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8/20/2019 The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony
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The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth SymphonyAuthor(s): Vera MicznikSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 20, No. 2, Special Mahler Issue (Autumn, 1996), pp. 144-166Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746905
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8/20/2019 The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony
2/24
h e
Farewel l
S t o r y
o
M ahler s
i n t h
ymphony
VERA
MICZNIK
From the earliest
contemporary accounts,
the
question
of
meaning
in
Mahler's
symphonic
music has puzzled public and critics alike, and
his
symphonies
have
become
subject
to
the
most
extravagant
extramusical
interpretations,
often formulated
along
biographical,
philosophi-
cal,
or
programmatic
lines. In
particular,
an
almost
unprecedented
aura
of
superstition
and
mystification
surrounds
the Ninth
Symphony,
his last
completed
work.
Whether couched in
metaphorical
or
analytical
language,
one
spe-
cific interpretation appears consistently in all
the
extramusical
elaborations: the
symphony's
expressive
content
is
pervasively
viewed as
a
representation
of
Mahler's
"farewell
to the
world and to life." This view of the meaning of
the work
has been so
influential
that it
re-
mains
unchallenged
even in
today's
critical
lit-
erature.
The fourth
edition of
the
History
of
Western
Music
by
Grout and
Palisca,
for
ex-
ample,
tells students
without further
explana-
tion that
the
Ninth,
Mahler's
ast
completed
symphony (com-
posed 1909-10), flows in a mood of resignationmixed
with
bitter
satire,
an
indescribably
strange
and
sad
farewell to
life,
symbolized
by
deliberate
reference
to the Lebe
wohl
(Farewell)
heme of the
opening
of
Beethoven's
Sonata
op.
81a.
This
motif,
or
reminis-
cences
of
it,
pervades
the
first and
last
movement
(both
in slow
tempo)
of the Ninth
Symphony,
as
well as that other
"farewell"
work of Mahler's
last
years,
The
Song of
the
Earth.'
19th-Century
Music
XX/2 (Fall
1996)
?
by
The
Regents
of
the
University
of
California.
For
many helpful
suggestions
on
reading
an earlier
draft
of
this
essay,
I
would
like to thank Krin
Gabbard,
State Uni-
versity
of New
York at
Stony Brook,
and
Michael
Fellman,
Simon FraserUniversity;andfor additional valuablecom-
ments on this later
version, many
thanks
to
my colleague
David
Metzer.
'Donald
J.
Grout and Claude
V.
Palisca,
A
History
of
West-
ern Music
(4th
edn. New
York, 1988),
p.
760.
144
8/20/2019 The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony
3/24
Here is a case
in
the
history
of
symphonic
works where an extramusical
interpretation
of
an
allegedly nonprogrammatic piece
survives
unadulterated,
because
of the
complicated
threads that have constantly reinforced the ini-
tial
responses,
and
despite
the
predominantly
formalist
trends
of
twentieth-century analyti-
cal
methodologies
that dismiss such
interpre-
tations as
"impressionistic."
While
the characterization
of
the
meaning
of
the
symphony
as a "farewell"
might
have
seemed
perfectly
natural
n
the context in
which
it was
first
formulated,
and
to
the
public by
whom it was perceived, in today's context, the
apparently simple
terms on
which these
views
depended (e.g.,
symbolization,
reference,
"fare-
well
work")
have
become
much
more loaded
and need
to
be
unpacked.
In the
climate
of
our
time,
they
touch
on
central issues
of
concern:
musical
meaning
and
representation,
narrative
dimensions of music and music
criticism,
pat-
terns of
reception
and transmission
of
works,
myth formation, ideological and aesthetic is-
sues,
and
problems
of artistic value andhistori-
cal
evidence.
Throughout
this
study,
I
substitute
the "fare-
well
meaning" assigned
to the
symphony
with
"farewell
story,"
because
in
my
view,
the idea
of
"farewell to
life,"
even
if
not fleshed out
in
a
narrative,
suggests
a
sequence
of events or a
basic
structure
similar to that
of
many
stories:
a main character
(Mahler)
lived, suffered,
put
all
his
suffering
into his
creativity,
and know-
ing
that
he
would
die,
imprinted
the
knowl-
edge
of his
impending
deathonto his last works.
But could such a
story
be read from the
music
itself? Or could it
result from
a
set
of
condi-
tions
surrounding
the
musical
work?
In
an
at-
tempt
to
answer these
questions,
by
gathering
and
problematizing
the various
kinds of
knowl-
edge currently
available about the Ninth
Sym-
phony,
I
undertake an examination of the com-
plex
circumstances that kindled
the
farewell
story
and
prompted
its transmission and
per-
petuation.
Using
this work and the
interpreta-
tions of
its
meaning
as a case
study,
the discus-
sion will
shed
light
on more
general
historio-
graphical issues,
specific
not
only
to the
works
of
Mahler
and his era but also to other histori-
cal
periods.
The
creation of the
farewell
story
and
its
transmission will
be
interrogated
on
the
basis
of
different
kinds of
evidence
available in
three
domains:
the series of
receptions
of
the
work,
that
is,
the
interpretive
critical
reactions
to
it;
contemporarydocumentspertaining o Mahler's
biography,
such as
letters or
testimonies that
have
survived;
and the
music
itself,
with the
specific
kinds of narrative
meanings
it can
con-
vey
to us
today,
which
might
have
contributed
to the creation of
this
story.2
The
point
of
juxtaposing
these three
types
of
accounts is not
necessarily
to refute or to
rein-
force the
validity
of
one
in
terms of the
others,
or hierarchize them in terms of their potential
truth value
or
conformity
to an
objective
his-
torical
reality
they may
be said
to
represent.
Embedded in
this
enterprise
is an
attempt
to
question
and
contextualize,
rather than
priori-
tize,
the truth value of these
accounts,
by
not
giving privileged
status to one
versus
another.
For it is not the
validity
of
the farewell
story
itself that I
find
problematic
in
statements
of
the kind cited above, but the kind of unques-
tioned
privileged
status it is
given.
Once one
understands he contexts in which
various
opin-
ions have
originated,
the
question
of
truth or
validity
becomes
marginal.
This
is
not
to
sug-
gest
that critical
judgments
should be
arbitrary
or
valueless,
but
that,
rather than
claiming
uni-
versal
validity, they
should
exploit
to a maxi-
mum
what
they
can
achieve,
that
is,
isolate
sensible distinctions of
validity
within the con-
straints of
a restricted continuum
of
possibili-
ties of
information
given
to
us.
All
accounts
(interpretive,historical,analytical)are,
after
all,
themselves
"stories,"
which,
in
the
words
of
Jerome Bruner,
do not
correspond
to
reality,
but to
fabricated
constructs
arising
from
our
desireto
give
coherence to
sequences
of
events,
and
thus,
"unlike
the
constructions
generated
by
logical
and scientific
procedures
that can be
weeded
out
by falsification,
narrativeconstruc-
tions
can
only
achieve
'verisimilitude'."3
VERA
MICZNIK
Story
of
Mahler's
Ninth
2Obviously,
his
separation
s
in
part
artificial,
for
often
in
the
various commentaries the
interpretive-analytical
and
documentarydata areintertwined.
3Jerome
Bruner,
"The
Narrative
Construction
of
Reality,"
Critical
Inquiry
18
(1991),
4.
145
8/20/2019 The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony
4/24
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
WHAT THE CRITICS
TELL
US
Mahler
did not live to
hear his Ninth
Sym-
phony performed.
t
was
premiered
under Bruno
Walter
during
the "Wiener
Musikfestwoche,"
on 26
June
1912
in
Vienna,
more than a
year
after Mahler's
death.
