# What am I missing with Mahler?



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Don't get me wrong I enjoy some of Mahler's music, the first two symphonies and some bits of others but I'd love to get into all his main works that others wax lyrical about. I can see beauty in all of Bruckner's symphonies and Sibelius', too, amongst others, but I can't find anything to get excited about with Mahler apart form what I mentioned. Is it just a case of perseverance, and patience? Or should I just stick to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

We do have a similar thread, perhaps that's helping.

http://www.talkclassical.com/48679-so-i-dont-get.html?highlight=Mahler


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

A great deal of noise! :lol:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Nobody likes everything classical.

I "got" Mahler right away. You didn't. I can't stand Bruckner. You can.

Doesn't mean either one of us is a bad person.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

hpowders said:


> Nobody likes everything classical.
> 
> I "got" Mahler right away. You didn't. I can't stand Bruckner. You can.
> 
> Doesn't mean either one of us is a bad person.


Yeah, I get that. I like Beethoven more then the two combined though! Is that bad?  Just checking.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Nobody likes everything classical.
> 
> I "got" Mahler right away. You didn't. I can't stand Bruckner. You can.
> 
> *Doesn't mean either one of us is a bad person. *


*
"Well said, hp."

*


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Perhaps Mahler is too modernist for you? Like visual arts and literature, music has evolved through a number of styles or movements. So simply put, after baroque and roccoco (e.g. Bach) came the classical music (Haydn and Mozart), which style was so defining for all music since then that we still refer to all serious music as 'classical' music which however evolved (through Beethoven and others) into romantic music. Romantic music didn't put the reason/proportion in master of the emotions or impressions anymore: music became the free expression of the deepest feelings of the composer. And therefore music wasn't commisioned anymore or the music of the aristocracy: the artist created out of an inner necessity and spoke on behalf of himself or his people (hence the rise of nationalism and nationalistic music in the romantic era).

Romanticism evolved into decadence which movement is a bridge between Romanticism (19th century) and Modernism (20th century): I think in music Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler are important exponents of Decadence. Whereas Romanticism involved a mystical longing for God, nature, a glorious past and authenticity, Decadence preferred the artificial, the unnatural and therefore the perverse, the sickened and death. In visual arts think of Klimt and Schiele. For many people, with the rise of Decadence art became 'ugly'. Yet I think it is a great style. 

And qua Mahler: in the movie Shutter Island Mahler's Piano Quartet in A Minor is played with a connection to the Holocaust. Ironically, it is Entartete Musik (Mahler was a Jew). I think the chamber piece is hauntingly decadent and beautiful (as are the songs of Mahler in my ears).


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

beetzart said:


> Is it just a case of perseverance, and patience? Or should I just stick to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky?


It was exactly the case for my experience. I had several aborted attempts trying to get in to Mahler until one particular piece hit me like a ton of bricks. The no 10 Adagio. And the other CD that really hooked me is the Lieder recording on DG by Boulez.

Maybe I'm different? But I don't want to spend my life listening to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky all the time. I like to work on getting into other music. I find all the Mahler symphonies very rewarding to spend time with. They're all different, and they all have memorable themes and openings. And beautiful slow movements.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

beetzart said:


> Yeah, I get that. I like Beethoven more then the two combined though! Is that bad?  Just checking.


No. You have plenty of company on TC and throughout the world.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> *
> "Well said, hp."
> 
> *


One out of 16,730!


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I promise you that this will be too philosophical to believe!

In most of classical music, _it seems to me_, the composer intends to create an experience from the music, and in the type of classical music under discussion, music is structured: it has harmony and theory.

With Mahler, _it seems to me_ that he intends to create music from experiences, and experiences are unpredictable, random, chaotic - downright messy, in other words.

So regular composers structure music to deliver an experience; Mahler _reflects_ the welter of experiences in the world as we perceive it in his music.

If that's not clear - then I've made my point about Mahler.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The Adagio from Nr. 5 hit me first, obviously. That super-long suspension. Then, the first: I can understand a good drone. Then, Nr. 6: I can understand tragedy.

