Mahler and Tradition. Is There or Isn't There? Gilbert E. Kaplan and Peter Franklin in Searchof OneAuthor(s): Gilbert E. KaplanSource: The Musical Times, Vol. 133, No. 1797 (Nov., 1992), pp. 559-563Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002572Accessed: 28/07/2010 15:07

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Exposing myths

MAULER AND TRADITION

Gilbert E. Kaplan pleads for an 'authentic' approach to Mahler performance ...

T here is no tradition'l, or so concluded Otto Klemperer, some

fifty years after Gustav Mahler's death, concerning perfor- mance practices of the composer's work. Indeed, today Mahler's music is called upon to accommodate many interpretative styles.

Consider the case of the tempo of the Adagietto, the fourth move- ment of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. The first recorded performance, by Willem Mengelberg in 1926, lasts about seven minutes, while Bernard Haitink's recent recording is almost fourteen minutes.2 And one can find performances at practically every timing in between among the seventy or so recordings of the Adagietto.3

Conversations with experienced Mahler conductors might lead one to the conclusion that Mahler would have approved of this state of affairs. The argument often made is that Mahler encouraged con- ductors to play his works as they pleased, so long as the result was convincing. After all, was it not Mahler who said: 'Tradition is slovenliness'? What's more, as a conductor, Mahler himself was often accused of taking considerable liberties with other composers' music and was criticised for tampering with the orchestration of works by Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, among others. Thus, this line of reasoning continues, Mahler surely would have approved of - or at least understood - other conductors treating his own music in the same manner.

Two comments by Mahler are often cited as evidence of this. The first occurred during a rehearsal of his Second Symphony for his farewell concert in Vienna in 1907. After striking out a trombone

passage because the instruments were covering the soloists' voices, Mahler said: 'I salute conductors who, when the occasion arises, modify my scores to suit the acoustics of the hall.'4 The other com- ment was made during a rehearsal of his Eighth Symphony, at which he changed some details of that work. He turned to Klemperer and other young conductors present as observers and said: 'If, after my death, something doesn't sound [right], then change it. You have the right to change; not only the right, the duty to change it.'5

In fact, this idea - that Mahler did not want a performance tradi- tion for his music - is a myth. Although he may have approved of conductors making modest adjustments to his orchestration when

necessary, he was adamant that conductors should not freely inter- pret his music, an attitude that was entirely consistent with his own practice. Mahler was indeed a great interpreter, but he believed his interpretations always fulfilled the composer's own wishes. When his performances of others' works were criticised for failing to fol- low 'tradition', he argued that his fellow conductors had relied too long on a false tradition that had no relation to how the composer conducted his own work or wished it to be performed by others.

'Then,' he complained, 'if someone comes along and fans the nearly extinguished spark in the work to a living flame again, he is shouted down as a heretic and an innovator.'6 This pattern was the real basis of his 'tradition is slovenliness' remark.7

Even in the case of Mahler's re-orchestrations, where it appeared that he deliberately disregarded what the composer wanted, he

emphasised that his aim was always to be faithful to the composer's intent. Mahler defended his work on Beethoven, explaining that

changes in brass instruments and in the size of orchestras since Beethoven's time required some re-balancing of the orchestra. But he stressed that, in making any changes, his sole aim was 'to pursue Beethoven's will down to its minutest manifestations, not to sacri- fice one iota of the master's intentions.'8

When it came to performances of his own music, according to his wife, Alma, 'It was Mahler's wish to hand down his own interpreta- tions as a tradition,'9 and his 'tradition is slovenliness' comment should not be read as a contradiction. As we have seen, Mahler believed in tradition, but only when it emanated from a composer.

Consider what he told a friend after the poor reception of his Fifth Symphony in Berlin and Prague in 1905: 'So I thought to myself: is it the fault of the symphony or the conductor?...We musicians are worse off than writers in that respect. Anyone can read a book, but a musical score is a book with seven seals. Even the conductors who can decipher it present it to the public soaked in their own

interpretations. For that reason there must be a tradition, and no one can create it but I' (my italics).10

Some years earlier, after hearing a performance of his Second

Symphony that 'took the wind out of his sails', Mahler expressed the same sentiment, complaining that the tempos, expression and phrasing were wrong, even though it 'was directed and rehearsed by someone who will imagine and claim that he inherits the "tradition"

straight from me! From this, you may learn the truth about every so-called "tradition": there is no such thing! Everything is left to the whim of the individual, and unless a genius awakens them to life, works of art are lost. Now I understand perfectly why Brahms let people play his works as they pleased. He knew that anything he told them was in vain. Bitter experience and resignation are

expressed in this fact.'11 Mahler was especially concerned that conductors get his tempos

right. 'Tempo is for me a matter of feeling' Mahler said. 'You know how meticulous I am in my work. I never trust the conductors or their capacities. Yet even if they follow every indication, all is lost if they make a mistake in the first tempo.'12 Mahler could have made it easier for conductors by providing metronome marks - and

