I forgot to respond to your mention of Brahms 2 and Mahler 1. You’re not the first to note the similarity of that passage (bar 234-242 for those of you checking at home) of the Brahms to the opening of Mahler 1. People often smile and say something about it to their stand partner in rehearsal. In my own score, from many years ago, are the words “Beeth 4! (Mahler?)” The two pieces (Brahms 2 and Mahler 1) are 10 years apart exactly- the Brahms was still new (and the composer still very much alive). It’s funny that Mahler says of the opening of the symphony that it is not music at all, but the sound of nature. Would Brahms have approved.

So, is it a question of Brahms and Mahler both referring to the same passage in Beethoven, or Mahler citing both? What would it tell us about Mahler if his whole symphonic output started with a quote from Brahms? “I’m next”?

Very interesting comment, Tyner. Thanks for writing.

I’d never noticed the similarity with the Horn Trio- very interesting. If it is intentional, the question would be why? What does the Horn Trio tell us about Mahler 2? Something to think about.

The link between Schumann 3 and Brahms 3 is more explicit than simply the rhythm- at bar 449 of the Schumann, you can hear the main theme of Brahms 3, pitches (transposed), rhythm and all.

Again, many thanks for the very interesting thoughts

Ken

Having said that/those, I’d like to offer competing “quotes” I noticed since being alerted this this issue.

The first three Mahler symphonies all start with Brahms! While your reference to Beethoven 4 is good, please also look at the rondo theme of Brahms 2 finale, with two falling fourths comparable to Mahler’s, and especially at the end of the development where the mood is very quiet and these fourths are heard slowly, with a half-step between them as in the Mahler, prior to the final reentry of the rondo theme. I find the mood there more similar to Mahler 4 than the Beethoven.

Now look at the finale of the Horn Trio op. 40 where the main theme leads to three strident upward fourths and a series of triplet running notes– and compare this to the opening theme in the basses in Mahler 2– eleven exactly matching notes. To be sure, Mahler writes “Todtenfeier” in 1889 or so, when Brahms was still living, long before marriage to Alma, but it’s interesting to note an anecdote in Alma’s memoirs where Gustav is madly searching for one more instrumentalist because he wants to run through the
trio op. 40 one particular night– it shows he was interested in the work.

Re Brahms and Mahler 3: I have seen an account in the travelogue section of the Chicago Tribune a decade ago, about places Mahler frequented on vacation in the Alps, telling of times when he would go to see Brahms and I think even went hiking with him looking at trees and mountains (all that stuff he told Walter he had put into the Third Symphony). This is when Brahms is dying of cigar cancer and God or music or whatever has sent Gustav out to try to keep him going for a few more opus numbers. (This is the same Gustav who was a veteran at battling death and had spent a year at age 13 trying to keep his younger brother Ernst alive through reading aloud, playing music etc. Analogous to trying to keep a symphony alive to the “age” of 100 minutes?)

Anyway, try this: after the Brahms quote “collapses into crisis” as you put it– maybe the crisis of how to get the old man out of bed?– we hear “Hey! Johannes Brahms! Let’s go mo-o-o-o-u-u-u-ntaining!” (I dunno, maybe the original is “Gehn wir be-e-e-e-e-e-rgsteigen” or something?). And there’s a shrill trumpet scream, “Jo-han-nes BRAAAAAAAAAaaahms!” And eventually he got him going and looking at some more trees and we got op. 120 etc.

P.S. “How can one go back to the structural logic of a Brahms symphony after experiencing something as wild as the first movement of Mahler 3?” Maybe Mahler 4 is the answer to that (and also to Beethoven 4). He sorted out the material and put the radical stuff in 3, the Haydncompliant (and the vocal finale a la Beethoven) in 4.

It also bears a resemblance to a big tune from Brahms Academic Festival overture and I think all these themes may share a common source in the revolutionary student song “Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus”. Peter Franklin makes the connection also with Rott and Mahler’s student days too. But this all makes sense – here we have revolutionary fervour and youthful solidarity, What Brahms had made academically acceptable in his overture and which also found a respectable place in the veiled protestantism of his first symphony, Mahler here wrests back as the “Weckruf” – a summoning of primitive Dionysian energy to release a creative earthquake.

As you said – when you hear that first movement as a riposte to Brahms’ traditionalism and conservatism, its revolutionary energy seems more obvious than ever. Of course, by the end Mahler has rediscovered the Apollonian beauty which this first movement had simply trampled upon. But Mahler’s vision is all-encompassing, true-to-life – and not simply bourgeois and polite. Mahler wanted to go on protest marches, to shout out and rebel – but what a vision to steer that youthful vitality and energy towards the resolution of that finale. It is a rebellion aimed at restoring the spiritual and the ideal….turning the money-lenders out of the temple, and the conservatives from their seats of power. Wow – what a composer that is!

Peter

Am I reading correctly that this concert will feature a work IN ADDITION to the Mahler? Very old school.