Keeping Score | Gustav Mahler: Legacy (FULL DOCUMENTARY AND CONCERT)

[Music] Gustav Mahler's symphonies have changed the way we think about music [Music] [Applause] [Music] where did his music come from the son of a Jewish tavern keeper in a small town Matta grew up hearing a rich mixture of music including rustic folk dances military marches and the delicate sounds of nature [Music] mala would transform these raw materials into his own musical world a world remarkable for its diversity and its unity [Music] very often his vision first came into focus as a song sometimes these songs grew into symphonies lucky for him and for us even in his earliest music he had had an instantly recognizable voice and then by age 23 he had written the songs of the wayfarer his first perfect piece where he'd concentrated his musical language and introduced the characteristic bittersweet gestures of village and Jewish music for the first time at age 28 he took his vision still further with the eerie beginning of his first symphony [Music] remarkably he had accomplished all of this in what were essentially stolen moments from his career as conductor and music director of major opera houses most of his time was spent in rehearsal rooms much like this modest conducting career took him across the austro-hungarian Empire and beyond over 19 years he moved up the ladder of success from one Opera House to another taking on bigger and more prestigious assignments it all culminated in Vienna [Music] at the turn of the 20th century Vienna was both the capital of an empire and as it had been since Beethoven's time the musical center of the world [Music] avant-garde artists called secessionists introduced a new style of architecture and art proving that the old traditional city could look forward mater was himself a musical progressive so it was perhaps timely that he was back in Vienna where he had been a student years before ready to head up the greatest opera company in the world the Vienna Court Opera [Music] he'd gotten here three years filled with triumph and controversy he was both loved and hated and considered controversial confrontational a modernist an uncompromising perfectionist an artistic God but a hell of a difficult guy to deal with in the café's a Vienna opinion was of course mixed about whether mala should become the opera's new conductor being Jewish was one issue but armed with a recent conversion to Catholicism and his undeniable musical genius he convinced all factions that he should have the job [Music] the Opera was a huge institution like a country of its own it needed running and Mahler was just the guy to do it he would accept no excuses he had a vision and gave the whole place his undivided attention Oh from time to time he complained that he was condemned to pursue this line of work which took him away from his real love composing never mind once the job was his the gloves came off and he went totally at it he introduced new repertoire by modern composers like Puccini Strauss and Tchaikovsky he dusted off the old masterpieces restoring cuts and abolishing the wayward excesses of prima donnas of the past he engaged avant-garde stage designers like Alfred roller he insisted on large numbers of rehearsals and brought the orchestra chorus and ensemble to a new height of perfection he negotiated with the singers deciding what roles they would play there were ercel periods even their salaries he not only conducted the operas he directed them he even called to attention the standards of behavior and hygiene of the pushers chambermaids and cleaning staff [Music] while mother sometimes complained about the burden of being the music director of the greatest opera house in the world there was one immediate benefit he was well paid and for the first time in his life he could imagine owning his own country retreat [Music] on the banks of Austria's Lake Volta he built a dream house a summer chalet fantasy it was a place where he could be assured of the peacefulness of nature that was so vital to his creativity in this house he found the reality the serenity he so often created in his music [Music] as a labor of love on his part to imagine building it and as usual he immersed himself in every detail he built the house here over on the south side of the lake it was less sunny but there were far fewer people across the way there there were already guest houses and spas catering to people called cool guests secure guests but mala referred to them as cool guests cow guests he found them too rich and too pushy and thrill-seekers trying to catch a glimpse of him even rolling up in boats spying on him he wanted solitude and this was the ideal place for him to find it the villa was completed and mother moved in at the summer of 1901 it's a rare opportunity to be able to look inside so let's see what's still here it's amazing how much the original shape of the house remains the moldings the the windows they're all just as they were in mother's time and out here is this wonderful porch it's so beautiful mala was afraid it was too beautiful that first summer in 1901 he first got into a panic when he was here wondering if