The Musical Times November 1992 559

'9

7;-

The opening page of the Adagietto from Willem Mengelberg's personal no other words accompanied it. She understood and wrote to him: he

copy of the score of the Fifth Symphony. In the upper right hand cor- should come!!! (Both of them told me this!).' This revelation provides ner he wrote that 'This Adagietto was Gustav Mahler's declaration of musical implications for performing the Adagietto. (Collection Haags love for Alma! Instead of a letter, he sent her this in manuscript form; Gemeente Museum, The Hague/Willem Mengelberg Stiftung)

The Musical Times

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560 November 1992

in some of his early works he did just that. But later he removed most of them because he felt they put a straitjacket on music that needed room for some flexibility. Mahler called metronome mark-

ings 'almost worthless; for unless the work is vulgarly ground out in

barrel-organ style, the tempo will already have changed by the end of the second bar.' 13

That's why Mahler would have been the last person to argue that there was only one precise, correct tempo for any of his works. His own performances were always somewhat different from one anoth- er because, for Mahler, music was 'something living and flowing that could never be the same even twice in succession.'14 But that didn't mean he approved of any tempo. Mahler often complained that conductors tended to 'exaggerate and distort' his indications -

'the largo too slow, the presto too fast.'1s He said that an overall

tempo could be only 'a degree' faster or slower than the one he pre- scribed (depending on the mood of a conductor) and that it could

vary only 'slightly' without otherwise harming the work.16 Mahler provided several clues to the limits of what he regarded as

acceptable tempo flexibility. One is a metronome mark he did leave in a published score, that for the opening tempo of the first move- ment of the Second Symphony; it is a range - crotchet = 84-92 -

of about ten per cent. Another clue is Mahler's reaction to the tim-

ing of one of his own performances (with which he was apparently satisfied). He expressed 'amazement' that 'he, the composer' had taken one movement of the Third Symphony a few minutes more

slowly than he had on another occasion.17 Finally, there is his criti- cism of his protege Oskar Fried, whom Mahler visited when Fried was rehearsing the Second Symphony in Berlin in 1905. Mahler told him that his tempos were 'too fast by half'.18 The next day Fried told his musicians that 'everything I did during the rehearsals was wrong. This evening I will take entirely different tempi.'19

There can be no doubt that Mahler wanted other conductors to follow his tempos, with room for some flexibility. But the problem remains of knowing what Mahler's tempos were. Although there are no recordings of any Mahler performances, he did make four

piano rolls of some of his music,20 and several of his scores and

parts contain timings of his performances. This material sheds considerable light on the subject. For exam-

ple, performances of the Adagietto by modem conductors such as

Bernstein, Tennstedt, Ozawa, Karajan, Abaddo, Levine, Maazel and Haitink average twelve minutes and present the music as if it were meant to be a lament, conveying solemn feelings of melancholy or even death.21 It would appear that a 'tradition' may well be forming that embraces this pace and point of view. Yet there is good evi- dence that it would be a false tradition because Mahler (as well as his disciples Mengelberg and Walter) averaged eight minutes.22

Moreover, from a notation in Mengelberg's personal copy of the score of the Fifth Symphony, we know that, far from being a lament, the Adagietto served as a love letter Mahler sent to Alma (see illus- tration opposite). The sheer magnitude of this difference in tempo (too fast by half) and in the feelings this music was meant to convey argues strongly that today's ultra-slow performances are not in

keeping with the composer's intention and that Mahler most defi-

nitely would not have approved of them. This brief analysis of the Adagietto tempo is but one example of

the work that needs to be done on all Mahler's music. It is not too late to discover and encourage the true Mahler tradition.

Gilbert E. Kaplan's Gustav Mahler Adagietto: facsimile, documen-

tation, recording was recently published (distribution by Faber Music Ltd). His article, 'How Mahler performed his Second

Symphony', appeared in the May 1986 issue of The Musical Times. He will be conducting Mahler's Second Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall on 9 October with The Philharmonia, Philharmonia Chorus and soloists Yvonne Kenny and Diana Montague.