I think Mahler needs a lot of context. You need to listen to Wagner first, some R. Strauss maybe.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

beetzart said:


> Yeah, I get that. I like Beethoven more then the two combined though! Is that bad?  Just checking.


Nothing wrong with that! Not only do I like Beethoven more than any other composer, I actually like him more than any person that I have ever met. Not sure if that makes me a misanthrope or a fanatic...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I think Mahler needs a lot of context. You need to listen to Wagner first, some R. Strauss maybe.


Maybe for you, but that didn't work at all for me. Knowing Wagner and Strauss first didn't help bring me to Mahler. Now that I think about it, could three composers with so many apparent similarities be much farther apart temperamentally? Mahler's music has always struck me as extremely personal, even confessional, to a sometimes painful (and sometimes grating) degree; I feel almost as if I'm witnessing a psychotherapy session. Wagner and Strauss, even at their most intense, project a greater objectivity - and, in Strauss's case, superficiality. I suspect that large numbers of people easily like some of these composers, yet dislike others, and can't build a "taste bridge" between them. You like a composer's personality or you don't, and some technical similarities aren't likely to determine that.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Nothing wrong with that! Not only do I like Beethoven more than any other composer, I actually like him more than any person that I have ever met. Not sure if that makes me a misanthrope or a fanatic...


You like an arrogant dead guy from the music he wrote 200 years ago more than anyone you actually got to know...  Sure! makes sense to me.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe for you, but that didn't work at all for me. Knowing Wagner and Strauss first didn't help bring me to Mahler. Now that I think about it, could three composers with so many apparent similarities be much farther apart temperamentally? Mahler's music has always struck me as extremely personal, even confessional, to a sometimes painful (and sometimes grating) degree; I feel almost as if I'm witnessing a psychotherapy session. Wagner and Strauss, even at their most intense, project a greater objectivity - and, in Strauss's case, superficiality. I suspect that large numbers of people easily like some of these composers, yet dislike others, and can't build a "taste bridge" between them. You like a composer's personality or you don't, and some technical similarities aren't likely to determine that.


Interesting! It's also very easy to think Wagner's intense reflections purely his own inner world, but I know some people want to go to completely opposite direction (not talking about you) - as if Wagner was just revealing a curtain of collective uncouncious, or something along those lines.

I've always found Wagner's music a bit uneasy, sometimes plain scary (sure sign of great art!). From these three, Strauss is the most casual, easy listening, and yes, I'd agree in a way most objective. And Mahler most subjective.

Wagner, I don't know.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe for you, but that didn't work at all for me. Knowing Wagner and Strauss first didn't help bring me to Mahler. Now that I think about it, could three composers with so many apparent similarities be much farther apart temperamentally? Mahler's music has always struck me as extremely personal, even confessional, to a sometimes painful (and sometimes grating) degree; I feel almost as if I'm witnessing a psychotherapy session. Wagner and Strauss, even at their most intense, project a greater objectivity - and, in Strauss's case, superficiality. I suspect that large numbers of people easily like some of these composers, yet dislike others, and can't build a "taste bridge" between them. You like a composer's personality or you don't, and some technical similarities aren't likely to determine that.


I'm an absolute fan of all 3, Wagner, R. Strauss and Mahler. Just curious, is there at least something you like in Mahler's music? if not, that's fine (Mahler's music deserved appreciation is already fulfilled by many others  )


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bettina said:


> Nothing wrong with that! Not only do I like Beethoven more than any other composer, I actually like him more than any person that I have ever met. Not sure if that makes me a misanthrope or a fanatic...


The latter.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> You like an arrogant dead guy from the music he wrote 200 years ago more than anyone you actually got to know...  Sure! makes sense to me.


Have you met people?


