A Love Affair With Mahler
Last fall, as I walked around school, I listened to the buzz coming from my fellow students. For some reason, they all seemed to be talking about the same thing --- Mahler. I didn't understand how so many people could be so desperately in love with one person, all at the same time.
Now don't get me wrong, I always love Mahler.
But during this November, there was an overabundance of Gustav, and not just among my friends but throughout New York City. Everyone I knew was going to see performances of Mahler's 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th symphonies (I personally attended a fantastic performance of the 1st Symphony with the New York Philharmonic with my then boyfriend that reaffirmed my undying love, er, for Mahler, that is) and it was the thing to do. During classes we talked about rediscovering symphonies, how we felt on Mahler as an orchestrator, rewriting the works of Beethoven and the following backlash, Gustav as a conductor and the German Romantic Legacy.
As fun as all of this was, I couldn't figure out why everyone was going Mahler crazy. Then I remembered back to my senior year of high school when the exact same thing occured --- everyone I knew was discovering Mahler. It was then that I fell in love with Das Lied von Der Erde after analyzing it in my AP music theory class and really went back to listening to again, his 1st Symphony. As soon as I thought about this, it came to me. When I was a high school sophomore, all of 15 maybe, my youth orchestra decided it would be a good idea to play, in our spring program, the 1st Symphony. I remember being outraged thinking a little girl like me was not capable of really playing this piece no matter how talented I may have been at the time. I hadn't experienced enough in my life emotionally to be able to convey the passion withheld in this work. And I was scared out of my mind when I realized that it would be me playing the bassoon solo in the second movement. We were all so young, so fresh and innocent, naïve to the ways of this music and we had no idea what were getting ourselves into.
I realized that we can play the music of different composers at different stages in our lives. For example, any child can play Mozart but no matter how tired you may get of those tunes you know so well, the older you get, the more you can come back to Mozart and realize that you've only nicked the tip of a massive iceberg --- I've been playing Mozart's Bassoon Concerto in Bb Major, K191 for almost 10 years now and it's still revealing its secrets to me. And then there are composers like Mahler, with which I honestly believe that you have to live a little before you can really dive into it. When I played the 1st Symphony, I knew nothing of what that symphony was trying to tell me. When I studied and fell in love with Das Lied von Der Erde, I was three years older, had lost my best friend and found the love of my life. Three years later when I rediscovered the 1st Symphony and fell in love with the 2nd and the 5th, I was in my first relationship after the messy end of my engagement and had just learned what it was like to wake up in the morning with someone and hear the fourth movement of the 5th Symphony. When I first heard it at 14, there's no way I would have known just how much love is expressed in the Adagietto.
So it was then that I understood that every couple of years, after our triumphs and tribulations and after we've learned a little more about ourselves, we find Mahler anew and fall in love with him all over again. And the best part is, he'll always be there waiting --- waiting for us to discover more of ourselves through his music.
Now don't get me wrong, I always love Mahler.
But during this November, there was an overabundance of Gustav, and not just among my friends but throughout New York City. Everyone I knew was going to see performances of Mahler's 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th symphonies (I personally attended a fantastic performance of the 1st Symphony with the New York Philharmonic with my then boyfriend that reaffirmed my undying love, er, for Mahler, that is) and it was the thing to do. During classes we talked about rediscovering symphonies, how we felt on Mahler as an orchestrator, rewriting the works of Beethoven and the following backlash, Gustav as a conductor and the German Romantic Legacy.
As fun as all of this was, I couldn't figure out why everyone was going Mahler crazy. Then I remembered back to my senior year of high school when the exact same thing occured --- everyone I knew was discovering Mahler. It was then that I fell in love with Das Lied von Der Erde after analyzing it in my AP music theory class and really went back to listening to again, his 1st Symphony. As soon as I thought about this, it came to me. When I was a high school sophomore, all of 15 maybe, my youth orchestra decided it would be a good idea to play, in our spring program, the 1st Symphony. I remember being outraged thinking a little girl like me was not capable of really playing this piece no matter how talented I may have been at the time. I hadn't experienced enough in my life emotionally to be able to convey the passion withheld in this work. And I was scared out of my mind when I realized that it would be me playing the bassoon solo in the second movement. We were all so young, so fresh and innocent, naïve to the ways of this music and we had no idea what were getting ourselves into.
I realized that we can play the music of different composers at different stages in our lives. For example, any child can play Mozart but no matter how tired you may get of those tunes you know so well, the older you get, the more you can come back to Mozart and realize that you've only nicked the tip of a massive iceberg --- I've been playing Mozart's Bassoon Concerto in Bb Major, K191 for almost 10 years now and it's still revealing its secrets to me. And then there are composers like Mahler, with which I honestly believe that you have to live a little before you can really dive into it. When I played the 1st Symphony, I knew nothing of what that symphony was trying to tell me. When I studied and fell in love with Das Lied von Der Erde, I was three years older, had lost my best friend and found the love of my life. Three years later when I rediscovered the 1st Symphony and fell in love with the 2nd and the 5th, I was in my first relationship after the messy end of my engagement and had just learned what it was like to wake up in the morning with someone and hear the fourth movement of the 5th Symphony. When I first heard it at 14, there's no way I would have known just how much love is expressed in the Adagietto.
So it was then that I understood that every couple of years, after our triumphs and tribulations and after we've learned a little more about ourselves, we find Mahler anew and fall in love with him all over again. And the best part is, he'll always be there waiting --- waiting for us to discover more of ourselves through his music.
posted by Imani at 11:13 AM
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