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Author: Aidan McGartland, PhD student and research assistant, Music Theory, McGill University
Bradley Cooper鈥檚 Oscar-nominated Maestro focuses on the man considered the 鈥渇irst great American conductor,鈥� Leonard Bernstein, who composed such diverse works as West Side Story and Candide.
Alongside Todd Field鈥檚 T谩r (2022), this is another high-profile recent film centring on the life of a conductor, putting classical music in the spotlight.
Both films feature Bernstein prominently, as the protagonist of Maestro and the mentor of the fictional Lydia T谩r. However, a third composer-conductor looms in the background of both films: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).聽
This notable presence of Mahler poses the question: Why does the music of Mahler remain so popular and moving to this day?聽
Mahler鈥檚 significance includes his inventive modernism and highly expressive writing that communicated emotions shaped by his fascinating (albeit melancholic) life 鈥� and the turbulent history surrounding how his work was received.聽
Power of Mahler
In Maestro, Mahler is not explicitly discussed, but his music features prominently in the film, with a climactic reenactment of Bernstein conducting a triumphant finale of Mahler鈥檚 Symphony No. 5 performed by the London Symphony Orchestra in Ely Cathedral (near Cambridge) in 1973.
Maestro frames Bernstein鈥檚 experience of Mahler鈥檚 finale as being so powerful it reignites Bernstein鈥檚 relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. Bernstein was instrumental in pioneering the revival of Mahler鈥檚 music.
From Vienna Court Opera to New York
Mahler worked mainly as a conductor of operas, notably his 1897 appointment as director of the Vienna Court Opera (now the Vienna State Opera). From 1908-10, he held an appointment at New York鈥檚 Metropolitan Opera.聽
He spent his summer vacations composing in rural Austria, leading to many of his works being inspired by the Austrian countryside.聽
However, being Jewish, Mahler鈥檚 career was tainted by antisemitism and he was forced to resign from the Vienna Court Opera owing to the deteriorating treatment of Jews in Europe.聽
Upon his arrival in New York in 1908, the Metropolitan Opera also hired Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, limiting Mahler鈥檚 actual appearances as conductor. In New York, Mahler faced xenophobia directed at his Austro-Bohemian identity, owing to the anti-German sentiment in America at the time.聽
After about a year of a serious heart infection, Mahler died in 1911 at the premature age of 50. Shortly before his death, Mahler had planned an early retirement, where he would had intended to dedicate himself to composition and completing his Symphony No. 10.聽
Modernist pioneer
Today, Mahler is in the canon of post-Beethovenian symphonists, but this was certainly not the case during his lifetime.聽
Mahler was a pioneer of radical modernist developments in fin-de-si猫cle Vienna, alongside Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg. Together, these artists foreshadowed the musical expressionism of the 1910s.聽
Twentieth-century musical modernism can be defined as a radical change from past forms, culminating in a marked break with tradition.聽
Mahler did this partly by:聽
- Augmenting compositions in length and sheer scale. His gargantuan Symphony No. 8, dubbed the 鈥渟ymphony of a thousand鈥� due to the large numbers of musicians and diverse array of instruments required, including an enlarged percussion section, organ, harmonium and piano together with mass choir and vocal soloists. 聽聽
- Mahler employed a variety of extra-musical sounds from the world, including bird songs and horn calls. A notable example is Mahler鈥檚 use of cowbells that evoke the Austrian Alps in both his Sixth and Seventh symphonies. This foreshadows sound art and the liberation of noise as music that emerged later in the 20th century.
- Mahler was a pioneer of progressive tonality, where the key changes from start to finish. This technique challenges traditional tonality, where there is a 鈥渉ome key.鈥� These new techniques expanded Mahler鈥檚 musical language, allowing him to play with the listener鈥檚 expectations and create a greater range of musical expression.
Expression and emotion
Mahler believed that music could express emotions where words failed. He wrote in 1896 that:聽
聽鈥溾�s long as I can express an experience in words I should never try to put it into music. The need to express myself musically 鈥� in symphonic terms 鈥� begins only on the plane of obscure feelings, at the gate that opens into the "other world鈥�, the world in which things no longer fall apart in time and space.鈥溌�
His symphonic works are filled with a variety of music forms, with different characteristics, including operatic highpoints, rustic country dances, playful scherzos and mournful marches. 聽聽
To facilitate Mahler鈥檚 expanding expressive musical language, the composer wrote very long and precise instructions on his scores.聽
Rediscovery
From the 1960s onwards, Mahler鈥檚 music gradually regained more recognition for the first time since his death.聽
Firstly, in 1960, in a concert honouring Mahler broadcast on CBS, Bernstein introduced Mahler as not "one of those big popular names like Beethoven or Gershwin or Ravel.鈥� But Mahler soon achieved status alongside these composers, certainly eclipsing the popularity he experienced in his own lifetime due to a number of factors.聽
Bernstein claimed to have rediscovered Mahler, and subsequently pioneered Mahler鈥檚 symphonies. Bernstein said Mahler incorporated 鈥渢he manners and customs and ways of thinking and feeling of both East and West 鈥�. His music shows the influence of Mozart, and Schubert and Wagner 鈥� all the great German and Austrian composers.鈥�
Bernstein continued to demonstrate Mahler鈥檚 unique incorporation of musical ideas from Roma, Slavic, Jewish and Chinese musical cultures.聽
This cross-cultural musical engagement and a quest to express a unity that could encompass dissonance and difference was one of the parallels Bernstein saw between himself and Mahler.
Bernstein, an American Jew, demonstrated his own passion for multicultural immersion and engagement in West Side Story (1957) and MASS (1971).
Secondly, the German philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy in 1960. Adorno considered Mahler鈥檚 Bohemian childhood, personality and his sociopolitical context alongside Mahler鈥檚 music.
Lastly, In 1971, Luchino Visconti鈥檚 film, Death in Venice included a famous opening scene of Mahler鈥檚 Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 accompanying a steamship arriving in Venice at sunrise, bringing Mahler鈥檚 music to a global audience. The film is adapted from a 1912 Thomas Mann story which contains many allusions to Mahler.
Decades later, Mahler鈥檚 musical power still endures.
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Aidan McGartland receives funding from McGill University and the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation.
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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/maestro-shows-the-enduring-power-of-gustav-mahler-through-leonard-bernsteins-passion-223169
Aidan McGartland, PhD student and research assistant, Music Theory, McGill University, The Conversation