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Mahler for me is big hit or miss. It took me a long time to appreciate Mahler and I still fail to appreciate many of his highly acclaimed pieces, like the Adagietto from his 5th. It does absolutely nothing for me. On the other hand, the first movement of his 2nd - one of my very favorite symphonic movements. About half of Mahler bores me but the stuff I like is near the top of my favorites.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes, as Woodduck stated, Mahler's music is "extremely personal" and I would add, almost unbearably emotional, to that.

It helps to be a Jewish, paranoid Woody Allen-like neurotic living in a predominantly Christian culture to "get" Mahler.

Hence, I "got" Mahler from the "get-go".


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Mahler for me is big hit or miss. It took me a long time to appreciate Mahler and I still fail to appreciate many of his highly acclaimed pieces, like the Adagietto from his 5th. It does absolutely nothing for me. On the other hand, the first movement of his 2nd - one of my very favorite symphonic movements. About half of Mahler bores me but the stuff I like is near the top of my favorites.


Hey, you took my lines!

I have the same "issue" with Mahler. Some of the music absolutely makes no sense, it's just boring and sometimes irritating. But then some parts are just wonderful.

Example of dead boring parts for me are opening of the 6th symphony. I can barely listen to it.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

You are not missing much with his music might as well listen to BEETHOVEN


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

mtmailey said:


> You are not missing much with his music might as well listen to BEETHOVEN
> View attachment 94166


Beethoven? Interesting. Can you tell us more about this fellow?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

jdec said:


> I'm an absolute fan of all 3, Wagner, R. Strauss and Mahler. Just curious, is there at least something you like in Mahler's music? if not, that's fine (Mahler's music deserved appreciation is already fulfilled by many others  )


I like some of the songs, including _Das Lied von der Erde._ Otherwise it's certain movements and certain moments, but not enough to induce me to put up with the self-pity, grotesquerie, banality, hysteria, and shrieking clarinets. This doesn't mean that I don't think he's a great composer. I just don't care for the man's personality and I don't want to read the diary of his feelings.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I like some of the songs, including _Das Lied von der Erde._ Otherwise it's certain movements and certain moments, but not enough to induce me to put up with the self-pity, grotesquerie, banality, hysteria, and shrieking clarinets. This doesn't mean that I don't think he's a great composer. I just don't care for the man's personality and I don't want to read the diary of his feelings.


Keep a copy of Kindertotenlieder handy. You can always play it at parties, if you run out of ideas.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I like some of the songs, including _Das Lied von der Erde._ Otherwise it's certain movements and certain moments, but not enough to induce me to put up with* the self-pity, grotesquerie, banality, hysteria, and shrieking clarinets*. This doesn't mean that I don't think he's a great composer. I just don't care for the man's personality and I don't want to read the diary of his feelings.


You don't seem to understand Mahler's music much, as his music is way much more than that you mention, really. Anyway, that's fine, to each his own.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

jdec said:


> You don't seem to understand Mahler's music much, as his music is way much more than that you mention, really. Anyway, that's fine, to each his own.


Of course his music contains more than the qualities I mention - and thank goodness, or I wouldn't enjoy him at all. If I thought that was all here was to Mahler, why would I say that find him a great composer? I understand Mahler perfectly well - I've known his work for 50 years - but those happen to be things that turn me off. Is that acceptable?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Lenny said:


> Interesting! It's also very easy to think Wagner's intense reflections purely his own inner world, but I know some people want to go to completely opposite direction (not talking about you) - as if Wagner was just revealing a curtain of collective uncouncious, or something along those lines.
> 
> I've always found Wagner's music a bit uneasy, sometimes plain scary (sure sign of great art!). From these three, Strauss is the most casual, easy listening, and yes, I'd agree in a way most objective. And Mahler most subjective.
> 
> Wagner, I don't know.


