MUS 1262H

The Symphonies of Gustav Mahler

FALL 2006
University of Toronto Faculty of Music
Seminar meets: Tuesdays, 1:00-3:00 p.m., EJB E012

Instructor: Dr. Sherry D. Lee

Oce Hours: Tuesdays, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m., Rm. 119 (or by appointment)
Oce Phone: 416-946-3478
E-mail: <sherry.lee@utoronto.ca>

Course Description: The symphonies of Gustav Mahler have been variously viewed as
enormous curiosities, the culmination of the Austro-German symphonic tradition, the dying
gasp of overblown German Romanticism, and the seeds of twentieth-century Viennese
modernism. The goal of this seminar is to examine Mahlers symphonic output, its
reception, and the musicological literature devoted to it, investigating the repertoire from
varying points of view including analytical, biographical, philosophical/aesthetic,
hermeneutic, semiotic, and narrative. Exploration of selected works in terms of the socio-
cultural milieu in which they arose will be accompanied by immanent analysis of the scores
and critical encounters with the literature surrounding the composer and his music.

Course Materials: All required reading and listening materials are available through the
Music Library, whether on reserve (books, some articles), in the non-circulating collection
(collected edition scores, journals), or online (journal articles, sound recordings).

Expectations: All students should attend each session, and should complete weekly
assigned reading and listening in advance, in preparation for active participation in class
discussion. Seminar presentations should be delivered in an organized and polished form.
Written work should be completed with a computer word processor, carefully edited and
spellchecked, and printed in a 12-point font on white 8-1/2 x 11-inch paper with 1-inch
margins. Written work should be accompanied by properly-formatted bibliographies and
foot/endnotes in which all sources consulted for completion of the assignment are duly
acknowledged. Details of all required coursework are given below.

Students should visit the website of the School of Graduate Studies to familiarize
themselves with policies regarding academic conduct: <http://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/>

Evaluation:
Seminar Participation


20%


Seminar Presentation


15%


Written Assignments

2 @ 15% =
30%


Final Paper




35%

Please take note of the University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies Policy on
Graduate Grading and Evaluation, including the Graduate Grade Scale, available at:
<http://www.utoronto.ca/govcncl/pap/policies/grgrade.html>
S. D. Lee 2

Course Schedule: (N.B.: This schedule is exible and subject to change.)

All weekly reading and listening assignments are detailed below. Readings are on reserve
unless they are available in journals to which the UofT library subscribes; please consult the
attached bibliography and library reserve list. After Week 2, each weeks assignment
automatically includes listening with the score to the symphonic movement(s) under
discussion. Consult appropriate chapters in Floros, La Grange, Mitchell, etc. as an analytical
accompaniment to listening.

Week 1
Introduction
12 Sept.
Introduction to the course

Week 2
Views of Mahler I
19 Sept.
Reading: Franklin, Gustav Mahler, Grove Music Online



Franklin, . . . his fractures are the script of truth: Adornos Mahler



Adorno, Mahler Today, Marginalia on Mahler, in Essays on Music




[N.B.: also read R. Lepperts preceding commentary, pp. 538-46]

Weeks 3-4
The First Symphony: introducing issues of form, genre, tone, text
26 Sept.
Symphony No. 1: FOCUS mvmts. 1, 2


Listening: Lieder eines fahrenden Gese"en


Reading: Adorno ch. 1, Curtain and Fanfare



Johnson, Mahler and the Idea of Nature, in Perspectives on Mahler



Mahlers German-Language Critics The First Symphony, in




Painter, ed., Mahler and his World (pp. 283-98)

3 Oct.

Symphony No. 1: FOCUS mvmts. 3, 4


Reading: Draughon/Knapp, Mahler and the Crisis of Jewish Identity



Buhler, Breakthrough as Critique of Form: the Finale of Mahlers




First Symphony

Weeks 5-6
The problem of program music
10 Oct.
Symphony No. 2: FOCUS mvmts. 1, 3


Listening: Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)


Reading: Abbate, Mahlers Deafness: Opera and the Scene of Narration in




Todtenfeier



Franklin, Funeral rites Mahler and Mickiewicz



Heing, Mahlers Todtenfeier and the Problem of Program Music

17 Oct.

Symphony No. 3: FOCUS mvmt. 1


Reading: McGrath, The Metamusical Cosmos of Gustav Mahler



Micznik, Ways of Telling in Mahlers Music: The Third Symphony




as Narrative Text
 S. D. Lee 3

Week 7
Symphony, Song, (Con)text
24 Oct.
Symphony No. 3: FOCUS mvmt. 3; Symphony No. 4: FOCUS mvmt. 4


Listening: Ablsung im Sommer (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)



Das himmlische Leben (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)


Reading: Solvik, Biography and Musical Meaning in the Posthorn Solo of




Mahlers Third Symphony






Knapp, Suering Children: Perspectives on Innocence and




Vulnerability in Mahlers Fourth Symphony
*Written Assignment 1 Due In Class*

Week 8
Views of Mahler II
31 Oct.

Reading: Schoenberg, Gustav Mahler, in Style and Idea



Mitchell, The Modernity of Gustav Mahler



Solvik, Mahlers Untimely Modernism

Week 9
Reading Break
7 Nov.

