RCA Red Seal recording , Printed in U.S.A. // Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) // Symphony No.5 (1902)
The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by James Levine
Symphony No.5
- Funeral March: With measured step. Severe. Like a cortège
- Moving stormily. With the greatest vehemence
- Scherzo: Vigorous, not too fast
- Adagietto: Very slow
- Rondo-Finale: Allegro - Allegro giocoso
The youth has declared,
With conviction it’s pledged,
Not a shred of its dignity
Will be taken away.
‘Hada Jil’ — Aziza Brahim
Mahler finished his Fourth Symphony today. As usual it made him not happy but deeply depressed to lose such a daily incentive. “” from the memoir of natalie bauer-lechner (violist and friend to mahler), august 5, 1900.
mahler’s Symphony No.1 was for me too dense and cerebral, and i don’t subscribe whatever the Symphony No.2’s was trying to ‘resurrect’; with this my third attempt at mahler, however, i think i’m starting to get it now. another thing i don’t quite subscribe to (on account of the composer’s perpetually ignored antisemitism) is the music of wagner, but a potential alternative to that is vicariously enjoying the spectacle of his operas through mahler’s absolute music. wagner more or less wanted to assemble into his operas the flailing limbs of all compatible art forms; in mahler’s case—and he greatly admired wagner— it seems he wanted something even more impossible: to express in one symphony the entirety of the world from which it was inspired. that is the awesome power, i think, of this particular symphony.
The following Sunday we took the same path in Mahler’s company, and at the festival on the Kreuzberg an even more horrific witches’ sabbath was in full swing. In addition to countless hurdy-gurdies blaring forth from carousels, rocking horses, shooting galleries and puppet shows, there are also a military band and a men’s choral society established there. All these jammed together in the same clearing made an incredible musical noise, at which Mahler exclaimed: “You hear that? That’s polyphony, and that’s where I get it! Already in my early childhood in the woods at Iglau, I was singularly moved by that kind of thing, and it stayed with me. Because, you see, it’s all the same whether it happens in noises like this, in the singing of hundreds of birds, in the howl of a storm, in the splashing of waves or the crackle of a fire. Just so, from completely different directions, the themes have to come, and they must be absolutely distinct from each other in rhythm and melody. Anything else is just so much part-writing—homophony in disguise. Only it’s the job of the artist to arrange and unite them into a harmoniously sounding whole”. “” notes from the recording
inasmuch as i believe that the purpose of a music library, digital or otherwise, is to remind you of how big the world can be, then polyphony is the expression of that belief within a single piece of music. along those lines…i’ve been playing with a thought lately: polyphony as a style of writing? it’s a busy world that mahler dreams in this symphony, one with a mercurially tempered climate, and i hear in its emphasis on polyphony the secret wish of even the best writing: a sum of the whole within each moving part, or perhaps the wholesomeness of each part. i think that’s what music has over literature—with perhaps the exception of poetry—that within its parts, within individual melodies, there are intimations of what engenders the whole.
to be able to suggest a multiplicity of interpretations and insinuations within a single sentence, while incorporating it into a coherent whole, would i think be something equivalent to the energy of polyphony in music. the wheel need not be reinvented: that desire for multiplicity is one of the reasons i’m particularly beholden to nietzsche’s use of aphorism—his sentences are like a multicoloured sheet of glass that you can hold up to the light of water ever mood you’re in, and watch a kaleidoscope of meaning pour out of the refraction. or perhaps like rainbow-coloured trout leaping out of their river’s current, independent and perhaps obstinate appearances that nevertheless hint at the depths from which they emerge. aphorisms, like polyphony in music, are superficial gestures that require a capacity for synthesis deeper than that of homophony or academically oriented essays.
Heavens, what is the public to make of this chaos in which new worlds are forever being engendered, only to crumble into ruin the next moment? What are they to say to this primeval music, this foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound, to these dancing stars, to these breathtaking iridescent, and flashing breakers? “” letter from mahler to alma after the first rehearsal of the symphony, 1902.
No.5 has the same cerebral, slightly academic density as No.1. the composer wrote of a studious devotion to bach in the period before composing it (and there seem to me to be intimations of the lofty and regal airs of the Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in the first theme of the fifth movement), but the symphony is far from monotonous throughout. if anything it’s confounding. you can’t rely on the usual trajectory of themes within each movement, nor a unifying mood between movements.
the prominent character amid the pellmell of the first movement is the main theme on trumpet, a dramatic proclamation of wagnerian proportions; such a prominent character is lacking in the second movement wherein the polyphony is visible in the orchestra, as if each section is reaction to their own conductor. another trumpet theme, with help from a french horn, dominates the third movement—a Scherzo that is longer than most first movements. unexpectedly, its the slow fourth movement that stands out to me the most: the scattered activity of the symphony thus far still persists, but is in a way tamed by the harp’s gentle pulse. the agitations of the first three movements seem to be resolved in the fourth, so the fifth feels like a victory lap of sorts, excess for excess’ sake—quite appropriate if the goal is to reflect in a symphony the world around it.
(song of the week: ‘Hada jil’ — Aziza Brahim)
The youth has declared,
With conviction it’s pledged,
Not a shred of its dignity
Will be taken away.
The youth that takes over
The fight every day
Proclaims in its melodies
It’ll drive mad the authorities.
The youth of today
Is organising its entity
And facing every challenge
With integrity.
—a translation of the lyrics to ‘Hada Jil’, provided by aziza brahim in her interview with this blog. albeit i’ve been satisfied even without a translation since i first heard this song back in november. thanks in part to the music video, and the album cover as well. the photo of the little girl in a tutu standing in front of a refugee camp already convesy the essence of the song, namely: facing every challenge with integrity…
Album cover for ‘Sahari’ (2019)
The wonderful photograph by Ana Valiño inspired me to use it as the cover of Sahari from the first time I saw it. It is an image with plenty of hope, dignity and dreams. The dreams we all have—independent of the place we come from—makes its way in this cruel desert with the same strength and dignity of the little ballerina Aaiza. She is surrounded by sand and stifling heat in order to show an unsolved conflict. To show how struggle, illusions and dreams, which are common to Humanity, could help to bring us closer to the injustice that affects many people in the world. We should not forget that to exist in this or any desert is to resist, and to dream becomes a way of resistance. “” aziza brahim
“to exist is to resist…”—i love that so much. it seems this song, however, goes a little further than resistance as a form of life. it insists on the integrity and dignity of the saharawi people in the refugee camp similar to one the artist was raised in. this dignity is evident in the play of children in the video and the picture of aaiza on the cover. that aside, it’s also an infectiously upbeat song.
here’s hoping she makes in a pitstop in toronto when concerts are legal again.
Throwback to: Year 2, Week39
Click here for the full 2019/2020 roster