Notes

1 Robert Chesterman, ed.: Conversations with conductors (London, 1976),

p. 108. 2 Willem Mengelberg, Concertgebouw Orchestra, May 1926 (78

rpm: Eng-Columbia L 1798, Odeon 0 8591, AmDecca 25011; CD Angel 69956); Bernard Haitink, Berlin Philharmonic (Philips 422355). 3 Gilbert

E. Kaplan: 'Discography' (edited by Peter Fiulop), Gustav Mahler

Adagietto: facsimile, documentation, recording (New York, 1992), pp. 89-93. 4 Henry-Louis de La Grange: Gustav Mahler, vol. 3: le ge'nie

foudroye, 1907-1911 (Paris, 1984), p. 156, citing Egon and Emmy Wellesz:

Egon Wellesz, Leben und Werk (Vienna, 1981). 5 Chesterman, ed.: op.cit.,

p.l 1 1. 6 Natalie Bauer-Lechner: Recollections of Gustav Mahler, ed. Peter

Franklin, trans. Dika Newlin (New York, 1980; London, 1980), p.112. 7

Alma Mahler: Memories and letters, ed. Donald Mitchell and Knud

Martner, trans. Basil Creighton. Fourth edition (London, 1973), p. 115. The

origin of the 'traditon is slovenliness' saying was a dispute Mahler had with

the Vienna Opera chorus master, who insisted that the entire male chorus

participate in the prisoners' chorus, 'Oh welche Lust', from Beethoven's

Fidelio because it was a Viennese 'tradition'. Mahler's actual words were:

'What you people of the theatre call your tradition is nothing but your com-

fort and your slovenliness'. Henry-Louis de La Grange: Gustav Mahler, vol. 2: L'age d'or de Vienne, 1900-1907 (Paris, 1983), p.468. 8 Kurt

Blaukopf: Gustav Mahler, trans. Inge Goodwin (New York, 1985), pp. 154-155. 9 Mahler: Memories and letters, p.115. 10 Ibid; pp. 92-93. The

conductor was Arthur Nikisch. 11 Bauer-Lechner: Recollections, p.141. 12 Henry-Louis de La Grange: Gustav Mahler, vol. 1 (New York, 1973),

p.314. 13 Bauer-Lechner: Recollections, p. 46. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.

17 Ibid. 18 Mahler: Memories and letters, letter 83, p. 267. 19 Henry- Louis de La Grange: Gustav Mahler, vol. 2, p. 726, citing Otto Klemperer,

Erinnerungen an Gustav Mahler (Zurich, 1960). 20 The four piano rolls

that Mahler made of his music with the firm M. Welte & Sohne on 9

November 1905 include two songs, 'Ging heut' Morgen uibers Feld' from

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (piano roll 767) and 'Ich ging mit Lust'

from Lieder und Gesdnge aus der Jugendzeit (piano roll 768); the first

movement of the Fifth Symphony (piano roll 769); and the last movement

of the Fourth Symphony (piano roll 770). A recording of the four rolls will

be released by The Kaplan Foundation. 21 Leonard Bernstein, Vienna

Philharmonic (DG 423608); Klaus Tennstedt, London Philharmonic (Angel CD 49888); Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra (Philips 432141); Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic (DG 415096); Claudio Abbado,

Chicago Symphony Orchesta (DG 427254); James Levine, Philadelphia Orchestra (RCA RCD1 5453); Lorin Maazel, concert at Carnegie Hall, New

York, 28 February 1992; Bernard Haitink, Berlin Philharmonic (Philips 422355). 22 Kaplan: 'From Mahler With Love', Gustav Mahler Adagietto,

pp. 18-19. See also Paul Banks: 'Aspects of Mahler's Fifth Symphony: performance practice and interpretation', T MT, May 1989, pp. 261-262.

The Musical Times 561 November 1992

... and Peter Franklin scrutinises Kaplan's own conitribuntioni to the cause

T he problem about this lavish production, boxed in silk and almost scented by the great rose of Magritte's 'Le tombeau

des lutteurs' which adorns it in miniature reproduction, is that it is an object for the fetishist which tries to justify itself as a piece of anti-fetishism. The main bete noire for Gilbert Kaplan is the movement as taken out of context by Visconti in his film Death in Venice - an Adagietto turned fatalistic and consequently brooded over by conductors who take it far too slowly. Mr Kaplan, known hitherto for his singular devotion to Mahler's Second Symphony (both as conductor and as publisher of the fine 1986 facsimile of its manuscript), includes a CD recording of his own performance of the Adagietto with the London Symphony Orchestra. Running at 7'57", Kaplan offers it as a model of what he believes to have been Mahler's intentions, further glossed by the CD case's rather crude subtitle: 'From Mahler with Love'.

In essence, I am sure he's right about this tempo, which he justi- fies both by reported timings of performances by Mahler and his

disciples and by imaginative extrapolation from Willem

Mengelberg's probably authentic story that the piece had been sent by Mahler to his young bride-to-be as a musical 'declaration of love'. These points had, of course, been made before, most recent- ly in a valuable article by Paul Banks (MT, May 1989). Kaplan appropriately cites this in his introductory article to the beautifully printed booklet that accompanies these lifelike facsimiles (in unbound, separate signatures like the original 1924 facsimile of the sketches for the Tenth). Included are Mahler's own fair-copy of the Adagietto, in which the opening violin line continues to rise by step to the mediant in the second phrase, and Alma's purple-ink copy (alas rendered in black here - a loss for serious fetishists), which registers Mahler's many minor revisions and his replace- ment of the tame G with the immortal Bb (see Exs. 1 and 2). At the beginning of his preface, Kaplan boldly states that, for Mahler, 'the Adagietto was a simple expression of love' (p.7), noting later (p.23) that only 'melancholy love' could merit an Adagio tempo. Un-melancholy love apparently needs to go faster and merits a diminutive '-etto'.