It is
likely
that
only
a few
of the
composer's
closest
associates
were
fa-
miliar with the work before the
premiere,
since
only
a four-hand
piano
score
appeared
n
1912,
and the
full
score
was not
published
until
1913.
In
any case,
the first critical comments about
the work date
from after the
premiere.
In
his
review of the concert in
Die
Musik,
Richard
Specht
appreciates
the
variety
of moods
present
in the
symphony,
from the
"irony"
and "infer-
nal
Witz"
of the middle
movements,
to the
"found Gotteslied"
in
the first
and
last move-
ments.
In
the
first
movement,
"the
enigmatic
bell-sounds of the
beginning
return later with
a
terrible
echoing force,
as
if
they
were
tolling
for
death . .
a
lullaby
that the master
has
sung
to
himself,
for
his
peace, 'protectedby
God'shand'
('von
Gottes
Hand
gebettet'[sic];
it
should be
gebecket),
in
the
mother's house."4
Not
only
reviewers,
but also
biographers
ollow the
same
ideas.
In the
one-page
commentary
on
the Ninth
Symphony
that Paul
Stefan added after
the
completion
of
the
symphony
to the third
(1912)
edition of his
1910
Mahler
monograph,
he char-
acterizes the
overall
meaning
of the
symphony
as
"a
brazen
calmness,"
"a farewell without
bitterness,"
and the last
movement, Adagio,
is
Mahler's swan
song: "[it] brings
absolute
and
overwhelming
peace,
.
..
a
distinct
farewell,
[which]
bears
a remarkableresemblance
to the
last
song
of
Das Lied
von
der
Erde."5
Specht,
in
his
1913
enlarged monograph
Gustav
Mahler,
describes
the
symphony
in
a similar
vein,
al-
though
he
shows
a
closer
familiarity
with the
score,
as he
supports
some of his observations
with
actual musical
examples.6
He
interprets
literally
the
rhythmically repeated
As in the
horn and
cello
that
open
the
first movement as
"Distant
bells;
like
the soil that falls on a
fresh
grave."
Other
similarly
evocative
images
char-
acterize the
symphony
as
a
"large
Kindertot-
enlied,"
and
as a
"lyrical prelude
to
a
grave-
song."7
And even the
unusual distribution
of
the movements in the
symphony,
two
fast
middle movements surrounded
by
two
outer
slow
movements
(and
particularly
the
sym-
phony's ending
with
a
slow
movement),
is ex-
plained
as a
reflection of Mahler's
thoughts
retracing
his
life
while
standing
before
death:
Here,
one who stands at the last
gate,
which
will
close on both his
happiness
ndhis
suffering,
ooks
backatthe Inferno ftheworld; tthe hellofevery-
day ife,
with all
its
corrupt
ower,
ts brutal
medioc-
rity,
its tumultuous
emptiness,
ts untruthful
eal
thatdistorts ll lovelinessandkindness nto acarica-
ture.
... The
closing song
of a
life,
filled with
a
worn-
out
yearning
or
peace,
rather han
with the
joyfully
enrapturedreeting
f a
new,
purer
xistence.8
Alban
Berg's
often-cited reflections
on
Mahler'sNinth Symphony are to the point in
4Richard
Specht,
"Die
Wiener Musikfestwoche"
in Die
Musik
11/21 (1912),
160-61.
The last words
are a
quota-
tion
from
the last
song
of
Kindertotenlieder,
a
constant
source
of association
between the fate of the
dead children
and that of
Mahler. Constantin
Floros has identified sev-
enteen reviews after
the
premiere,
n
Austrian
newspapers
and
journals
alone,
which
had
in
common
the
topics
of
farewell
and of death
and
transfiguration.
See his Gustav
Mahler
III: Die
Symphonien
(Wiesbaden, 1985),
p.
267;
Engl. version Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies, trans.
Vernon Wicker
(Portland,Ore., 1993),
p.
272. Unless
indi-
cated
otherwise,
all translations
are mine.
5Paul
Stefan,
Gustav
Mahler:
Eine Studie
fiber Pers6n-
lichkeit
und Werk
4th
edn.
Munich,
1912);
he
quotations
are from the
English
trans.,
Gustav Mahler:
A
Study of
His
Personality
and
Work,
trans. T. E. Clark
(New York,
1913), pp.
142-43,
and 124-25. For
a
discussion
of
the
relationship
between Das Lied
and the
Ninth,
see
my
Meaning
n
Gustav
Mahler's
Music:
A Historical and
Ana-
lytical Study Focusing
on the
Ninth
Symphony
(Ph.D.
diss., State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1989),
pp.
440-44.
6Specht,
Gustav
Mahler
(Berlin, 1913), pp.
355-69.
Later
editions of
the
book
do not contain
any
musical
examples.
7"Ferne
Glocken;
gleich
Schollen
fiillt
es auf
ein
frisches
Grab"
Specht,
Mahler
[1913],
pp.
365
and
364).
8"Hier
lickt
einer,
der an der etzten Pforte
steht,
die
gleich
iiber
all
seinem
Gliick
und
all
seinem
Leid zufallen
wird,
auf das Inferno
der Welt
zuriick;
auf
die
Hblle des
Alltags
in
all seiner
unreinen
Kraft,
einen
brutalen
Gewbhnlichkeit,
seiner liirmenden
Leere,
seiner
verlogenen,
alles Holde
und
Giitige
zur Fratze verzerrenden
Geschiftigkeit.
.
. . Der
Schlussgesangeines Lebens, voll
miider
Sehnsucht nach
Ruhe,
nicht der
freudig
verziickte
Gruss
eines
neuen,
erhbhten,
reineren Daseins"
(Specht,
Mahler,
p.
358).
146
8/20/2019 The Farewell Story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony
5/24
this context. To
Berg,
the first movement
"is
the
expression
of his
[Mahler's]
extraordinary
love of the
earth,
his
yearning
to live on it
in
peace,
to
enjoy
nature most
profoundly-be-
fore death comes." The entire movement is the
"premonition
of
death,"
which
incessantly
an-
nounces
itself.
Mahler's
dynamic
mark
mit
h6chster
Gewalt
(m.
314) represents
for
Berg
the moment
where
"death
imposes
itself
right
in the middle of the
deepest,
most
painful
de-
sire
for life."
While
Berg's
story
is
indeed
based
on his
recognition
in the musical
substance of
constantly
"new out
bursting
climaxes
erupt-
ing like surges after the most delicate pas-
sages,"9
the
emotional
interpretation
he
gives
to the musical
ideas
would,
again,
be
difficult
to
explain,
unless
triggered
n
Berg by
the aura
surrounding
the
symphony
and the
reality
of
Mahler's
death.1'
The influence
of
the ideas created
by
these
first reactions
was
apparent
within a
few
years.
Even
the
analytically
minded
musicologists
Guido Adler and Paul Bekker, both of whom
stated
in
the
prefaces
to their
Mahler mono-
graphs
that
they
were not concerned
with bio-
graphical
or
psychological
matters,
still
asserted,
if
only
in
fragmentary
guises,
the ideas of
death
and
farewell,
partly
on the basis
of their draw-
ing
a
stylistic
analogy
between
the Ninth
and
the
last
movement,
"Der
Abschied,"
of
Das
Lied von der Erde.
