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Mahler and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1980

Denis McCaldin
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Extract

Throughout his life, Mahler was profoundly influenced by Beethoven's music. Many of his symphonies are modelled on those of his predecessor, and as a conductor much of his reputation outside the opera house arose from his interpretations of Beethoven. Mahler considered performance of the Ninth Symphony to be particularly challenging and, like others before him, he prepared his own versions of the score in an attempt to overcome some of the interpretative difficulties. It is the purpose of this article to examine these revisions with particular reference to Mahler's own working scores.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 107 , 1980 , pp. 101 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

NOTES

1 The author is indebted to the Librarian of Southampton University for permission to reproduce extracts from material in the Anna Mahler Collection, which contains Mahler's annotated scores of a number of other works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, etc.Google Scholar

2 Machlis, J., Introduction to Contemporary Music (London, 1963), 75.Google Scholar

3 Richard Wagner's Prose Works, trans. H. A. Ellis, v (London, 1896), 231.Google Scholar

4 These categories are listed in this form by the author for convenience.Google Scholar

5 This abbreviation indicates the second movement (II) bars 276–277.Google Scholar

6 Trans. J. Crossland (New York, n.d.).Google Scholar

7 Grove, op. cit., 357. The Mozart reference presumably alludes to the re-orchestration of Messiah, Alexander's Feast, etc.Google Scholar

8 See also Weingartner's editions for the Berlioz Gesamtausgabe.Google Scholar

9 Grove, op. cit., 337; Weingartner, op. cit., 157, 165.Google Scholar

10 Both scores are part of the Anna Mahler collection at Southampton University. Unless otherwise indicated, reference in this discussion is confined to BMC.Google Scholar

11 Details of a particularly colourful Mahler version of the symphony used at Hamburg on 11 March 1895 (which has not survived) are given by Emil Krause. See Blaukopf, K., Mahler (London, 1976), 199.Google Scholar

12 Weingartner, op. cit., vi.Google Scholar

13 H.-L. de La Grange, Mahler (New York, 1973), 323; see also Blaukopf, op. cit., 199.Google Scholar

14 de La Grange, op. cit., 538.Google Scholar

15 de La Grange, op. cit., 556.Google Scholar

16 Kennedy, M., Mahler (London, 1974), 190.Google Scholar