Contexts of

Mahler’s Music

音樂

音樂與…

…與人生

“Only connect”

“Only connect! […]

Live in fragments no longer.”

E. M. Forster (1879-1970), Howard’s End (1910)

Some Contexts of Mahler’s Music

• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)– Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55)

• irrationalist triumvirate

– Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)

Schopenhauer

• 4-fold Root of the Principle (1813, 1847)

• cause and effect• premise and

conclusion• motive and

action• space and time

– Man bound to the principle like Ixion's wheel

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

• chief expounder of pessimism and of the irrational impulses of life arising from the will; influenced Existentialism and Freudian psychology

• Art liberates us from the world of appearance

• cause and effect…

– and reveals the ideas behind

The World as Will and

Idea(1819)

Music reveals the "Will" behind the ideas– a copy of

the will itself– the

romantic art, highest

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

(1844–1900)

• known for denouncing religion, for espousing doctrine of perfectibility of man, and for glorification of the superman

The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of

Music (1872)

• argues that Greek tragedy arose out of the fusion of Apollonian (measured restraint) and Dionysian (ecstasy) elements.

• Socratic rationalism and optimism spelled the death of Greek tragedy, only the spirit of Wagner's music brought about its rebirth.

• Apollonian: equivalent of what Schopenhauer called the individual phenomenon—the particular chance, error, or man, the individuality of which is merely a mask for the essential truth of reality which it conceals.

• Dionysian: sense of universal reality, which, according to Schopenhauer, is experienced after the loss of individual egoism. The “Dionysian ecstasy,” as defined by Nietzsche, is experienced “not as individuals but as the one living being, with whose creative joy we are united.”

ad astra per aspera

• “to the stars by hard ways”– Nietzsche: “all that comes into being must

be ready for a sorrowful end; we are forced to look into the terrors of the individual existence—yet we are not to become rigid with fear…”

– Beethoven: “joy through suffering”

• Mahler– Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”, Finale– Symphony No. 3, IV–V– Symphony No. 4, Finale

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55)

• religious philosopher and critic of rationalism, regarded as the founder of existentialist philosophy.

• He is famous for his critique of systematic rational philosophy, on the grounds that actual life cannot be contained within an abstract conceptual system.

• He intended to clear the ground for an adequate consideration of faith and, accordingly, of religion—specifically Christianity.

Either/Or (1843)

Stages on Life's Way (1845)

• three stages of existence:– the aesthetic stage is the one in which one

lives for the pleasure of the moment (cf. Don Giovanni);

– the ethical stage is the one based on the stability and continuity of life in work and in matrimony;

– the religious stage is the one characterized by faith, which is always a "dreadful certainty“—i.e., a dread that becomes certain of a hidden relationship with God

Response to Kierkegaard

• aesthetic stage—indulgence in this world– despair

• ethical stage—justification by work– guilt

• religious stage—justification by grace– suffering (Weltschmerz)

• aesthetic stage—liberation from this world– Camus: man's revolt against the world– Tillich: courage to be

Weltschmerz

• the prevailing mood of melancholy and pessimism associated with the poets of the Romantic era that arose from their refusal or inability to adjust to those realities of the world that they saw as destructive of their right to subjectivity and personal freedom—a phenomenon thought to typify Romanticism.

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)

• Ceiling paintings commissioned (but finally rejected and the drafts destroyed in 1945!) by the University of Vienna for the new hall, representing 3 of the 4 faculties

Klimt, Philosophy (1900)

Philosophy

Sphinx

Klimt, Medicine, 1901

Hygeia

Death

Klimt, Jurisprudence,

1903–7

Truth, Justice, Law

3 Furies

The Criminal/Victim?

Klimt, Music, 1895

Sphinx

Silenus(Dionysian)

Lyre (Apollonian)

Klimt, Schubert at the Piano, 1899

Schubert, An die Musik D.547 (1817)

• Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden, Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt, Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden, Hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt!

• Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen, Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen, Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!

• Oh sacred art, how oft in hours blighted, While into life's untamed cycle hurled, Hast thou my heart to warm love reignited To transport me into a better world!

• So often has a sigh from thy harp drifted, A chord from thee, holy and full of bliss, A glimpse of better times from heaven lifted, Thou sacred art, my thanks to thee for this.

Um Mitternacht (1901)

Um Mitternachthab' ich gewachtund aufgeblickt zum

Himmel;kein Stern vom

Sterngewimmelhat mir gelachtum Mitternacht.

在半夜裡，我醒著，仰望天河；無一星宿，向我回眸，在半夜裡。

Um Mitternachthab' ich gedachthinaus in dunkle Schranken.Es hat kein Lichtgedankenmir Trost gebrachtum Mitternacht.

Um Mitternachtnahm ich in achtdie Schläge meines Herzens.Ein einz'ger Puls des

Schmerzeswar angefachtum Mitternacht.

在半夜裡，我思索，浩瀚哲理；無一高見，給我安慰，在半夜裡。

在半夜裡，我覺察，心中悸動；一絲傷痛，被挑起，在半夜裡。

Um Mitternachtkämpft' ich die Schlacht,o Menschheit, deiner

Leiden;nicht konnt' ich sie

entscheidenmit meiner Machtum Mitternacht.

Um Mitternachthab' ich die Machtin deine Hand gegeben!Herr! Über Tod und Lebendu hältst die Wachtum Mitternacht!

在半夜裡，我搏鬥，人啊，你底苦難；單憑己力，無法勝過，在半夜裡。

在半夜裡，我力量，交你手中！主啊！無論生死，求你掌管，在半夜裡！

Kathleen Ferrier (1912–

53)

recorded Mahler in Vienna, 1952

Webern to Berg, 30.10.1911

6,394ff.