Adler wrote
in
1918:
"Before
the
angel
of death had
grazed
him he composed
the
concluding
movement
of Das Lied von der
Erde
and the Ninth
as a farewell
to
life,"
and
"in
the
Ninth,
after
presenting
varying
images
of
existence,
the artist
bids it
farewell;
the
work
closes
'dying away' [ersterbend]."" Similarly
invoking
the connection with Das
Lied,
but
also
quoting
almost verbatim from
Specht,
Bekker
(in 1921)
wrote
about
the
Ninth as "the
apotheosis of Death," as a "Kindertotenlied,"
and,
by
using
an allusion to the titles of the
Third
Symphony,
he
proposed
that
"the un-
written
title of the Ninth could be 'Was
mir
der
Tod
erziihlt'
[What
Death told
me]."'2
All sub-
sequent
discussions
of the
meaning
of this
sym-
phony
were
tinged by
these first accounts.
A different
type
of evidence
unexpectedly
reinforced the
farewell
story:
the
personal
effu-
sions written by Mahler himself on the draft
scores
of the Ninth and Tenth
Symphonies
(omitted
in
the
final
scores).'3
Specht,
who
ap-
parently
had access to some
of
Mahler's manu-
scripts
immediately
after the
composer's
death,
was the first
to allude
to
a connection
between
the words "Leb'wohl
mein
Saitenspiel"
in-
scribed
by
Mahler on a
sketch for
the Tenth
Symphony,
and the
spiritual
content of the late
VERA
MICZNIK
Story
of
Mahler's
Ninth
9"Es ist der Ausdruck einer unerhdrten Liebe zu dieser
Erde,
die
Sehnsucht,
in
Frieden
auf
ihr zu
leben, sie,
die
Natur,
noch
auszugeniessen
bis
in
ihre tiefsten
Tiefen-
bevor der Tod kommt."
"Wo mitten
hinein
in
die
tiefste,
schmerzvollste Lebenslust
'mit
h6chster
Gewalt' der
Tod
sich anmeldet."
"Die immer
wie neue
Aufwallungen
ausbrechenden
Steigerungen
nach den zartesten Stellen"
(letter
to
his
wife
dating
presumably
from
the autumn of
1912:
see Alban
Berg,
Briefe
an seine Frau
[Munich,
1965],
p.
238).
l0Berg's
"reading"
was made
public
for the
first time
only
in
the issue
of
23,
Eine Wiener
Musikzeitschrift
nos.
26/27
(8 June 1936). See Henry-Louis de La Grange, Gustav
Mahler:
Chronique
d'une
vie,
vol.
III:Le
genie
foudroyd:
(1907-1911)
(Paris,
1984),
p.
1180.
"Guido
Adler,
Gustav
Mahler,
trans. as Gustav
Mahler
and
Guido
Adler: Records
of
a
Friendship,
ed. and
trans.
EdwardR.
Reilly (Cambridge,1982), pp.
61
and
69.
'2Paul
Bekker,
Gustav
Mahlers
Sinfonien (Meisenheim,
Glan,
1921;
rpt. Tutzing,
1969),
pp.
339-40. It is worth
noting
that in their
analyses Specht,Adler,
and Bekker
do
not
go through
the trouble of
arguing
how death
and
fare-
well are incorporatedwithin the musical substance. That
the
music was about
these matters is taken as
a
given,
as
an
axiom that does not
need
to
be
demonstrated.
'3In
he orchestral
draft of the first
movement,
the
follow-
ing inscriptions appear:
above
the
equivalent
of mm. 267-
71
in
the
final
score-"O
Jugendzeit
Entschwundene
O
Liebe
Verwehte "
(0,
youth
Vanished
Oh,
Love Blown
away );
and
above
the
equivalent
of
mm. 436-38-"Leb
wol
[sic],
Leb wol "
(Farewell,
Farewell).
See Gustav
Mahler,
IX.
Symphonie:
Partiturentwurf
der ersten drei
Sidtze,
Faksimile
nach der
Handschrift,
ed.
Erwin Ratz
(Vienna,1971),1/29
and
1/52;
and Hans Heinrich
Eggebrecht,
Die Musik Gustav Mahlers(Munich, 1982), p. 29. Similar
inscriptions appear
in
the draft score of
the last move-
ment: above mm. 159-61-"O
Schonheit "
(O,
Beauty);
above
mm.
159-60-"Liebe "
(Love );
above
mm. 162-68
"Lebtwol Lebt wol "
[sic]
(Farewell;
or is it
perhaps
a
pun
on
"lives
well"?);
above m. 178-"Welt "
(World);
nd
above
mm. 180-81-"Lebe
wohl "
(Farewell).
For a
description
of the
draft score of the fourth movement of
the
sym-
phony
recently
discovered
by
Henry-Louis
de
La
Grange,
see
James
L.
Zychowicz,
"The
Adagio
of Mahler's
Ninth
Symphony:
A
PreliminaryReport
on the
Partiturentwurf,"
in Revue
Mahler
Review
1
(1987),
77-91.
For the
inscrip-
tions on the sketches of the Tenth Symphony,see Gustav
Mahler,
X.
Symphonie,
Faksimile nach der
Handschrift,
ed.
ErwinRatz
(Munich, 1967).
147
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19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
works.14
Of
course,
Specht interpreted
these
"painfully
leave-taking
words" as Mahler's ex-
plicit
musical
farewell to
life.
(Curiously,
he
seems not to have known the
inscriptions
on
the Ninth Symphonydraft.)Moreinfluentially,
the Dutch conductor Willem
Mengelberg,
Mahler's friend and
partisan,
used the
inscrip-
tions on
the drafts and
sketches as evidence for
the musical
meanings
he tried to communicate
in
his
interpretive performing
decisions. On
the score
of the Ninth
Symphony
from
which
he conducted
in
1918,
Mengelberg
inscribed
programmatic
remarks
similar to those found
in Mahler's
manuscripts:
for
example,
"9te
symphonie
ist:
Abschied von
allen die Er
iebte,
von
der
Welt";
and
[in
the fourth
movement]
"Mahlers Seele
singt
ihren Abschied "
Mengelberg explicitly
connects
these remarks
to
Mahler himself
by
noting
that
they "origi-
nate
in
sketches
and
manuscripts
which
I
stud-
ied
thoroughly,
given
to
me
in
Vienna
by
Alma
M."'5 Endowing
Mahler's
markings
with the
status of
highest
historical
authenticity
because
they supposedly
revealed the
composer's
mind
at its
closest,
Mengelberg
performed
Mahler's
Ninth
with the
slowest
tempi
in
history,
thus
initiating
a
lasting
trend
in
its
performance
practice,
strongly
affected
by
the
initial
recep-
tion
of the
symphony
as
Mahler's
tragic
and
grievous
swan
song.16
With the
rekindling
of
interest
in
Mahler
after the
Second World
War,
the increased at-
tention
given
to
original
manuscripts
as evi-
dence for the
interpretation
of
the music led to
a wide dissemination of the contents of these
inscriptions.
At the same
time,
the
develop-
ment of
analytical
methodologies
concentrat-
ing uniquely
on the
structural or
stylistic
char-
acteristics of the work led
analysts
either to
ignore
the farewell
story
as irrelevant
to
a
purely
musical
analysis,
or
to
attempt
to reconcile
the
two
meanings
by
looking
for the roots of the
extramusical
story
in
the music
itself.
Paradoxically,analysis eventually
brought
to
light
what
appeared
to be still more evidence
supporting
the
original
farewell
story:
a musi-
cal
"discovery"
seemed to
provide
a final solu-
tion to the farewell
puzzle.
