would very much like to , and there is a recording conducted by Neeme Jarvi , I believe on BIS , and another conducted by his son Paavo . I'll check to see if either of these is on youtube, which maybe the case .


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I wish more people had contributed to this thread, it's a fun one... just so long as everyone understands that my projection of Mahler's 15th is the only correct one.


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