As a generalization, music became more personal - more a vehicle for the expression of the composer's peculiar emotional life - down through the centuries, as its harmonic and orchestral vocabulary expanded and in response to Western culture's increasing focus on the individual. We usually see Romanticism as representing a major shift in that respect; Haydn and Mozart were writing music to entertain people and, in music based on a text, to convey the feelings implied in that text, and it wouldn't even have occurred to them to 'express themselves' in an intimate way. Beethoven, though still basically a 'universalist' in his expressive goals, moved in a more 'personalist' direction (e.g., the "Heilige Dankgesang" movement of his Op.132 quartet). Berlioz was the first important composer to turn to his own subjective life as a subject for musical expression, but even he, and early Romantics in general such as Schubert and Weber, sought inspiration in the literary, the theatrical and the 'picturesque' through which their emotions were channeled and given objectivity (hence the popularity of the song and the opera in Germany). As for Wagner, we tend to think of him as a late Romantic because of his influence on the subsequent course of music (especially Schoenberg and company), but he was born in 1813 (only two years after Schumann) and died in 1883 (fourteen years before Brahms), while Romanticism thrived well into the 20th century. Wagner's chief musical inspirations were Beethoven, Berlioz and Weber, and in his operas he set texts which dealt with a wide variety of characters and themes from myth, legend, and history which required him to find ways to express things far outside his personal experience, and to find musical equivalents for a greatly expanded range of 'affect,' the 18th-century term for a sort of typology of the emotions which composers understood as calling for particular sorts of musical devices. The objectification of expression required by his artistic project was a long way from the sort of autobiographical program that informs so much of Mahler's output.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Of course his music contains more than the qualities I mention - and thank goodness, or I wouldn't enjoy him at all. If I thought that was all here was to Mahler, why would I say that find him a great composer? I understand Mahler perfectly well - I've known his work for 50 years - *but those happen to be things that turn me off*. Is that acceptable?


... and also happen to be the only things you seem to alway focus on when making comments on Mahler's music (i.e. only qualities with "negative" connotations, never exalting any virtues in poor Mahler  ). Also, knowing about Mahler for 50 years is no guaranty you understand him well.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

mtmailey said:


> You are not missing much with his music might as well listen to BEETHOVEN
> View attachment 94166


So Leonard Bernstein was simply wasting his time championing Mahler's music, first with the NY Philharmonic, and then AGAIN with the likes of the Concertgebouw and Vienna Philharmonic, for all those years?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Agamemnon said:


> *Perhaps Mahler is too modernist for you? *Like visual arts and literature, music has evolved through a number of styles or movements. So simply put, after baroque and roccoco (e.g. Bach) came the classical music (Haydn and Mozart), which style was so defining for all music since then that we still refer to all serious music as 'classical' music which however evolved (through Beethoven and others) into romantic music. Romantic music didn't put the reason/proportion in master of the emotions or impressions anymore: music became the free expression of the deepest feelings of the composer. And therefore music wasn't commisioned anymore or the music of the aristocracy: the artist created out of an inner necessity and spoke on behalf of himself or his people (hence the rise of nationalism and nationalistic music in the romantic era).
> 
> Romanticism evolved into decadence which movement is a bridge between Romanticism (19th century) and Modernism (20th century): I think in music Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler are important exponents of Decadence. Whereas Romanticism involved a mystical longing for God, nature, a glorious past and authenticity, Decadence preferred the artificial, the unnatural and therefore the perverse, the sickened and death. In visual arts think of Klimt and Schiele. For many people, with the rise of Decadence art became 'ugly'. Yet I think it is a great style.
> 
> And qua Mahler: in the movie Shutter Island Mahler's Piano Quartet in A Minor is played with a connection to the Holocaust. Ironically, it is Entartete Musik (Mahler was a Jew). I think the chamber piece is hauntingly decadent and beautiful (as are the songs of Mahler in my ears).


I believe that is true. Too modernist; too emotional; too heavy; for many CM listeners.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hpowders said:


> So Leonard Bernstein was simply wasting his time championing Mahler's music, first with the NY Philharmonic, and then AGAIN with the likes of the Concertgebouw and Vienna Philharmonic?


A few years ago Dudamel presented _two _complete Mahler symphony cycles in the same season -- one in LA, the other in Caracas. In both, he conducted without score.

