Mahler on Goodness in the Land of the Living

Gustav Mahler was an early 20th-century German composer. Every German composer after Beethoven sounds a little like Beethoven; but because he is 20-century, he can also sound very discordant. He is absolutely my favorite composer of this sort of music; I would be so much the more impoverished if I had never heard his music. You can roll your eyes at how corny this sounds if you want, but when I am tired and used up and discouraged, there's simply nothing like Mahler--and Hopkin's poetry--to encourage and strengthen.

But he isn't easy. I grew up listening to a lot of baroque music, which I love; but Handel and Bach are so deeply patterned (not a criticism; that's part of their beauty) that I tended to approach other classical music looking for the pattern as a way to make sense out of it. Mahler doesn't have any patterns: it's like a roller-coaster ride. He'll whisk you this way and that, and you just have to let him take you where he wants to go.

What I find so deeply nourishing about his music is not just its titanic beauty, for many composers can give us pieces of piercing beauty. It is rather the way Mahler continually charts a course from anguished despair to joy, from emptiness to fulfillment; you can "hear" the desolation and ruin in his symphonies. Mahler knows what it's like to be out on the streets, hungry and cold and lost and shut out from all the comforts you used to have, having to make a dim campfire on the beach while the darkness hovers over the face of the waters. But he never leaves you there: he always leads you into this . . . well, a titanic, un-burstable joy.

But even more: he shows the intrinsic connection between the two. He will have the symphony repeat a certain melody in a minor key, or give a kind of false climax which reaches for that joy but collapses before it can attain it. He'll repeat these themes throughout: and at the end, he'll play the same themes in sustained major chords, all the sadness and loss redeemed. Joy doesn't come out of nowhere in Mahler: it is in the very place of sadness that joy comes. The very buildings which are desolate are restored. The connection between desolation and fullness is intrinsic in Mahler. It's the furthest thing in the world from a deux-ex-machina--goodness (of the Lord!) right here, in this situation, not delayed or postponed or deferred to some higher level.

Mahler is difficult, and I find I can't be doing other things when I listen: have to give him your full attention. But, oh my, is it worth it. The above video is the first half of the fourth movement of his first symphony, which is the place to start (the next video that pops up is the second half). Unfortunately, the video cuts off just before the penultimate climax. Let me know if I convert you to a Mahler devotee!