In
1956
Hans Redlich
pointed
out that the
passage
in the first
move-
ment of the Ninth
Symphony
where Mahler
had inscribed
his
first
"Leb'wol "
in the or-
chestral draft
presents,
in
fact,
motivic
simi-
larities to Beethoven's Piano
Sonata,
op.
81a,
"Les Adieux."
In
the context of
the
already
established
myth,
Redlich
gave
this observa-
tion
more than
just
a
musical
significance:
he
wrote that "to
quote
the motif used
by
Mahler
is to show that he made this allusion
quite
deliberately
and was
fully
conscious of
its
im-
plications."
Thus
he identified what
he
thought
were Mahler's
intentions,
by underlining
how
"unmistakably
the
imprint
of death had
stamped Symphony
IX"and
by remarking
that
"the
ubiquitousness
of death
is here even
more
noticeable
than
in
the former
work
[Das
Lied
von
der
Erde]."'17
orthose
who took for
granted
the "farewell"
meaning,
this was
a definitive
14Specht,
Mahler
(1913),p.
356.
'sFor
a
complete
account
of the
inscriptions
on
Mengelberg's
core,
see
Peter
Andraschke,
Gustav
Mahlers
IX.
Symphonie:
Kompositionsprozess
und
Analyse
(Wiesbaden, 1976),
pp.
80-84
(quotes,
p.
81).
A
partial
ac-
count
in
Englishappears
n
Zychowicz,
"Adagio
f
Mahler's
Ninth,"
p.
90,
andin
Floros,
Gustav
Mahler,
English
rans.,
pp.
273-74
(Germanedn., pp.
268-69). Mengelberg
oo con-
fuses the sketches for
the last two
symphonies,
as the
inscription
"Leb'
wohl
mein
Saitenspiel" appeared
on
the
sketches for the Tenth, and not for the Ninth Symphony,
as he seems to
imply.
16The
tempi given
here
are from
Andraschke,
Gustav
Mahler
IX.
Symphonie,
p.
84:
Mengelberg
movt.
I
34'
(Walter
1961,
29'15",
and
Bernstein, 28'15");
movt.
II
18"
(Walter
17'35",
Bernstein
15'48");
movt.
III 17'
(Walter
13',
Bernstein
12'28");
movt.
IV
26'
(Walter 21',
Bernstein
22'55").
A
totally
different
side
of Mahler's
music surfaces
when the
symphony
is
played
with faster
tempi.
For dis-
cussions of the
need for a
reappraisal
of the
performance
practice
of Mahler's
symphonies
in
light
of their
content
of
ideas,
and,
in
particular
for
an
argument
in
favor
of
faster tempi for the Adagietto of Mahler'sFifth, see Paul
Banks, "Aspects
of Mahler's
Fifth
Symphony:
Performance
Practice and
Interpretation,"
Musical Times 130
(1989),
258-65; and GilbertE. Kaplan,"FromMahlerwith Love,"
in
Adagietto:
Facsimile,
Documentation,
Recording,
ed.
Kaplan
New York, 1992), pp.
11-29.
Foran excellent
dis-
cussion of
tempo
in
performance
practice
(focusing
on "au-
thentic"
performance
practice
of
Beethoven),
see
Richard
Taruskin,
"Beethoven
Symphonies:
The
New
Antiquity,"
Opus
3
(1987),31-43,
63.
17H.
R.
Redlich,
Bruckner
and
Mahler
(London,
1963), pp.
220,
226. Musical
examples
pointing
to this
connection
can
also be
found
in
Floros,
Gustav
Mahler,
English
trans.,
p.
281
(German
edn.,
pp.
276-77),
and,
together
with
a
more
detailed
discussion
of the
relationship
between
op.
81a and this passage,in my, "Is Mahler'sMusic Autobio-
graphical?
A
Reappraisal,"
Revue
Mahler
Review
1
(1987),
53-61.
148
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confirmation of
Mahler's wish to communi-
cate his death
premonitions
to the
world.18
One can
argue
that
since the
practice
of
using
plots to describe the musical meaning of an
instrumental
work was a common critical
methodin the nineteenth
century,
there is noth-
ing
unusual about this
approach
to Mahler.
What is unusual
here, however,
is the consis-
tent transmission
of
the
same
story
line, and,
moreover,
of a
story
whose content
is
more
concrete
by
far than
the
archetypal plots
such
as
"struggle-victory"
often
assigned
to
sym-
phonies of Beethoven or Schumann.19The case
of the farewell
story
seems to
be different.
The
reconstruction
of the context
and
moti-
vations
leading
to the
farewell
story
suggests
that the
early
critics
who
appreciated
the man
and his
music could
not
dissociate their
griev-
ing at the unfortunate loss of the man from the
appreciation
of his work.
Despite
Specht's
and
Berg's
occasional
musically
informed com-
ments,
it is
obvious that such
fictional
descrip-
tions could not have been
derived
through
purely
musical
analytical
reasoning
but,
rather,
that
these
musicians'
vision of
the
symphony
was
affected
by
their
personal feelings
of
dis-
tress over Mahler's
death.
This
complex
mecha-
nism has been called by W. K. Wimsatt and
Monroe
Beardsley
"the affective
fallacy":
the
projectionby
critics of
their own
feelings
onto
works of art and then the
reading
of these feel-
ings
into their critical
interpretation.
The
con-
sequence
of such an
approach,
Wimsatt and
Beardsley note,
is a
"confusion between the
[work]
and its
results,"
and,
consequently,
the
derivation
of
"the standard of
criticism from
the psychological effects of the [work].
20
The farewell
story
was reinforced
by
another
historiographical
prejudice-that
of
giving privi-
leged
status
to
contemporary nterpretations
as
undeniable
proof
of
historical
authenticity.
Under the illusion that
contemporaries
under-
stood the
composer
best, and, thus,
that their
interpretation
was
inevitably
the
most "cor-
rect,"
subsequent
critics
followed the same sto-
ries of reception, invested them with the au-
thority
of historical
authenticity,
and
gave
them
absolute aesthetic
value
as well. The
point
is
not
whether the
contemporary
accounts were
"right"
or
"wrong,"
but ratherthat
they
do
not
constitute the definitive
answer for the inter-
pretation
of
a
work.21
VERA
MICZNIK
Story
of
Mahler's
Ninth
'"The
transmission of these ideas informs even the more
recent extensive
analyses
of the
expressive meaning
of the
Ninth
by
Jack
Diether
in
"The
Expressive
Content of
Mahler's
Ninth: An
Interpretation,"
Chordand Discord
2
(1963),
69-107;
and
by
David
B.
Greene,
Mahler,
Con-
sciousness
and
Temporality
(New
York, 1984), chap.
4.
Unlike earlier
writings,
both
these
analyses
have
attempted
to derive the expressive meanings from close analysis of
the music.
Both writers
suggest
that two motives
that
pervade
the four movements of
the
symphony-the
de-
scending
motives
3-2-i
(called by
Greene
the
"Lebewohl"
motive)
and
3-2
(called
by
both the
"Ewig" motive,
in
reference to
its
similarity
to
the
ending
of Das
Lied)--
incorporate
musically
the
"gesture
of farewell."
In addi-
tion,
Greene believes that
"by
Mahler's
day,
[the
"Lebewohl"]
motive had become
a
conventional
way
of
alluding
to the word 'Lebewohl"'
(pp.
263-64).