I say, if Mahler's good enough for Gustavo, then he's good enough for me (even if I don't listen to him often).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

jdec said:


> ... and also happen to be the only things you seem to alway focus on when making comments on Mahler's music (i.e. only qualities with "negative" connotations ). Also, knowing about Mahler for 50 years is no guaranty you understand him well.


Well, what proof do we have that _you_ understand Mahler well, or anything else for that matter? I didn't know we were here to prove anything to each other.

My feelings about Mahler, by the way, are not peculiar to me. I may articulate them, but many people share them. So what?


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

KenOC said:


> I say, if Mahler's good enough for Gustavo, then he's good enough for me (even if I don't listen to him often).


Judging by a youtube vid of a performance of Symphony 2 with Gustavo conducting, I'd have to say Gustavo isn't good enough for Gustav! :lol:

However, I'm willing to give him another chance if you have a recommendation.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Mahler is simply too intense for many listeners....not myself...but I could see others not willing to meet Mahler half-way, emotionally.

That's why I laughed when I heard Pierre Boulez was going to record a complete cycle of Mahler Symphonies, years ago.

No pair seemed more mis-matched to me than the cool Boulez and intense Mahler....and yet....truth be told....Boulez managed to pull the cycle off successfully. I couldn't believe it!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

jdec said:


> Beethoven? Interesting. Can you tell us more about this fellow?


One thing I will tell you-posting that engraving of him on eHarmony.com, he wouldn't get many female responses.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> My feelings about Mahler, by the way, are not peculiar to me. I may articulate them, but many people share them. So what?


Yep, many people don't like Wagner, Mozart, Bach, etc. either. Doesn't mean they are not wrong . (JK. To each his own)


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

One thing I can guarantee-you will not die of laughter listening to Mahler....unless your girlfriend is tickling your foot at the same time.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

You've got to 'believe' in Mahler, and the whole load of historical, egotistical 'greatness of genius' that goes along with it. That sort of thing isn't allowed these days, so it's fun to play along with the paradigm.

Dudamel takes it very seriously. He came from dirt-poor, in a poor country, so he likes the tux and all that goes with it. In America, we can't do that anymore.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Mahler is simply too intense for many listeners....not myself...but I could see others not willing to meet Mahler half-way, emotionally.
> 
> That's why I laughed when I heard Pierre Boulez was going to record a complete cycle of Mahler Symphonies, years ago.
> 
> No pair seemed more mis-matched to me than the cool Boulez and intense Mahler....and yet....truth be told....Boulez managed to pull the cycle off successfully. I couldn't believe it!


Boulez may have been "cool," but he was still human, except possibly while composing _Le marteau sans maitre._


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Boulez may have been "cool," but he was still human, except possibly while composing _Le marteau sans maitre._


:lol: :lol:


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Dudamel takes it very seriously. He came from dirt-poor, in a poor country, so he likes the tux and all that goes with it. In America, we can't do that anymore.


???...don't follow you here...


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> As a generalization, music became more personal - more a vehicle for the expression of the composer's peculiar emotional life - down through the centuries, as its harmonic and orchestral vocabulary expanded and in response to Western culture's increasing focus on the individual.


There are also some interesting exceptions, or anomalies to this process of "individuation" (of a society as whole, not this jungian concept). I think many people think that Schoenberg was continuation of this line of subjective, romantic movement (that's what he was thinking himself). Ultra-subjective, ultra-complex, ultra-intense, ultra-emotional - to the breaking point of tonality, and beyond. But there was one man, named Josef Matthias Hauer, who also recognized the crisis of musical language, and developed independently his own atonal, 12-tone technique in the 1910's. But he took the opposite direction. He thought that in order to reach the spiritual essence of music, the infulence of "material world" (that is, basically all the bells and whistles we can hear for example in Mahler) must be suppressed from the music (*). His atonal music is actually very beatiful. It sounds like Debussy taken to its logical conclusion.

