Subject: | |
From: | |
Date: | Mon, 29 Mar 1999 15:41:52 -0500 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Ian Foster wrote:
>Which leads me on to the subject of Mahler's Ninth. Is it depressing
>and if so, in what way or ways?
>
>Most agree that this music is at least in part about death, but
>is it despair or noble acceptance of opur mortality? Is it also about other
>"farewells"?
This is a great question!
I have usually linked Mahler's Ninth with Tchaikovsky's Sixth in that both
end with feelings of utter despair and hopelessness. But there are also
the mini-deaths. . . the physical pain like cancer, or the mental anguish
like desperate loneliness. What binds us together in this human fraternity
is this powerful desire that our mini-deaths -- our grief, our pains, our
hurts -- go away, and we have no power in and of ourselves to make a go of
it. Mahler's Ninth eloquently expresses this profound desire.
>I have to say that this music is a great favourite of mine.
Me, too!
>I have views, which change almost every time I hear the piece.
I can't say if Mahler deals with death nobly or meanly, with courage or
cowardice. Certainly the idea of resignation comes through to me.
Mark
|
|
|