Besides
the
problems
raised
by
the mechanical translation of
motivic
similarities from
music with
words
(Das Lied)
or
from
music with a disputableprogramBeethoven's"LesAdieux"
Sonata),
into semantic
meanings
of a
nonprogrammatic
piece,
it
is
obvious
that
both Diether's
and Greene's con-
ceptions
are marked
by
their a
prioriknowledge
of Mahler's
alleged psychological
obsession
with
death,
as
originating
in
the
reception story. Inevitably dependent
on this as-
sumption
for Diether
is the claim
that
"Der Abschied"
from Das Lied von der
Erde
is "Mahler's arewell
to 'the
beloved
earth',"
and that the
Ninth
Symphony
is
perme-
ated
by
the "funereal read"
p. 74)
of its
opening,
reflecting
"Mahler'swhole
perspective
... altered
by
his sentence of
death"
(p.
81).
Similarly,
Mahler's "evocation
of a
gentle
resignation [is transformed] nto a fiercecryof anguish"(p.
77).
For
Greene
too,
the
knowledge
of the
biographical
myth
governs
the musical sense: since "the
composer
of
the Ninth
Symphony
was a
dying
man,"
the work contains
Mahler's "final farewell and the
anticipation
of
death"
(p.
275).
I
am
citing
here
only
the studies that
in
their
dealing
with the
issue
of
the
extramusical
meanings
of
the Ninth
aremost influenced
by
the transmissionof the earlier deas.
For another view of
farewell, death,
and
transfiguration
as
central
topoi
in Mahler
reception,
see
Floros,
Gustav
Mahler
(German,
pp.
267-70,
English,
pp.
272-77).
"1See, .g.,
Anthony
Newcomb,
"Schumann
and
Late
Eigh-
teenth-CenturyNarrativeStrategies,"his journal11(1987),
164-74;
and
Scott
Burnham,
Beethoven Hero
(Princeton,
N.J.,
1995).
20W.
K.
Wimsatt,
Jr.
and Monroe C.
Beardsley,
"The Affec-
tive
Fallacy"
in
Critical
Theory
since
Plato,
ed. Hazard
Adams
(New
York, 1971),
p.
1022.
Published
also in
Wimsatt and
Beardsley,
The Verbal Icon: Studies
in
the
Meaning
of
Poetry
(Lexington,
Ky., 1954),
p.
21.
21As
Dahlhaus
explains,
the
"authorityprinciple"
that un-
derlies historians' "mortal fear"
of
disparaging
"authen-
tic"
opinions,
and
their manifest
acceptance
of
"the
ori-
gins
of
a
view as a
seal
of its
authenticity" prevents them,
in
fact,
from
giving
a
view
of their
own
(Foundations,
p.
159).
And
also,
"documents on
contemporary
reactions
or
statements from composers as to their professed inten-
tions are
nothing
more than material
for
the
historian,
and
they
are not the final arbiter of his
interpretation" (pp.
149
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19TH
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MUSIC
Just
as
important
for
the
understanding
of
the
origins
of the
farewell
story
is
acknowledg-
ing
the distinction
between
the
historical con-
texts of the
various
interpretations,
and the
intrinsic signifying qualities of the work itself,
a
distinction
that
has been
blurred
in
the un-
critical
manipulation
of the
story.
For the
story
that
the
critics
tell
about the music
converges
around the
biographical
event-Mahler's
de-
parture
from
this world-that
is
wrapped
onto
the music.
The
story
thus
asks our assent
on
grounds originating
in
the
facts
surrounding
the
work,
rather than
in the work itself.
The
approach
to
meaning displayed
by
the
promot-
ers of
the farewell
story especially
in
the
early
stages,
subordinates
the aesthetic
autonomy
of
the
work to the
sociobiographical
context
in
which it
originated.
Standing
exactly
at the
opposite
pole,
Carl
Dahlhaus
exemplifies
an
understandable
reaction of the critics
in the
mid-twentieth
century
to this
so-called
subjec-
tive
nineteenth-century
criticism,
when
he
states that "the
meaning
of a work resides in
its
aesthetic
essence,
not
in its
historical
reper-
cussions."22
He
thus
elevates the
meaning
of
the
work above its
context.
Such extreme
positions
become
more
recon-
cilable
if
the
ideologies
that
support
them
are
understood.
Conforming
to the
progressive,
"positivist"
trend
in humanistic
disciplines
at
the
time,
late-nineteenth-century ideology
ad-
vocated the
search for the
recovery
of the
composer's
intentions. Within
this
system,
the
early
critics
based their
story
on what
they
thought
was
in Mahler's
mind
while
he wrote
the
symphony,
and
on the
assumption
that
this
was translated
directly
into
the music.
Thus
the
popularized
versions
of Mahler's
personal
problems
during
his last
years
constituted
evi-
dence
for
the
composer's
obsession
with
death,
and the late works were
a
review
of the
story
of
his
life,
a
saying
of
farewell,
and an
anticipa-
tion
of his
end. The
method
by
which such
assertions are made relies on inferences about
the composer's intentions, but it lacks "crite-
ria
for
distinguishing
this
intention
from
an
interpretation
advanced
by
an historian
which
is
equally
in
harmony
with
the received
text."23
Moreover,
as will be
seen,
the
"external
sources"-that
is,
the circumstantial
biographi-
cal
evidence
supposedly
documenting
Mahler's
intentions-do not
necessarily
prove,
or even
support,
the
assumptions
of the critics.
Attempting
to counter such extreme
opposi-
tions between
context
and
content,
Hans
Rob-
ert
Jauss
formulates
a
more
comprehensive
view,
which better establishes
the
balance
be-
tween the
sociobiographical
ontext
of the
work
and
the "aesthetic
autonomy"
of
the musical
text.
He
proposes
that
the
understanding
of
a
text
should not be reduced to the
"knowledge
of
the facts"
surrounding
the
text,
but
should
consist of a constant "confrontation"of those
facts
with
the text
itself.24
Such
confrontations
offer different
interpretations
by
readers
of dif-
ferent
periods,
which
form a
historical
series
exemplifying
the
Wirkungsgeschichte
(the
ef-
fective
history)
or
the
afterlife of a
work,
result-
ing
from
particular
subjects'
interactions
with
it.
Borrowing
rom
Collingwood
the
concept
of
historical
mediation
through
question
and
an-
swer, Jauss
conceives the historical
continuity
between
the
past
work and its
progressive
in-
terpretations
as various answers
given
to the
questions
posed
by
the
same
"aesthetic
object"
to various
generations:
"Forthe
implicit
ques-
tion,
which
in
fact
is what
first awakens
our
present
interest
in
the
past
work,
can be
ob-
tained
only through
the
answer that
the
aes-
thetic
object,
in its
present
materialization,
holds or seems to
hold
ready
for
us."25
With
respect
to the
farewell
story
of Mahler's
Ninth,
159-60).
Using
a
different
type
of
argument,
Zoltan Ro-
man
similarly
dismisses
the farewell
meaning
of
Das
Lied.
See
his
paper
"Between
Jugendstil
and
Expressionism:
The
Orient
as
Symbol
and
Artifice
in Das
Lied von der Erde
or: 'Warum
ist Mahlers
Werk so schwer
verstindlich'."
Thanks to
Professor
Roman for
allowing
me to read a
version
of
this
paper
delivered
at
the International
Musi-
cological Society
Meeting
in
Osaka,
July
1990,
before
its
publication in the proceedingsof that conference.
22See
Carl
Dahlhaus,
Foundatiolns
of
Music
History,
trans.
J.
B. Robinson
(Cambridge,
1983), p.
133,
but also 27-28.
3Ibid.,
p.
159.
24Hans
Robert
Jauss,
Toward
an Aesthetic
of Reception,
trans.Timothy Bahti(Minneapolis,1982), p. 21.
