Book contents
- Mahler in Context
- Composers in Context
- Mahler in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Music Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Part I Formation
- Part II Performance
- Part III Creation
- Chapter 12 The Composer “Goes to Press”
- Chapter 13 Mahler and Program Music
- Chapter 14 Intertextuality in Mahler
- Chapter 15 The Symphony, 1870–1911
- Chapter 16 Mahler and the Visual Arts of His Time
- Chapter 17 Mahler and Modernism
- Chapter 18 Reception in Vienna
- Chapter 19 Mahler’s Press from London to Los Angeles
- Part IV Mind, Body, Spirit
- Part V Influence
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 17 - Mahler and Modernism
from Part III - Creation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2020
- Mahler in Context
- Composers in Context
- Mahler in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Music Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Part I Formation
- Part II Performance
- Part III Creation
- Chapter 12 The Composer “Goes to Press”
- Chapter 13 Mahler and Program Music
- Chapter 14 Intertextuality in Mahler
- Chapter 15 The Symphony, 1870–1911
- Chapter 16 Mahler and the Visual Arts of His Time
- Chapter 17 Mahler and Modernism
- Chapter 18 Reception in Vienna
- Chapter 19 Mahler’s Press from London to Los Angeles
- Part IV Mind, Body, Spirit
- Part V Influence
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
Though Mahler usually balked at declaring himself a modernist composer, on occasion he definitively aligned himself with the Austro-German early modernist cohort, who consciously sought out uncharted musical territory between 1890 and 1910. This movement was by no means monolithic; historicist and ironizing trends, for example, evolved side by side with the antecedents of the New Music. This chapter examines modernist traits of the Second, Fourth, and Seventh Symphonies, along with Das Lied von der Erde, as examples of four distinct modernisms: realism, conveyed by operatically conceived offstage sounds; incipient neoclassicism, with transparent Mozartian orchestration deployed in a playful ironic tone; a rare Mahlerian embrace of discordant instability, juxtaposed with a nostalgia that does not quite soothe; and a sui generis case, the emancipation of musical time, which would become emblematic of Mahler’s late style.
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- Mahler in Context , pp. 147 - 153Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020