he'd be able to really write anything at all and such luxury and beauty and then it began to happen the first movements of the fifth symphony and the wonderful record leader were all born here and the record leader especially had a new atmosphere a kind of yearning more romantic atmosphere [Music] [Applause] [Music] why do you think that when people hear something really beautiful that they cry I think it just wakes up feelings and emotions inside ourselves that is not touched by words [Music] [Applause] Beauty makes us cry because we fear it can't last malar teaches us to cherish the wonder of each moment in this new song cycle the Richert leader his music found new tenderness as if maybe Mahler was sensing that around the corner in his own life some new relationship might be in store after all he had the greatest job the greatest house now all I needed was the greatest wife the winter season of 1901 found Lawler back at his routine at the Opera the job left little time for socializing but one evening at the home of friends Mahler thought he met the woman of his dreams [Music] [Applause] [Music] Armus Schindler was a vivacious and accomplished young woman she was the daughter of the famous landscape painter Emil Schindler and had been brought up in the company of Vienna's foremost artists she was a skilled musician an aspiring composer and presented herself as a kind of aesthetic pin-up girl she met Mahler at a dinner party in November 1901 he was 41 she was 22 he thought he had found in her the ideal woman to occupy the space he had created in his own heart after their meeting he wrote the final recurred song for her [Music] he soon proposed making it clear that there was room in their relationship for only one composer and that that would be he after some hesitation she agreed and they were married on March 9th 1902 that summer he brought her home to his lakeside villa he began to work on a new piece built around the same strands of notes that he'd used in the rook at Lido there's a recurring musical motive in these songs a simple rising scale that Muller seems to be playing with here he is experimenting with it in the introduction to the song I'm lost to the world [Music] these notes were central to what's become mother's most famous piece the Adagio from his fifth symphony [Music] the Adagio is a supreme salam/peace a love song reflecting mothers complex relationship with Alma it's stormy confessions [Music] and it's delicious and blissful reconciliations [Music] later that year Alma gave birth to a daughter Maria who they affectionately called two years later Anna was born mother spent six incredibly happy summers in this house he was raising his young family his two daughters his beautiful Alma the Society of friends who came to visit and the place revitalized him it was always the same he arrived here completely exhausted wondering if he'd ever compose again and then he was back into it when he built the villa he also had a small studio constructed just up the hill mother left making his way up to this moisture in his little composing Hut helped stimulate his ideas for the composition ahead this building had been made exactly according to his specifications and he always so looked forward to getting back to the peace the refuge that it afforded the house is bigger than you might think but my I need his space here for his piano for his tables to spread out all his manuscripts and one original feature is still here is this safe were very carefully every night he would lock up his works of progress [Music] out here in the country mother became an enormous health enthusiastic every morning early he jumped off this dock for a long swim in the lake he launched his little rowboat from here and rowed everywhere furiously like Beethoven and Schubert before him physical activities seemed to stimulate Mahler and free his creativity and imagination he would arrive from Vienna and immediately hop on his bicycle reveling in the beauty of his surroundings or he would roam the countryside on foot and maybe the ups and downs of the terrains the landscape the effort of going through it made him relate more to the terrain he was covering in his music mother finished the fifth symphony in the summer of 1902 and moved right on to a sixth the following summer yet the two pieces couldn't be more different in feeling and tone [Music] The Sixth Symphony looks into the depths of the human soul perhaps the security and contentment he felt at this time gave him the courage to confront frightening new frontiers and his music the sixth symphony was the most unflinching exploration of man's destructive impulses that mother ever undertook writing it he said took him to the brink of suicide the simply presented a vision of life without hope a life battered by fate symbolized by an unusual instrument Mahler specified for this piece an enormous wooden hammer that faithfully strikes at the most desperate turning points of the last movement [Music] mother originally planned for the hammer to strike three times but he eliminated one fearing the three-strikes might tempt fate by contrast the seventh symphony is in a zanier mood