25Jauss,
History
of Art and
Pragmatic
History,"
n
ibid., pp.
68-69.
150
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Jauss's
view
suggests
that,
without
considering
the "answers"
given
by
the
early
critics to
the
"questions"
posed
by
the Ninth
Symphony,
we
would not
interrogate
the work the
way
we do
today. Once the various (contextual) answers
have
become common
knowledge,
"individual
disruptions"continuously
transformthem
into
new
questions
and
this,
in
turn,
keeps
alive
the
interest
in
the work. This
approach
then al-
lows
both text and context to
participate
in
the
interpretation
and thus counters the
prioritiz-
ing
of one
interpretation
over
another,
acknowl-
edging
that a work's
meanings
are not
fixed,
or
inherent in either the work itself or in its origi-
nal
context.
Regarding
historical
relevance, intention,
and
position
between "text" and
"context,"
Mahler's
inscriptions
on the scores
occupy
an
especially
precarious place.
As
comments
writ-
ten
in
the musical text
(even
though
not
in
the
final
text),
they
could
belong
to the
text,
in
which
case
they
should
be
incorporated
n
the
musical understanding just as a programwould
be. On
the other
hand,
because
they
are verbal
and
thus
express
the
composer's
nonmusical
thoughts, they
could
have
the status of
private
contextual/biographical
evidence similar to
let-
ters.
Further
yet,
because these
inscriptions ap-
pear
above
certain
passages
of
the
music,
it is
tempting
to consider them
part
of the
"explana-
tory"
section of the
text,
the
composer's
own
"reception," and this is how they have been
generallyinterpreted.
Unlike the
letters,
which
refer
mostly
to events exterior to
Mahler's
work
on the
Ninth
Symphony,
the
inscriptions
cre-
ate an
interesting dialogue
between
the com-
poser
and
his own text. But
the "truth" meant
in
that
dialogue
with
regard
to the
meaning
of
the music will never
be known as it is not
known
exactly
what
Mahler
hadin
mind
when
he wrote them: Did he refer to the
genesis
of
his musical
ideas? Did
he
try
to tell what the
music
meant? Did
he
mean to record what was
going through
his head as he was
composing
the
music?
Despite
these
ambiguities,
the
in-
scriptions
were
given
a
privileged position by
the
advocates of the "farewell"
meaning,
for
whom,
according
to the laws of historical au-
thenticity
outlined
above,
they
had the
status
of
nearly
sacred
testimony
for the "true" mean-
ing
of
the Ninth
Symphony.
To
circumvent such
unsystematic
privileg-
ing
of
the
context,
which
at
every step
has
contributed to the
reinforcement of
the fare-
well
myth,
a better
understanding
of
the rela-
tionship between a text and its accessories is
necessary.
In his book
Seuils,
G6rard
Genette
offers an
ingenious interpretation
of this
rela-
tionship.
He
identifies what
he calls
"the
paratext"-a
broad
category
of
"productions
.
..
such as the name of the
author,
a
title,
a
preface,
illustrations . . .
which . .
surround
and
prolong [the
text],
precisely
in
order to
present it,
.
.
. to
ensure its
presence
in
the
world, its reception andits consumption." The
paratext
is "a
threshold
[seuil]
. . . an
'indeci-
sive zone'
between the inside and
the
outside
[of
the
text],
without a
rigorous
border either
towards the interior
(the
text)
or
toward the
exterior
(the
discourse
of
the world
about the
text).
. . . This
fringe [of
the
text]
. .
always
bearing
an authorial
commentary, constitutes,
between text and
con-text,
a zone
not
only
of
transition, but also of transaction:a privileged
place
of
pragmatics
and
strategy,
of an
action
upon
the
public
in
the service . . . of
a
better
reception
of
the
text."
Among
the
various sub-
categories
of
"paratext,"
Genette differentiates
between
the
"private
pitext"
consisting
of
com-
mentaries about the work
made
by
the
author
to other
people (e.g.,
in
letters addressed
to
a
correspondent,
or
a
confidant),
and
the "inti-
mate epitext," in which "the author addresses
[himself]
to himself." To
this
latter
category
belong any
comments
inscribed
before,
during,
or
after the
conception
of the
work,
within
manuscripts,
diaries,
or other
such
documents,
"with
or
without the
intention of
ulterior
pub-
lication-the
intention does
not
always guar-
antee the
effect."
Obviously,
Mahler's
inscrip-
tions were
addressed
to
himself,
as he
decided
not to inscribe them in the final
score,
and,
therefore,
they belong
to the
paratextual
"inti-
mate
epitext."
The violation of the
composer's
intentions
by making
those
inscriptions public
does not
change
their
original function;
they
remain a
"paratext... [and thus] only
an auxil-
iary,
an
accessory
to the text." What the critics
have done is
precisely
what Genette warns
people
to
be careful
about,
that
is,
not to let
any
type
of
paratext
"run
over its function and
act as a
screen,
thus
over-playing
its
part
at the
VERA
MICZNIK
Story
of
Mahler's Ninth
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19TH
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expense
of
that of its
text."26Thus
no
matter
how
thought provoking
these
inscriptions are,
the automatic
assumption
that
they
communi-
cate
Mahler's
farewell to
the world is mislead-
ing: since we can only speculate about their
meaning,
they
cannot
be
considered
n
any way
as definitive
in
the evaluation of the
final
work.27
Studying
the role of
the
history
of
reception
in
the critical
appreciation
of a
work is of
unde-
niable
importance. Indeed,
this
reevaluation of
the
context and
motivations behind
the
fare-
well story enables us to understandwhy con-
temporary
critics
resorted to
extramusical,
bio-
graphical nterpretations;but,
at the same
time,
it
points
to the need of
being receptive
to other
interpretations
as well. For the
various
recep-
tions are
interpretive
readings
of the
musical
work,
determined
by
evolving
special
circum-
stances and
ideology.2s
Like
other
"interpreta-
tions
made
by
historians,"
the farewell
story
constitutes a historical fact that is "made
part
of an historical
narrative,
or
a
description
of
an
historical
structure."" But
the historical struc-
ture to which this
historical fact
belongs
is
the
history
of
reception (i.e.,
of
interpretations
of
the
music),
which
does not
necessarily
coin-
cide with the historical structure
resulting
from
the
interpretation
of
"documents."
In
order to
revise the
premise
often taken
for
granted,
that
the
reception story
and the
story
told
by
the
historical documents are one and the same
thing,
the next
part
of
this article
will counter
the
gloomy biographical
vision
suggested
by
the
history
of
reception
with the one
resulting
from the
documentary
informationwe
possess.
WHATTHEHISTORICALVENTS
ELL
US
Most
of Mahler's
Ninth
Symphony
was
writ-
ten
during
the summer
of
1909.
At least
part
of
Mahler's
process
of work
on the
symphony
has
survived
in the
form of sketches
and an orches-
tral
draft,
whose
last
page
bears
the date
of its
completion-2 September
1909.30
Revisions
and
orchestration
continued
throughout
the
winter
of
1909
and
during
the
spring
of
1910.
On
1
April 1910,
Mahler
announced
to Bruno
Walter
from New York:
"The fair
copy
of
my
Ninth
is
26"[Ce
texte se
pr6sente
rarement
g
l'6tat
nu,
sans le renfort
et
l'accompagnement
d'un
certain
nombre
de]
productions
.
.
. comme un
nom
d'auteur,
un
titre,
une
pr6face,
des
illustrations . . . qui . l'entourent et le prolongent,
pr6cisement
pour
le
presenter,
....
pour
assurersa
pr6sence
au
monde,
sa
'r6ception'
et sa consommation." "Un seuil.
