New-York tribune., 1922-03-12
Mahler's Sd Symphony
And Inspired Interpretation
OF Beethoven and the Ode to Joy: Mailer in
New York; Opera and Phihar-
monte Concerts
By II. T.. krehbiel

krehbiel
al finale in the string quartet. Op. 1872.
When he decided upon finale with
voices he took up the ode and. arb-
trarily and with much travail of mind,
hitched it to the first three movements
by the device of passing their themes
in review and permitting the string
basses to comment on them and dis
miss each in turn-now the melody Of
the choral ode is introduced. The
basses hail it with gladness, sing it
through and hand it over to the entire
band for variation. Then the solo
barytone voice enters, its words to
The glad recitativc of the basses and
gives the words of the ode set to the
new melody to the other singers, who
embollish it with vocal variations.
There is no evidence that the "jubls-
ton of joy entered into Becthovcns
mind except i'll connection with the
choral finale. What Beethoven would
have thought OF all expository program,
even so poetical and plausible one as
Wagner's, may be guessed from letter
which he wrote to DR.. Muller, a pro-
moter of his music in Bremen, who
had sent him program" for the
Seventh Symphony. He protested
against such interpretations of his
music, pointed out the errors TO which
they would inevitably give rise and
said that If expositions were necessary
they should be confined to character
izations of his music in general terms,
which could easily and correctly be
done by any educated musician. But
there will never be an end of rhapso-
dizing over musical masterpieces, be-
cause II is so easy to do and provides
such delightful pabulum for the i'm
agination Of musical children-big and
little, old and young
Mailer and His Programs
In most of Bcethoven's symphonies
enc may put his finger upon the ele-
ment which binds the movements into
a whole. in the c minor it is the
rhythm of the first short thematic fig
ule; in the Seventh it is also rhythm
ical, the employment of the dacty; in
the Ninth it is intervallc-the prog
ress III simple diatonic steps of all the
themes from the first to the last.
There is nothing Of this community of
theme or material in Mahlers Third.
have read one exposition Of it in
which it vas set down as a mature
symphony and in harmony with the
style of the other titles ("What the
Flowers OF the Meadow Tell Me-" ETC. },
the first movement, with its monoto-
nous Attenuation Of marches lugubrious
and marches merry, separated by bonn
bastic proclamations in the trombone,
was entitled "W hat the Rocks Tell Me-"
Rocks and march movements, how
ever, were a bit too incongruous.
We were entitled to this information
though it would have made Mr.. Gil
mans red herring moro redolent and
odorous. We ought also to have been
told that Mr.. Mailer once wrote over
the last movement, which is beautiful
ard poignant until those qualities are
cfaced by damnable reiteration, the
pious words; Father, behold My
wounds. Grant that no creature be
lost Evidently the composer at vari-
Gus times permitted the concepts which
he thought applicable to his collection
OF pieces to range from pagan Pan
theism to dogmatic Christianity.
In our review of the symphony we
remarked that it sounded like a satire
to speak about the poetical or psyche
logical contents of the composition and
equally satirical to conceive of it as
not having been associated in the COM
poser's mind with some of its erratic
processes. Mailer was in all things a
paradox. Here story to illustrate:
When he brought his First Symphony
forward at a concert of the Phil
harmonic Society l was the writer of
the notes on the programmed been
for ten or fifteen years. Knowing his
sentiments on the subject, asked him
what he wanted me to do with his
work He wrote me a letter in which
he said that he was not a programmist
and that the symphony had no poetical
conceit at its base. I called his atten-
tion to the fact that when he gave the
work to the world he had called it
"Titan." He replied that he had done
so on compulsion. "They put pistol
against my breast" was the way he
put it. When ! sent him a pamphlet
written by one of his friends and en-
thusiastic admirers, giving an inter
probation Of the symphony in which
he quoted from a letter purporting to
have been written by the composer, NAH
Ter asked for the pamphlet and fatty
repudiated his friends statement.
"Das soil ich ges~lrieben haben9 ." he
wrote. was amazed, for the PAM
phlet had been used at concerts in Ger
many, but was more than willing to
put all thoughts Of Jean Paul's
"Titan," or any other creature Of
Check mythology bearing the name, out
of my mind if for no other reason than
that l could not associate a single
heroic conception with the melody Of
the old French nursery round "Frere