Page 242 - Vinkler, Jonatan, in Jernej Weiss. ur. 2014. Musica et Artes: ob osemdesetletnici Primoža Kureta. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem.
P. 242
musica et artes
ing song. The ending of this movement must put this interpretation beyond
any doubt, as it ends with a damped drum stroke that recalled a fireman’s fu-
neral procession in New York which Mahler and his wife had witnessed.
The funeral drum strokes continue into the finale with its slowly ris-
ing scales and the appearance of the short-short-long motifs that are insert-
ed into the music. This must represent some kind of what de La Grange calls
“catharsis”, a word used by the Greek philosopher Aristotle to mean a purg-
ing of illness, guilt or misfortune. A beautifully serene flute melody creates
a calm atmosphere which is taken up in turn by the strings. The short-short-
long motifs gradually develop into an Allegro moderato which tries to develop
the figures but is frustratingly short lived, before the return of the sustained
chord from the first movement, the nine-note discord and the viola theme
(played on the horns as indicated by Mahler) from the first movement. This
now brings the work full circle, making performances of the opening Ada-
gio movement alone seem crudely truncated. It is not unreasonable to suggest
that the opening theme has made all this possible and its reappearance to-
wards the end of finale confirms this. The remainder of the movement is now
slow and calm (Cooke’s tempo indications, Sehr ruhig and Adagio, cannot be
faulted.) and the music comes to rest in the home key of F sharp major. While
the course of the narrative is different, the ideas have much in common with
Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung (‘Death and Transfiguration’).
240
ing song. The ending of this movement must put this interpretation beyond
any doubt, as it ends with a damped drum stroke that recalled a fireman’s fu-
neral procession in New York which Mahler and his wife had witnessed.
The funeral drum strokes continue into the finale with its slowly ris-
ing scales and the appearance of the short-short-long motifs that are insert-
ed into the music. This must represent some kind of what de La Grange calls
“catharsis”, a word used by the Greek philosopher Aristotle to mean a purg-
ing of illness, guilt or misfortune. A beautifully serene flute melody creates
a calm atmosphere which is taken up in turn by the strings. The short-short-
long motifs gradually develop into an Allegro moderato which tries to develop
the figures but is frustratingly short lived, before the return of the sustained
chord from the first movement, the nine-note discord and the viola theme
(played on the horns as indicated by Mahler) from the first movement. This
now brings the work full circle, making performances of the opening Ada-
gio movement alone seem crudely truncated. It is not unreasonable to suggest
that the opening theme has made all this possible and its reappearance to-
wards the end of finale confirms this. The remainder of the movement is now
slow and calm (Cooke’s tempo indications, Sehr ruhig and Adagio, cannot be
faulted.) and the music comes to rest in the home key of F sharp major. While
the course of the narrative is different, the ideas have much in common with
Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung (‘Death and Transfiguration’).
240