Here things get more awkward, particularly given the absorbing documentary material that Kaplan includes, along with an invalu- able, if inevitably rather terse, comparative scholarly description of all the relevant sources by Edward Reilly, the leading expert on Mahler's manuscripts. The composer's 'courtship letters' (reprint- ed in the booklet) raise questions about the nature of his relation-

ship with Alma that are made more pressing when we put the Adagietto back into its context as a 'pendant' (Paul Bank's term) to the Fifth Symphony's Rondo-Finale. The long ultimatum that Mahler penned to Alma on 19 December 1901 ('... you must

become "what I need" if we are to be happy together...You, how- ever, have only one profession from now on: to make me happy.') can no longer be read without critical awareness of the extent to which the composer was deceiving himself when he claimed not to 'hold the bourgeois view of the relationship between husband and wife'. His love for this woman half his age was far from 'simple'. Even if it were, could the Adagietto be construed as a simple decla- ration? In comparing it with other slow movements in Mahler,

Kaplan fails to characterise is as a 'song without words' in the specifically musical sense that its texture is that of an individu- alised melody with accompaniment, with the accent on the melody as an expressive line. The earlier slow movements derived their particular grandeur from opening material which was as much har- monic as melodic, providing a chorale-like basis for wide-ranging variations. It is for this reason that ostensibly negative evaluations of the Adagietto by Klemperer ('a salon piece') and Adomo ('culi- nary sentimentality') should not be dismissed as altogether irrele- vant to our reading of it.

The tempo marking 'molto Adagio' is clearly contrasted to the

general designation of the movement as 'Adagietto'. By concen- trating on this title as itself a kind of tempo indication, Kaplan fails to confront its implications as a strategically diminutive form of

adagio - signifying a 'little adagio'; a movement lacking the weight or solemnity of the parent form. Given the character of Mahler's relationship with Alma, we can but note that, in the regenerative cycle symbolised by the Fifth Symphony as a whole she thus appears to have merited no more than a fragrant adagietto, whose function is to lead into Mahler's first truly celebrative rondo-finale, where that now so famous theme is irreverently recast as a jaunty dance. Was Alma, on one level, no more than the

charming key to her master's pleasure? When Mahler implicitly mocks the material of a real Adagio, as in the Ninth Symphony, the effect is one of agonising self-torture. Might we not indeed inter-

pret the Adagietto of the Fifth as staged or 'set up' in a rather delib- erate way? Is there not something a touch 'culinary' in its indul-

gence, however fond, in a kind of sentimentality at which the Rondo-Finale will merrily raise an eyebrow?

To take the Adagietto as a truly heartfelt 'declaration' might alternatively be to revalue Visconti's use of it in Death in Venice as

highlighting something rather relevant about that declaration of the love of a mature artist for a much younger person, whose beauty and meaning for him he sought urgently to idealise. There is, in all

truth, nothing in the film that need link it directly with death (as Kaplan seems to suggest on p.14). As in Mann's autobiographical novella (in which he intentionally gave Aschenbach some of Mahler's facial features), death claims the artist in an act of moral closure that we alone have fully seen to be inevitable, while

Aschenbach, and perhaps the Adagietto, have been intent on other

things. In the end, I suspect we have to thank Visconti for the whole

process of Adagietto-obsession which reaches its culmination in this box of facsimiles. It would have sat prettily on a side-table in the Grand Hotel des Bains, to be stroked absent-mindedly by Dirk

Bogarde as he sat gazing sadly out to sea. I, for one, do not mind a bit.

Gustav Mahler Adagietto: facsimile, documentation, recording Edited by Gilbert E. Kaplan Kaplan Foundation (New York, 1992). Limited edition, ?65. ISBN 0571-51322-0. (Distributed by Faber Music Ltd)

The Muisical Times 562 November 1992

Ex. 1

The opening page of

Mahler's handwritten (auto-

graph) copy of the Adagietto

from his Fifth Symphony.

(The Pierpont Morgan

Library Mary Flagler Cary

Music Collection, New York.

Photo David A. Loggie)

Ex. 2

The opening page of the copy

of the Adagietto prepared by

Alma Mahler. (Collection

Music Division, The New

York Public Library, Astor,

Lenox and Tilden

Foundations, New York.

Photo David A. Loggie)

The Musical Times

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:r : :: :

563 November 1992