Ed Zubrow wrote:

>The stylistic evolution from Brahms' music was cited and this is where
>my question arises.  Certainly the "melody riding on a cushion of
>accompaniment" describes homophonic music.  And, in Brahms and those who
>inspired him, we see the beauty of polyphonic voices: multiple thoughts
>but all related to each other and joined by formal properties.  So, if
>Mahler represents something new; if it is neither homophonic or polyphonic;
>what is it?

It is polyphony.  Mahler himself said it was.

After two run throughs with the VPO in September 1904 he was dissatisfied
with the orchestration and wrote to Heinrichsen, his publisher: "I have
had to do some retouching.  The percussion in particular was somewhat too
heavy and would certainly have spoiled the impression." Then next day he
wrote again: "In such a very *polyphonic* work it is not possible
beforehand to get everything right down to the last detail." (My emphasis.)

That last statement was an understatement because Mahler revised the Fifth
more than any other of his works.  In fact he was still revising it weeks
before his death seven years later and the list of various printed editions
is very long with two critical editions published by IGMG in 1964 and 1989.
(You can still hear slight discrepancies in recordings depending on which
one is used.)

I think what Zander is referring to is the fact that this is just (!) very
complex and very dense polyphony which is also very _tight_ by virtue of
the fact that it has been worked over and worked over so many times and
so any "joins" have been eliminated.  A case of the working method of the
composer having a specific effect on what is produced.

Tony Duggan
Staffordshire,
United Kingdom.