.'zone
ind6cise' entre le dedans et le
dehors,
elle-meme
sans limite
rigoureuse,
ni
vers
l'int6rieur
(le
texte)
ni
vers
l'exterieur
(le
discours
du monde sur le
texte).
....
Cette
frange
. .
.
toujours porteuse
d'un commentaire
auctorial,
.
constitue,
entre text
et
hors-texte,
une zone non
seulement de
transition,
mais de transaction: ieu
privilkgi6
d'une
pragmatique
et d'une
strategie,
d'une action
sur
le
public
au service
. . .
d'un meilleur
accueil
du texte." "Le
paratexte
n'est
qu'un
auxiliaire,qu'un
accessoiredu texte."
And "le paratextetend parfoisa d6border a fonction et
a
se constituer
en
6cran,
et
des
lors
a
jouer
sa
partie
au
detriment
de
celle de
son
texte"
(Gerard
Genette,
Seuils
[Paris, 1987],
pp.
7, 7-8, 355, 376).
27In
ny case,
if
the
inscriptions
were
to become
profitable
for
interpretation, they
should be
qualified
more atten-
tively.
In
my
opinion,
the "Leb'wohl"
nscriptions
on
the
draft
score
of the Ninth
Symphony
and
"Leb'wohl
mein
Saitenspiel"
and
the
other
inscriptions
from
the
sketches
for
the Tenth
Symphony
do not have
the same
meaning.
Since
in the Ninth
Symphony
the "Les Adieux
cell"
(a
descending
linear motive
3-2-1
supportedby
a
I,
V,
WVI
progression)s so important hroughoutall the movements,
it seems
likely
that in this case the
inscription
may,
in-
deed,
have referred
o Beethoven's
op.
81a: Mahler's
mark-
ing
"Leb'wohl"
might
have
corresponded
o
his
own
rev-
elation
or
acknowledgment
that
he was
"quoting"
he
pre-
existent motive.
If one follows this train of
thought,
the
reappearance
of
the
"Lebewohl"
inscription
on the last
page
of the last movement
over the turn motives
(4--2-3-
in
mm.
162-63 and
6-5-4-5
in
m.
180),
which
are
embel-
lished versions of the
3-_
suspension
of the first move-
ment,
can
be
also
explained
as Mahler's
acknowledgment
of this connection
to himself.
Along
the same
lines,
most
of the passagesof the Ninth's last pageoverwhich Mahler
inscribed the words
"Schbnheit, Liebe,
Welt" bear close
resemblance
to
passages
with the
same words
in
the last
movement
of Das Lied von der
Erde,
which address
the
delight
and
beauty
of life.
(Compare
mm. 265-76 of "Der
Abschied," bearing
the
words
"O,
Schonheit,
o
ewigen
Liebens,
Lebens drunk'ne Welt "
with
the last
page
of the
Ninth: in both the
ascending
sixth motive
and
the
turn
motive
play
a
predominant
role.)
On the other
hand,
the
inscription
on the
Tenth
Symphony
sketches
might
be
directly
connected
with
Mahler's state of mind.
At that
time
he
was
going
through
a
marital
crisis and feared os-
ing Alma. The lines present a strikingresemblanceto the
lines from
a
poem
he wrote
to
Alma
around
that time:
"Holdeste,
Liebste
Mein
Saitenspiel
etc."
So the lines
could
possibly
be addressed
to Alma. See
Alma
Mahler,
Gustav
Mahler:
Memories
and
Letters,
Donald
Mitchell,
trans.
Basil
Creighton
(enlarged
ev. edn. New
York,
1969),
p.
334.
28See
auss,
Aesthetic
of Reception, p.
25.
29Leo
Treitler, quoting
Droysen
in "What
Kind
of
Story
is
History?" n Music and the Historical Imagination (Cam-
bridge,
Mass., 1989), p.
172.
30See
Zychowicz,
"Adagio
of
Mahler's
Ninth
Symphony."
152
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finished.
"31
Let
us
attempt
to
reconstruct,
inso-
far
as the
available
documentation
allows,
Mahler's life
during
the
period
of
gestation
of
the Ninth
Symphony.
Concerning the state of Mahler'shealth, we
know from de La
Grange's
research that
the
heart
problem
diagnosed
sometime
before
17
July
1907
was in fact
what
is
commonly
called
a
"heartmurmur"
(a
name borrowed
from the
manifestation
of the
disorder
through
which
it
is
normally
detected), or,
in
medical
terminol-
ogy,
a
"mitral valve
insufficiency"
(a
malfunc-
tioning
of the heart
valves),
which
was
prob-
ably due to a bacterial infection duringMahler's
childhood,
but
which was now no
longer
mani-
fest.32
Mahler's death
less than
four
years
later
was
provoked by
a bacterial
endocarditis
origi-
nating
in
a
throat
streptococcus
infection that
ultimately
attacked
his heart and
other
organs,
and which
could not
be
treated because
antibi-
otics had
not
yet
been
discovered.33
Here it
would
be
tempting
to
take the
fact
that Mahler did not die of a heart disease, as
the
critics
thought,
as evidence
for the false
premises
on
which the
farewell
story
was
based.
Yet
we must remind
ourselves that the
reestab-
lishment
of the
actual medical
history
is
im-
portant mostly
for our own
elucidation-today's
medical
knowledge
cannot and
should not be
used
in
arguments
against
the
history
of
recep-
tion. The
early
critics were not
concerned with
reconstituting the medical or historical truth:
their
historical
facts were
Mahler's
alleged
re-
actions
to the heart
diagnosis,
which
they
worked
into
a
mythical
and
fictional,
rather
than
a
historical
and
documentary,
plot.34
Nor
does our
present
knowledge
that the
original
illness was not as dangerousas it might have
seemed at the time
change
the
way
in
which
its
discovery
might
have
affected
Mahler's
psyche.
The medical information
documenting
the extent to which Mahler
was
practically
affected
by
the
supposed
illness
does,
however,
help
us counteract the
view
embedded in
the
farewell
story,
that
the last four
years
of
Mahler's
life
were
spent
under the
shadow
of
death, a view for which the illness itself with
its
manifestations
was not so
much
respon-
sible,
but,
rather,
Alma's confident
post-factum
assertion that "this
verdict
[the
heart
diagno-
sis]
marked
the
beginning
of
the
end
of
Mahler."35
De La
Grange
has
attempted
to
de-
stroy
the fiction
of Mahler's heart
disease,
ar-
guing
that
Alma
intentionally
exaggerated
her
husband's
physical
and
psychological decline,
thus hoping to justify in the face of the world
her
affair with
Walter
Gropius
during
the
last
year
of Mahler's
life.36But
regardless
of
Alma's
intentions,
it
is
important
to show
the
discrep-
ancies between
the facts
and the
myth
of
the
reception
history.
Although
few of
Mahler's
comments
show-
ing
his reaction
to his heart
problem survive,
the
story
emerging
from
the
historical
data is
quite different from that of the work's recep-
tion.
This examination of
the
documents
avail-
able
(what
Mahler
wrote to
people
during
the
conception
of the Ninth
Symphony,
and
what
people
said
about him
during
hat
period)
should
be undertaken
with
full awareness
that
we
might
be
missing
some other
information
that
has not
survived
in
documents,
and
that,
there-
VERA
MICZNIK
Story of
Mahler's
Ninth
31Selected
Letters
of
Gustav
Mahler,
ed. Knud
Martner,
trans.
