Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site


In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: ... and some Bruckner buzz
Post Subject: WagnerismPosted by steverino on: 12/27/2024
 dady wrote:
  When we say that Bruckner is better or worse than Mahler, we are making a comparison of two different currents, Mahler is the inexorable continuation of Wagner, it is possible that in another period of my life I would not have understood it, the same happened to me with Anton. They are different styles,  

To begin with, enjoy any music that you like. However I don't think Mahler's music can be accurately described as the "inexorable continuation" of Wagner's music. The neo Wagnerian style was almost all derived from Tristan and Parsifal and can be heard with many German and some French composers between 1885 - 1910. Richard Strauss' first opera Guntram is very neo Wagnerian as an example. Other examples are Franz Schreker, Alexander Zemlinsky, early Alban Berg and Schoenberg (pre 1910). Bruckner dedicated his Symphony 3 to Wagner and was devoted lifelong to his music despite being clueless about the opera stagings. There is far more of Beethoven Sym 9, late Schubert and Schumann in Mahler. Obviously German composers from 1860 on were using the chromatic harmonic techniques developed by Liszt and Wagner, but that is more of a harmonic progression type effect that was extremely widespread in central European music of that era except for the dedicated followers of Brahms. Stylistically also much of Mahler's music has a sarcastic ironic flavor to it completely lacking in Wagner and most Romantic composers, since satire is rather the negation of the romantic. Even Mahler's vocal music is not particularly Wagnerian in style and he composed no operas.

It is interesting that his contemporaries, many of whom were Wagnerians, were bothered by Mahler's music far more than by Bruckner. What concerned them was what they viewed as a complete lack of taste rather than any harmonic tendencies. To give an example, in the first movement of Mahler's Sym 2, which is supposedly a funeral march, there are half a dozen cymbal crashes in the opening minutes and quite a few more throughout the movement. Nowadays listeners don't stop to think how odd it is to have a funeral march with constant cymbal crashes! Also his use of trumpets was seen as inappropriate since they were often given rather sentimental themes, as can be heard in the middle movements of the Sym 2. We might say that Mahler was the first "Selfie" composer but that is in sync with current times.

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site