it explores the exotic and the manic there's a reckless stop-and-start quality about it like jump cutting in a film to me the seventh symphony is like the sixth symphony inverted it's a happy sixth and it's strange that way it has a lot of corners and crevices and little places to hide out and that has a grotesqueness to it now this wasn't the first time Mahler had explored this territory he'd always been fascinated with the grotesque and the absurd in every symphony he referred to the mood of this experience especially in the Scherzo movements where he abstracted the music he had heard in his parents tavern making it more and more bizarre and sometimes adding gags in the form of unusual instruments or effects in the second symphony the traditional up beats of the dance had become hiccups followed by rustling sounds of spinning wheels or Purdy Gerdes [Music] and then comes a new musical gag a folk instrument called the Ruta it's just a bunch of sticks in the 4th symphony the gag comes right at the beginning where mother asks the first violinist to play an instrument deliberately miss tune so it will sound like the rough scraping of a cabaret fiddler [Music] and the gag that cinches the eerie mood is one of Mahler's characteristic high screeches backed up by an odd whispering [Music] in the seventh symphony scared so the gag is a snapped pit ceccato in the cellos and basses which takes us way across the border between music and noise [Music] a snap hits basically turns the base into a percussion instrument and you pull the string and let it let it go and it hits against the fingerboard and just sends this very piercing loud sound out into the audience and maala always enjoyed throwing in other instruments for local color he loved the sounds of cowbells and sleigh bells well this was too much for his conservative critics they couldn't get past these sounds to the heart and soul of his music next they said he'll probably resort to using auto horns he never did the rest of the seven sub-tree scherzo is a flashing parade of circus music [Music] weary laments and splutters of instruments playing way outside their comfort zones [Music] this is the furthest Muller ever took his memories of the music that filtered up from his father's tavern these sounds began a lifelong fascination with the absurd and grotesque sounds that would penetrate his music and accompany his dreams and his nightmares [Music] [Music] the summers at the villa continued to be amazing for Molly it was productive and happy he can count on riding a major new piece almost every year in 1905 he completed the seventh symphony the same year that Freud published his papers on psychoanalysis and Einstein his general theory of relativity in 1906 in a creative burst of only a few weeks mala wrote the whole 8th symphony 1907 he was only expecting more good things and then everything in his life fell apart one hot summer day Mahler's daughter puts he was taken ill nothing could be done for her a week later she died Mahler was devastated [Music] the villa his great refuge now became the symbol of his greatest loss the house was boarded up and abandoned that same summer of 1907 Mahler was diagnosed with a heart condition prolonged rest was advised advice largely ignored then in Vienna his often stormy relationship with the Opera came to an abrupt close his inability to compromise as well as increasingly hostile attacks in the press foretold the end his own perception was simply that he was no longer knew it was time to move on it was the end of an era Vienna's artistic elite gathered at the railway station to bid Mahler farewell he departed with Alma for new musical horizons 4,000 miles to the west in December of 1907 mother was a conducting superstar it offers from all over Europe instead he chose New York at the time New York was a musical frontier but mama relished the challenge the job he decided to take was at the Metropolitan Opera there he thought he would be able to bring all of his great colleagues from Vienna the singers the set designers and put his stamp anew on the repertoire he loved so much Mozart Beethoven and of course father [Music] now mala thought New York would be a place where he'd make a lot of money and be free at last' of social political intrigues he was wrong the Met was a great place to work but shortly after he got there he began to hear rumors that they were thinking of hiring another famous maestro and they did a man younger than mater by seven years Arturo Toscanini Toscanini arrived at the met and defiantly announced that the first piece he wanted to conduct was vogner's Tristan and Isolda Mahler's calling card well this was inevitably becoming a deal breaker Moller wondering what to do next suddenly was approached a typical American style by entrepreneurs with a new idea and that idea well it had a lot to do with the then state of the art concert hall [Music] Cartier Hall had opened in 1891 the 1908 there still wasn't a resident Orchestra in ha oh there were plenty of orchestras around the Boston Symphony on tour a russian orchestra the New York Symphony and the New York Philharmonic this was the big moment for