Page 239 - Vinkler, Jonatan, in Jernej Weiss. ur. 2014. Musica et Artes: ob osemdesetletnici Primoža Kureta. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem.
P. 239
mahler’s tenth symphony: motivic development ...
falls a fifth. It closes the movement and echoes similar motifs in the Fifth and
Ninth Symphonies. The other prominent motif is a descending figure that in-
dicates some form of sinister implications, which Deryck Cooke called “the
tragic six-note theme of the central section.”34 This has similarities with the
Shepherd’s tune at the beginning of Act III of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a
point emphasised in the articles referred to in Footnote 23. The character of
the music, as suggested by many commentators, is similar to that of the ac-
companiment to the song Das irdische Leben from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
This song relates the tragic tale of a boy asking his mother for food, but is con-
stantly told to wait until it was too late and the child died. Does this have any
relevance to the Purgatorio movement?
The fourth movement’s musical conflict is between the opening violent
and sorrowful sound which recalls the Trinklied of Das Lied von der Erde
and the waltz-style trio.35 The struggle between the two leads to a disintegra-
tion of the music in a similar way to the Scherzo of the Sixth Symphony, and
is followed by the damped funereal drum beat that is carried over to the fi-
nale’s introduction. It is not entitled ‘scherzo’, but the character and the for-
mal plan would indicate a movement that in Mahler’s music could easily be
called a ‘scherzo’.
The finale consists of two long slow sections framing a shorter Alle-
gro moderato. The conflict is between the calm slow sections and the brief-
er central Allegro. The short motifs from the Purgatorio movement appear all
through this movement, both the three-note figure and the ‘tragic six-note
theme’. These also appear in some form of conflict. After the eleven frighten-
ing and unevenly spaced drum beats, the music moves into a very calm and
static phase dominated by an ethereal flute melody,36 then taken up by the
strings. The music quickens with the appearance of the three-note motif into
an Allegro moderato. Its somewhat halting progress (sostenuto, beruhigen, ganz
ruhig) ends in a final short burst merging into a broad statement of the de-
scending phrase. The nine-note discord from the first movement now inter-
venes menacingly to be followed by the sinister viola motto theme from the
opening of the first movement. The music then moves from B flat major to
an F sharp major Adagio that ends the symphony in a state of serene peace.
34 Cooke, “The Facts Concerning Mahler’s Tenth Symphony,” 81.
35 Mahler wrote in the score the following annotation “Der Teufel tanzt mit mir” (‘The devil dances
with me’).
36 Cooke in the published score (London: Faber, 1976), 123, marks the tempo as Ein wenig fliessemder,
doch immer langsam.
237
falls a fifth. It closes the movement and echoes similar motifs in the Fifth and
Ninth Symphonies. The other prominent motif is a descending figure that in-
dicates some form of sinister implications, which Deryck Cooke called “the
tragic six-note theme of the central section.”34 This has similarities with the
Shepherd’s tune at the beginning of Act III of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a
point emphasised in the articles referred to in Footnote 23. The character of
the music, as suggested by many commentators, is similar to that of the ac-
companiment to the song Das irdische Leben from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
This song relates the tragic tale of a boy asking his mother for food, but is con-
stantly told to wait until it was too late and the child died. Does this have any
relevance to the Purgatorio movement?
The fourth movement’s musical conflict is between the opening violent
and sorrowful sound which recalls the Trinklied of Das Lied von der Erde
and the waltz-style trio.35 The struggle between the two leads to a disintegra-
tion of the music in a similar way to the Scherzo of the Sixth Symphony, and
is followed by the damped funereal drum beat that is carried over to the fi-
nale’s introduction. It is not entitled ‘scherzo’, but the character and the for-
mal plan would indicate a movement that in Mahler’s music could easily be
called a ‘scherzo’.
The finale consists of two long slow sections framing a shorter Alle-
gro moderato. The conflict is between the calm slow sections and the brief-
er central Allegro. The short motifs from the Purgatorio movement appear all
through this movement, both the three-note figure and the ‘tragic six-note
theme’. These also appear in some form of conflict. After the eleven frighten-
ing and unevenly spaced drum beats, the music moves into a very calm and
static phase dominated by an ethereal flute melody,36 then taken up by the
strings. The music quickens with the appearance of the three-note motif into
an Allegro moderato. Its somewhat halting progress (sostenuto, beruhigen, ganz
ruhig) ends in a final short burst merging into a broad statement of the de-
scending phrase. The nine-note discord from the first movement now inter-
venes menacingly to be followed by the sinister viola motto theme from the
opening of the first movement. The music then moves from B flat major to
an F sharp major Adagio that ends the symphony in a state of serene peace.
34 Cooke, “The Facts Concerning Mahler’s Tenth Symphony,” 81.
35 Mahler wrote in the score the following annotation “Der Teufel tanzt mit mir” (‘The devil dances
with me’).
36 Cooke in the published score (London: Faber, 1976), 123, marks the tempo as Ein wenig fliessemder,
doch immer langsam.
237
