"Der Titan" by Gustav Mahler

[david_ackerman]

Here follows a review of a piece of music. I am amused, and I am writing in an intentionally archaic style. My emotions regarding the piece are genuine. But you gentle reader may find the whole process tiresome. Be warned.

Comments

[faire_damsel]

I Find Your "Archaic" Writing To Be Charming And Delightful And I ALWAYS Respect And Enjoy Hearing Your Opinion Of Music! :o)

[trommelfeuer]

I always think of the symphony as a depiction of the move from innocence to maturity.
The first movement opens primally and I think depicts the first tastes of experience and aloneness.
I think one of the unpublished programs calls the scherzo "In Full Swing" and the third movement "Funeral March in Callot's Manner".
I think the ending is generaly transcendent, although Mahler shows an attempted apotheosis a couple of times before he gets there. I think the message of the last movement is that you have to turn inward and recapture some of your primitive self in order to make life real and meaningful.

Much of the material of the symphony is from Mahler's earlier song cycle "Songs of a Wayfarer", which is about a man who laments the fact that he is not in a relationship.

[david_ackerman]

Right right. I have a copy of the song cycle. Two different copies, even, I think. (It's on the sames CD as my copy of "Das Lied" and I think I picked up a copy on vinyl at some point.) And I even checked out the New Groce article on "Titan" which of course discussed the origin of the material. But I was suffieicntly impressed by the thing that I felt like writing about it. It really did have a classical symetry that I wouldn't think of as characteristic of Mahler, and in spite of all that it was still darn discomfiting ere it dropped you into the land of earthly delight at its edning. (A very big case of the Romantic obsession with transfromative endings. We move from the darkness into a very blinding A Major, I would guess. Not that I have any clue without the score. I need to look that up. Along with many other scores.) I was surprised though, as I hadn't really been all that taken with the thing the first time I heard it, but I surely am now. Please forgive.

Sincerely,
David