the New York Philharmonic to make its play the guy they wanted was Molly mala accepted knowing that for the first time in his life he would have an orchestra as his full-time responsibility it was a real musical adventure for him [Music] mala did great things with the New York Philharmonic he expanded the repertoire he raised the level of performance he made it a controversial and exciting place to be but the job wasn't without its downside the Philharmonic had a committee of society ladies with their own ideas for the orchestra's future and there were warring factions amongst the musicians Mahler couldn't stay out of the politics of it all more than ever Mahler needed to escape to get back to his roots in the mountains of Europe the family took rooms at table nestled in the dolomite mountains here in the smallest of his composing huts he wrote his most profound music [Music] thus lead fonda Alda the song of the earth comes from this time of turmoil this song Symphony was based on ancient Chinese texts the word spoke of the decline of an empire and of an artist exiled for being too truthful subjects with which mother could identify in this work he seemed to set aside his vast composing technique and returned with no disguise to the primal laments of his origins [Music] in the last movement of this song symphony mala returned to a motive that had haunted him since his youth the same motive he had used over 25 years before to begin the songs of a Wayfarer this motive is called a turn it's a kind of musical pirouette it can go this way or this way [Music] malas history with this motive was a deep one going back to his Jewish roots where it's used in countless folk songs and even in the chanting of the Torah the Geshe aim yes [Music] and of course it's a major motive from vogner's get a Demerol [Applause] malory introduced it powerfully at the very beginning of the last movement of the song of the earth the farewell [Music] the turn became the unifying element of perhaps his greatest work the ninth symphony the first movement of Mahler's 9th symphony is a stroll through a big and deeply moving musical landscape we hear all kinds of things the course of its 25-minute journey but the term motive appears only in a very few bars but as those bars are the ones just before the movements climax it really stands out [Music] in the second movement he makes the turn into a goofy kind of alley-oop used at the end of one of the wall snooze [Music] and now we come to the most original movement in the symphony the Rondo burlesque [Music] mala had been attacked in the press throughout his career especially by the anti-semitic press in Vienna every aspect of his life his musicianship his compositions was reviled often in the most hurtful caricatures of course Mahler knew he made an unusual impression on people he spoken a squeaky voice made rapid jerky gestures and walked in an odd stop-and-start stumble that he went to some pains to disguise but now he wrote a Rondo burlesque which was essentially his own parody of himself it's full of craziness and a lot of angular music a lot of jagged little phrase 'let's piling up against each other [Music] the piece is constantly seething and kind of boiling with these these skin of your teeth tonalities and suddenly there's the turn motive mauler had never used it as savagely as ironically as this before its presented in a wheedling way that could hardly be less attractive to me it seems as if he's saying oh yes I know this is what you think of me old mauler with his the little little table [Music] suddenly we enter a different world [Music] and out of this fog emerges this solo voice an unfiltered glimpse a window into Mahler's true soul [Applause] it's as if he's saying but this is the real me it's so genuine so vulnerable and it grows ever more generous and imploring in vain as it turns out the screeching clarinets returned with the motive in its most jeering form [Music] mama makes a final plea for understanding in the form of a beautiful viola solo before a sob and a sigh let us know it's not to be [Music] [Applause] now inexorably the music grows more menacing and tenser before the whole mocking savagery of the orchestra is unleashed again in a self-destructive frenzy [Music] you're just inside this tornado with things flying around you and you're not sure exactly where you are and it's very jarring [Music] then in the last movement he uses the turn as an impassioned upbeat and later as an essential part of the final adagios long song of farewell [Music] in this movement mala rings every last drop of pathos and expression from this beloved old motive knowing that the moment is coming for him to say goodbye to it forever [Music] finally in the last pages of the symphony the turn as in where can I turn drifts in and out ever more quietly and slowly [Music] could he have realized he was retracing the steps he had taken all those years before and songs of a Wayfarer [Music] was he completing the arch of his life's work [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] there's no hint in these serene pages of the turmoil of his life in the year and a half left to him