# Mahler: Symphony no. 4 (Irony and Neoclassicism)



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

A thought occurred to me the other day: the 4th Mahler Symphony sounds like neoclassicism! The melodies sound like Viennese classicism which is being twisted and distorted. There is even the dance-like hopping on one note which is the signature gesture of neoclassicist irony.

What can you say about the irony in Mahler´s music in general and particularly in the 4th Symphony? What should one think about the irony? Should one "laugh" at it as though it was a joke? Or should we feel like in the modern times we have been robbed of innocence of the classicism proper? If someone doesn´t get the irony and takes the music at it´s face value, can this someone be considered an uninformed or an ignorant listener?

They say that Neoclassicism is a movement of the 20th century, but right at this moment I think the 4th Symphony by Mahler (at least the 1st movement) is a very perfect example of neoclassicism. Was Mahler ahead of his time even in this regard?


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## Monsalvat (11 mo ago)

Mahler is absolutely ironic in his music. I think the Seventh symphony, which caused you some troubles, is a prime example of this. That Scherzo (_Schattenhaft_) which is absolutely grotesque, followed straightaway by a love song (_Andante amoroso_) that is too good to be true... I haven't given Mahler's Fourth much time, and I need to because it was an important work for him.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Monsalvat said:


> Mahler is absolutely ironic in his music. I think the Seventh symphony, which caused you some troubles, is a prime example of this. That Scherzo (_Schattenhaft_) which is absolutely grotesque, followed straightaway by a love song (_Andante amoroso_) that is too good to be true...


On a side note, just letting you know that I truly love the harmonies and the orchestral colours of the 7th Symphony. Unfortunately even if the 1st Movement sprawling structure is held together as well as Haitink and Solti do, still it is the rhythms I find boring after a while. So despite it´s charming qualities, this symphony bears no repetitive listening in my ears. But no doubt that if there was a long break from the dotted rhythms, I could and would again enjoy the 7th Symphony. (So rather than rejecting the music, nowadays I will find workarounds!)


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Is Mahler’s 4th ironic? I don’t think it is straightforward theme of an adult reflection back on childhood and innocence


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Is Mahler’s 4th ironic? I don’t think it is straightforward theme of an adult reflection back on childhood and innocence


It must be ironic! The distorted Viennese themes even bring Schnittke´s (K)ein Sommernactstraum to mind. I would like to know if this is the first time Viennese gracefulness was ironically twisted this way, to this extent? Was the 4th groundbreaking in this aspect?


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Is Mahler’s 4th ironic? I don’t think it is straightforward theme of an adult reflection back on childhood and innocence


Definitely not much in the way of innocence when you consider that the scherzo was influenced by Arnold Böcklin's painting _Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle._


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Becca said:


> Definitely not much in the way of innocence when you consider that the scherzo was influenced by Arnold Böcklin's painting _Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle._


To me it’s pathos rather than irony - the dark undercurrent to the pleasant surface, but perhaps it’s just semantics


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think that it shows a similar mixture that pervades many other Mahler pieces, especially songs but also some of the scherzo/intermezzo movements (e.g. symphony 2, 2+3). We should be careful not to take (romantic) irony as the jaded cynicism that is so pervasive today (such as to make some people apparently unable to experience any strong expression in art "naively"). It's often rather a way of coping somehow with the tragic. I had not heard of the Böcklin picture connection but Mahler called the movement supposedly also "Freund Hein spielt auf" (i.e. the Death is playing) and the Wunderhorn poem of the finale is the companion to the dark "Das irdische Leben" with the starving child.

Personally, I find a certain kind of nostalgia stronger here than irony. It's that Grimm's fairy tales (Das Klagende Lied was literally based on one of them) and Wunderhorn songs world, roughly folk tales and poems viewed through an early 19th century romantic lens. These tales and poems also share the dark background of hardship and cruelty (like Hansel & Gretel being sent into the woods to starve...). I'd even say that the poignancy of these lieder and movements by Mahler is based on taken the poems seriously, not ironically. After all, some of their simple truths about love, life, death, still apply and no ironic stance, regardless of fin de siècle around 1900 or 2020 will change this...