(*) There is a nice article in the internets, titled "The Quest of the Absolute: Schoenberg, Hauer, and the Twelve-Tone Idea" by John Covach.


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

hpowders said:


> One thing I can guarantee-you will not die of laughter listening to Mahler....unless your girlfriend is tickling your foot at the same time.


I haven't listened to much Mahler but I'll drop into the conversation anyway to point out that it's not all deaths of children, melancholy farewells to the Earth and military executions in Mahler's vocal music. He also set several examples of broad folk humour in "Des Knaben Wunderhorn".

One of those humorous songs is excellent. Everybody will sense something familiar about it ....


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Boulez may have been "cool," but he was still human, except possibly while composing _Le marteau sans maitre._


If he wasn't human while writing that then I don't want to know what he was when writing Structures and the 2nd piano sonata. Robot composer Boulez did get more and more convincingly human as time went on.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

jdec said:


> Beethoven? Interesting. Can you tell us more about this fellow?


That photo is the real beethoven who was A MOOR you see photos of a light skin person.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

mtmailey said:


> That photo is the real beethoven who was A MOOR you see photos of a light skin person.


I just wish he would have lived another 10 years so I could be listening to MOOR of his music.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

mtmailey said:


> That photo is the real beethoven who was A MOOR you see photos of a light skin person.


No, he wasn't. It's an urban myth.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

jenspen said:


> I haven't listened to much Mahler but I'll drop into the conversation anyway to point out that it's not all deaths of children, melancholy farewells to the Earth and military executions in Mahler's vocal music. He also set several examples of broad folk humour in "Des Knaben Wunderhorn".
> 
> One of those humorous songs is excellent. Everybody will sense something familiar about it ....


But one have to have humour, doesn't go well with everyone.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

What are you missing with Mahler?

Deeply profound, devastating music. Nothing much!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Animal the Drummer said:


> No, he wasn't. It's an urban myth.


Lots of them going around and about.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

beetzart said:


> Don't get me wrong I enjoy some of Mahler's music, the first two symphonies and some bits of others but I'd love to get into all his main works that others wax lyrical about. I can see beauty in all of Bruckner's symphonies and Sibelius', too, amongst others, but I can't find anything to get excited about with Mahler apart form what I mentioned. Is it just a case of perseverance, and patience? Or should I just stick to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky?


 He's one of the greats, a fantastic orchestrator with an extremely wide emotional range, beauty and depth of sentiment, biographical tendencies in sound, one of the greatest melodists of all time. I found it helpful to learn more about his life because his music tends to be very autobiographical. For instance, he lost six of his siblings, and people wonder why there's such an element of death and loss in his music. I found his life very much worth reading and that illuminated much of his music. I've never known anyone who wasn't interested in the lives of the composers to some extent and his was a rich one because he would always bounce back from loss or tragedy, except for when his health finally gave out. Sublime bliss, serene beauty, and ecstasy can also be heard because he knew the intensity and depth of love as well.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

OT: If you dont get it, you dont get it...as simple as that. Take your time and come back to it at a later date. It took me a long time to get nearly all of Mahler's symphonic output and I still cant stand the 8th. I don't like DLVDE either but others adore it. You dont have to like everything. Oh and I like the 1st and 2nd symphonies best too (but I do love most of the others too, now).


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> He's one of the greats, a fantastic orchestrator with an extremely wide emotional range, beauty and depth of sentiment, biographical tendencies in sound, one of the greatest melodists of all time.


Yes, and Mahler was also a great conductor, who worked with the world's finest orchestras....that, to me, helped develop his outstanding ability to orchestrate - he heard, first-hand, up-close, what worked, and what didn't work...


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Its easy to overlook because he did not write fugues or other traditional forms, but Mahler was also arguably the best countrapuntalist of his generation. It s easy to overlook because the writing is so organic - but the multiplicity of lines in his symphonies are every bit as intricate as the fugues of Bach. The third movement of the 9th Symphony is one spot where Mahler really showed his chops, with three fugatos in the piece


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