he would endure the collapse of his health escalating conflict with the Philharmonic and the discovery that Alma was unfaithful nevertheless he composed on [Music] he began to sketch a tenth symphony exploring a whole new musical world the manuscript witnesses the pain he was feeling scrawled over the pages our lives like the devil dances with me may I forget I exist may I cease to be only you will understand farewell my muse farewell farewell musically the tenth Symphony explored new territory it had almost no folkloric reference but proceeded through very free almost progressive jazz kinds of lines the tenderness and bitterness are still there and they reach a shattering climax in a terrifying death cry centered around the note a natural [Music] interestingly that's the same note with which Mahler had begun his first symphony so the bookends of his symphonies his life's work are number one and number ten [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] in the spring of nineteen eleven Mahler's health worsened he was forced to withdraw from the rest of the New York season and returned to Europe he was mortally ill on May 18th 1911 Mahler died he was buried in grynn Singh not far from the Vienna Woods he was only 50 years old right to the end of his life mala remained a controversial figure in Vienna even as he lay dying the newspapers were arguing back and forth about where he should be allowed to be buried certainly not said some in the honorary graves were folk like Beethoven and Schubert work mother ended the controversy by deciding himself that he'd be buried out here outside of the city in the cleansing of freed hoof I came out here for the first time in the early 70s and even then mother's reputation in Vienna was by no means secure I was looking for the grave and asked the grave watcher where it might be Gustav Malick he said Gustav father oh yes the famous conductor I said well famous conductor but great composer and he said well maybe he composed this or that on the side but I don't think much of it could imagine my thoughts that the central musical figure of my life was still in his own hometown questionable [Music] so here's Molly's resting place it's a very simple stone simple strong letters the same as would appear on one of the editions of his symphonies he wanted to rest here and he will always rest here no change in politics or social fashion can ever move him from here he said about this place those who love me will know where to find me for anyone else it makes no difference to a lot of us it makes a big difference [Music] [Music] [Music] mala said my time will come and it certainly has mauler has come to represent the very pinnacle of Austrian symphonic tradition in his pieces he created new worlds happy sad frightening bitter zany grotesque it really didn't matter it was all raw material for his ongoing vision mala was 23 when he wrote songs of the Wayfarer it was the reflection of a tragic unrequited love he had for the soprano Johanna Ishta he was brokenhearted and shattered and from his experience his heartbreak he created for extraordinary songs automatically connected and marked by an incredible intensity of expression [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] mine [Music] [Music] you [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Malheur had landed the most important job in the music world music director of the Vienna Staatsoper had he used the advances from his new job to build himself a dream house and inspired by the place composed what would become perhaps mother's most famous composition the adagietto from his fifth symphony [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in every symphony bothered explored new levels of the bizarre pairing away the luxurious sound of the typical romantic orchestra into something more and more odd and primitive and that's really clear in the Scherzo of his seventh symphony [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] when mother finally got around to writing his ninth symphony which through superstition he had put off doing for a long time it was a troubled time in his life mother was under constant attack in the Viennese press especially the anti-semitic press and every aspect of his life was reviled mother was aware that he looked differently talked differently than nearly everybody else so it was characteristic of him in this last symphony when he was kind of letting it all hang out to write a movement called Rondo burlesque which was essentially his own self parity [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 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Channel: San Francisco Symphony

Views: 125,518

Keywords: sf symphony, San Francisco Symphony, classical music performance, classical music recordings, sf symphony recordings, sfs media, full length classical music, concert recordings, Michael Tilson Thomas, MTT, music education, classical music, songs of comfort, music speaks, music connects, Gustav Mahler, Mahler, #stayhome#withme, German Music, German Composers

Id: 2qv_vCHZkcg

Length: 110min 25sec (6625 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020