Not sure, I'd call it "neoclassicist". It seems that this term is used in a narrower sense for 1920s and later music that is often more "neo-baroque". In the wider sense one could use it already for lots of 19th century music, such as Grieg's Holberg suite. Actually, I'd hesitate to use even this broader sense for Mahler's 4th. Maybe for the first mvmt. But this never really sounds like Haydn or Mozart. It's much broader, mostly at a far more leisurely pace. The closest in some passages might be a "picturesque" Haydn movement like the 2nd from the "Military symphony" (that was already ironic in Haydn's own time) It does certainly sound nostalgic, though.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

I agree with at least these:


Not all of the symphony is neoclassicism
Not all of the symphony is ironic
There is true nostalgia
None of it is a joke
the use of the poem does not point towards irony


Then again I would state:


In the first movement there are elements that point towards the later neoclassicist movement
In the first movement there are elements that point towards the later use of irony in the 20th century music
The first movement 'Viennese themes' are first cast as nostalgic and later in the development distorted -- which is a technique frequently in use later in the 20th century

I see a clear line to Shostakovich here. Don´t you?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Not really. Partly maybe because Mahler is a direct part of the Viennese tradition; it seems a far more "benevolent" irony than the bitter sarkasm of Shostakovich. I'd agree that the symphony, esp. the first movement is neoclassical in the broad sense in which one could say Brahms's 2nd (at least mvmts 3+4) or even Beethoven's 8th symphony are "neoclassical", i.e. they are clearly both a direct part of the tradition they "neo". And I find the same neoclassical aspect in the 2nd movements of his 2nd and 3rd, the finale of the 5th and the 2nd "Nachtmusik" of the 7th. But only in the 4th this aspect seems to characterize the piece as a whole although the long slow movement seems very Mahlerian and the song finale as well.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

It isn't irony in Mahler's music; it is his memories of home life transferred to his scores -- even this one about a child's view of Heaven. Mahler was raised in a home with domestic violence where he was sometimes the target of either or both parent(s). He sometimes ran out of the house to escape the torment -- into a brass band marching in the street. This choas at home and neighborhood is the origin of the seemingly mindless gear changes that occur throughout the Fourth Symphony and most of the rest of Mahler's orchestral output. He normally began symphonies with a funeral march because he attended so many funerals as a boy and heard these droopy marches. Both elements became imprints on the young boy and showed up in his adult music. His song cycles seem graciously free of these machinations, probably because they are brief.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> Not really. Partly maybe because Mahler is a direct part of the Viennese tradition; it seems a far more "benevolent" irony than the bitter sarkasm of Shostakovich. I'd agree that the symphony, esp. the first movement is neoclassical in the broad sense in which one could say Brahms's 2nd (at least mvmts 3+4) or even Beethoven's 8th symphony are "neoclassical", i.e. they are clearly both a direct part of the tradition they "neo". And I find the same neoclassical aspect in the 2nd movements of his 2nd and 3rd, the finale of the 5th and the 2nd "Nachtmusik" of the 7th. But only in the 4th this aspect seems to characterize the piece as a whole although the long slow movement seems very Mahlerian and the song finale as well.


I´d also like to point out also the link between the 1st Movement of the 4th and the 2nd Movement of Symphony no. 9. Both are "staccato hopping" in a very neoclassical and a bit ironic way. Do you see any resemblance? And don´t you think the 9th has some of the bitter irony which later bloomed in Shostakovich? Of course, Mahler isn´t hiding behind masks like Shosta.



larold said:


> It isn't irony in Mahler's music;


I think it is irony, but of course irony is not all there is. If I had to give a percentage, I would say that 15-20% of the material used by Mahler is ironic. So it would be one Mahlerian trait.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The inner movements of the 9th are closer to the later 20th century sarcasm, yes. The respective 2nd movements of the 4th and 9th seem closer to me than 9,ii to 4,i as they have both Landler themes (and both a dark undercurrent although I am not sure I would recognize this in the 4th if I didn't know the "death fiddling" association) but I agree that the woodwind figures, often exposed and "bleating out" bucolically can also be found in 4,i.
I still think that in Mahler the aspect of irony or "neo-izing" is not distancing as it is in many other late 19th and 20th century composers. E.g. a main point of Prokofievs "Symphonie Classique" or Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks" seems to distance oneself from late romanticism but they are also clearly in distance to the classical/baroque idiom, in a way the point seems to be that this is playful and witty music without too much emotion and certainly without a "message". 
The opposite seems true for these Mahler movements, including the 4th. This is not distancing, it's rather remembrance and longing for something lost, i.e. nostalgia. And hoping to get there in dreams, or memories.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

It's certainly lightly scored compared to his other symphonies, and extremely thematically unified because all the themes derive from the final movement. Overall, its mood is comparatively light too, even though there are dark undercurrents which others have mentioned above. I don't think Mahler's music is ever happy in a straightforward way. 

There's death playing his fiddle, and if you read the text of the song, a child's view of heaven can be interpreted in light of the high infant mortality rate. She's singing about food, so maybe these children died of starvation and are able to have a feast in heaven? As in his other symphonies, the slow movement plumbs the depths quite a bit.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The "companion" poem "Das irdische Leben" (The earthly life) that was also set by Mahler is explicitly about a starving child.
The crazy thing is that Mahler orginally wanted to include the song that became the final as another (probably second to last?) movement in the 3rd symphony... and then it "grew" into an almost hour long symphony because although the 4th is the shortest Mahler symphony except for the 1st, it's still longer than most other symphonies in the repertoire.


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