Eithne
Wilkins,
Ernst
Kaiser,
and Bill
Hopkins
(New
York,
1979), p.
355.
32For
urther medical
details,
see de
La
Grange,
Mahler,
vol.
III,
pp. 84-85,
and
958-61;
and The
Columbia
Univer-
sity
College
of
Physicians
and
Surgeons Complete
Home
Medical Guide (New York,1985),p. 376. According o this
Guide,
"In
many cases,
people
can have a
diseased
heart
valve
for
many years
without
suffering
any
symptoms
or
even
being
aware
of the
problem"
(pp. 375-76).
This was
Mahler's
case,
as
it was
by
pure
serendipity
and not
be-
cause of
any
symptoms
that this
disorderwas
discovered.
33While
t is true that
"endocarditismost
often occurs
in
patients
who
already
have a
damaged
heart
valve," yet
the
serious
streptococcus
infection that invaded
Mahler's
body
could have
killed
him
even if his
heart had been
healthy.
See
The
Columbia
Medical
Guide,
p.
387.
For
more medi-
cal
and other
details about
Mahler's final
illness,
see also
Gustav Mahler's American Years, 1907-1911: A Docu-
mentary
History,
ed. Zoltan Roman
(Stuyvesant, N.Y.,
1989),
docs.
547-48
[pp. 465-66].
34The
biographical tory
of Mahler'sheart disease
was
fur-
ther
promoted
by
Leonard
Bernstein,
and
it influenced
the
way
in
which
he
performed
Mahler,
continuing
the
"mourning"
style
set
up by
Mengelberg.
In the
opening
rhythm
of the
symphony,
Bernstein wanted his audience
to "hear
the
irregularheartbeats, you
hear the
goodbye"
(Leonard
Bernstein,
PBS
Broadcastof
the
Ninth
Symphony
with
the Vienna
Philharmonic).
35For
Alma's
story
of the
discovery
of the
heart
problem,
see Alma
Mahler,
Memories and
Letters,
p.
122.
36DeLaGrange,"InSearch orMahler,"a lecture given for
the New York Mahlerites
at the Austrian Institute
in
New
York,
on
3
February
1986.
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fore,
even these
"facts" cannot
be said to
assess
the
"objective
truth."
The
first
tragic
event for
Mahler
during
the
summer
of
1907
was
the death of his elder
daughter, MariaAnna, on 12 July.The confir-
mation
of Mahler's
heart disease came a week
later.
Although
the latter news
and the
doctor's
recommendation
that
Mahler
change
his life
style
might
have
provoked
a
great shock,
Mahler's
silent,
interiorized
pain during
the
summer of
1907
described
in
Alma's and other
friends'
testimonies,
as well
as
his lack of mu-
sical
productivity
during
the
rest of the sum-
mer,
tells of a
deep psychological
trauma,
but
one
that
was
more
likely
connected with his
daughter's
death
than with the
heart
disease.37
The radical
changes
in
Mahler's
professional
situation
that
occurred
the next December
(his
departure
for
America
and
the
beginning
of a
new
engagement
with the
Metropolitan Opera)
absorbed
him
to
an
extent
that he
did
not
seem
to have
had much time to reflect
on
his life.
After
all,
since he never had
symptoms
of fa-
tigue
or
palpitations,
the
physical
and
psycho-
logical
adjustment
to the trauma of the
heart
diagnosis
became
simply
an
awareness
that
he
had to lead
a
more
cautious
and
self-preserving
life.3s
Having already
been
on the
verge
of
dy-
ing
from a
hemorrhage
in
1901,
he was
quite
used to
dealing
with the
impending
threat of
sickness.
A
glimpse
into
his
attitude
during
the
next
summer,
in
July
1908,
may
be
gained
from
Mahler's comments made
in
two letters to
Bruno
Walter,
an old
and
trusted
friend.
In the
first
letter,
written
from
Toblach,
Mahler'ssum-
mer
residence,
he
acknowledges
a certain
an-
noyance
at the
doctors'
advice that
he had to
change
his
way
of life:
"You can
imagine
how
hard
the latter
[changing
the
way
of
life]
comes
to
me. For
many years
I have been
used to
constant
and
vigorous
exercise
....
Now
I am
told
to avoid
any
exertion,
keep
a constant
eye
on
myself,
and
not
walk much."
In
the rest of
the
letter,
Mahler
confesses
that
he is not
in
the best of
moods,
particularly
because
"the
solitude,
in
which
my
attention is more turned
inward, makes me feel all the more distinctly
everything
that is not
right
with me
physi-
cally."
He
recognizes,
however,
that
perhaps
he
is
being
too
"gloomy,"
but
altogether
he
cannot hide that "since
I
have been in
the
coun-
try
I
have been
feeling
worse
than
I did in
town,
where all the
distractions
helped
to take
my
mind off
things."
The
new situation
pre-
vented
him
from
practicing
his
old
habits
of
sketching
while
walking
in the
mountains,
and
then
working
up
his
sketches at home.
"Even
spiritual indisposition
used
to
disappear
after a
good
trudge
(mostly
uphill)."39
As
it
appears
from Mahler's
next
letter,
Walter must have taken Mahler'swords to
con-
vey
a crisis much
more
serious
than were
in-
tended to
present
and read
into them
a
"sick-
ness of the
soul,"
as well as a fear
of
death,
recommending
such antidotes as a "Scandina-
vian
journey,"
and
reading
the "Dietetics
of
the
Soul
by
Feuchtersleben,"
all of which
Mahler ridiculed
in
his
reply:
I
couldn't
help
smiling
because seem to
noticethat
you
are
turning
my
own
weaponsagainst
me
..
What
s all this
about
he soul?
And
ts
sickness?
And
where should
I
find
a
remedy?
On
a
Scandinavian
journey?hemost hatcouldhavedone ormewould
havebeen
to
provide
me with some
distraction....
But
fundamentally
I
am
only speaking
in
riddles,
for
you
do not
know what
has
been
and
still is
going
on
within
me;
but it is
certainly
not that
hypochondriac
fear of
death,
as
you suppose.
I
had
already
realized
that
I
shall have
to
die....
Now at
the end
of
life
[I]
am
again
a
beginner
who must find his feet.
.
.
.
I
cannot
work at
my
desk.
My
mental
activity
must be
complemented
by physical
activity.40
37See
also,
e.g.,
de
La
Grange,
Mahler
III,pp.
81ff.
38Otto
Klemperer
mentions
that,
in his
conducting
style
during
his last
years,
Mahler
"was
very
economical
in his
movements, though
not as economical
as RichardStrauss."
Klemperer
attributes
this to the
fact
that
"he
[Mahler]
had
been told by doctorsthat he had a badheartandso he was
very
careful"
(see
Conversations
with
Klemperer,
ed. Pe-
ter
Heyworth
[rev.
edn.
London,
1985],
p.
30).
39Letter
o.
394
to
Bruno
Walter,
undated,
Toblach,
Sum-
mer
1908,
in Gustav
Mahler
Briefe,
ed. Herta
Blaukopf
(Vienna,
1982),
p.
341
(trans.
from Selected
Letters
of
Gustav
Mahler,
pp.
321-22).
40Letter o. 396 to
Bruno
Walter,
Toblach,
18
July
1908,
in
Mahler
Briefe,
ed.
Blaukopf, pp.
343-44;
trans.
from
Se-
lected Letters, p. 324. Parts of this letter appearalso in
Bruno
Walter,
Gustav
Mahler,
trans.
James
Galston
(New
York,
1973;
1st
edn.
New
York, 1941),
pp.
150-51.
154
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