No class meeting; instructor available for meetings during class time

Week 10
Instrumental Symphonies: Form, Sign, Meaning
14 Nov.
Symphony No. 6: FOCUS mvmts. 1, 4


Reading: Del Mar, analysis of 1st mvmt., and Samuels, ch. 5



Analyses of 4th mvmt. in Floros and La Grange Vol. III
*Written Assignment 2 Due In Class*

Weeks 11-12 Late Style

21 Nov.

Symphony No. 9: FOCUS mvmts. 1, 2


Reading: Diether, The Expressive Content of Mahlers Ninth



Micznik, The Farewell Story of Mahlers Ninth Symphony

28 Nov.
Symphony No. 9: FOCUS mvmts. 3, 4


Reading: Newcomb, Narrative Archetypes in Mahlers Ninth Symphony



Johnson, The Status of the Subject in Mahlers Ninth Symphony

Week 13
Wrap-up: Screening, Ken Russell, Mahler (1974)
5 Dec.

*Final Paper Due*

DETAIL OF ASSIGNMENTS: Each student will give one seminar presentation, and
complete two short written assignments and one nal research paper.

(1) Presentation: Prepare an analysis of one movement of one symphony for presentation to
the class, and lead the class in discussion of the movement. You may wish to provide the
S. D. Lee 4

class members with a brief handout to accompany your analytical discussion of the
movement (an analytical chart or diagram, for example, or musical examples of thematic
materials under consideration, etc.). You should play excerpts of the music under discussion
during your presentation; however, the majority of time should be devoted to discussion.
Consult appropriate texts and the weekly assigned readings in preparing your analysis.

(2) Written Assignment 1: an analysis (5-6 pp. in length, exclusive of musical examples) of the
3rd movement Scherzo of Gustav Mahlers Symphony No. 3. Address both intramusical and
extramusical considerations. Although you are welcome to (and should) consult existing
sources of information on the work, the aim is to present your own response to the music,
both in purely analytical terms, and in the ways in which you think the movement
communicates meaning(s). Due in class Tuesday, 24 October, 1 p.m.

(3) Written Assignment 2: an analysis (5-6 pp. in length, exclusive of musical examples) of
the 1st movement of Symphony No. 6, based in a comparative/critical discussion of the
analyses of this movement by Norman Del Mar and Robert Samuels. All assignments are
due in class Tuesday, 14 November, 1 p.m.

(4) Final Research Paper: a paper (12-20 pp. in length, exclusive of musical examples and
bibliography) on a topic of your choice, as approved by the instructor. Please note that your
topic must be approved no later than Tuesday, 21 November 2006 papers will not be accepted
unless their topics have been approved. Due in class Tuesday, 5 December, 1 p.m.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Abbate, Carolyn. Mahlers Deafness: Opera and the Scene of Narration in Todtenfeier. In
Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton UP,
1991: 119-55.

Adorno, Theodor W. Essays on Music. Selected, with Introduction, Commentary, and Notes
by Richard Leppert; new translations by Susan H. Gillespie. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:
University of California Press, 2002.

________. Mahler: a musical physiognomy. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

________. Mahler. In Quasi una fantasia: Essays on Modern Music. Trans. Rodney Livingstone.
London, New York: Verso, 1992.

Agawu, Ko. Prolonged counterpoint in Mahler. In Stephen Heing, ed. Mahler Studies.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997: 217-47.

Andraschke, Peter. Gustav Mahlers IX. Symphonie: Kompositionsproze und Analyse. Wiesbaden:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981.
 S. D. Lee 5

Barham, Jeremy, ed. Perspectives on Gustav Mahler. Aldershot, Hants, UK; Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2005.

Bauer-Lechner, Natalie. Reco"ections of Gustav Mahler. Trans. Dika Newlin; ed. and
annotated Peter Franklin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980.

Bekker, Paul. Gustav Mahlers Sinfonien. Meisenheim/Glan: Anton Hain KG, 1921; reprint
ed., Berlin: Hans Schneider, 1969.

Bernstein, Leonard. Mahler: His Time has Come. High Fidelity 17/9, Sept. 1967: 51-54.

Blaukopf, Herta, ed. Mahlers Unknown Letters. Trans. Richard Stokes. London: Victor
Gollancz Ltd., 1986.

Blaukopf, Kurt, ed. Mahler: A Documentary Study. With contributions by Zoltan Roman.
London: Thames and Hudson, 1976.

Blaukopf, Kurt and Herta Blaukopf, eds. Mahler: his Life, Work, and World. Trans. Paul Baker
et. al. London: Thames & Hudson, 1991.

Botstein, Leon. Innovations and Nostalgia: Ives, Mahler and the Origins of Modernism.
In Charles Ives and His World, ed. J. Peter Burkholder. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996: 35-74.

Brod, Max. Gustav Mahler: Beispiel einer deutsch-jdischen Symbiose. Frankfurt am Main: Ner-
Tamid Verlag, 1961.

Buhler, James. Breakthrough as critique of form: The nale of Mahlers First Symphony.
19th Century Music XX/2 (Fall 1996): 125-43.

________. Theme, Thematic Process and Variant Form in the Andante Moderato of
Mahlers Sixth Symphony. In Perspectives on Gustav Mahler, ed. Jeremy Barham. Aldershot,
Hants, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005: 261-94.

Christy, Nicholas P., Beverly M. Christy, and Barry G. Wood. Gustav Mahler and his
Illnesses. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association 82 (1970): 200-17.

Dahlhaus, Carl. Form und Motiv in Mahlers neunter Symphonie. Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik
135 (1974): 286-9; repr. in Danuser, Hermann, ed., Gustav Mahler. Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992: 289-99.

Danuser, Hermann ed. Gustav Mahler. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992.

Darcy, Warren. Rotational Form, Teleological Genesis, and Fantasy-Projection in the Slow
Movement of Mahlers Sixth Symphony. 19th Century Music XXV/1 (Summer 2001): 49-74.

Dargie, E. Mary. Music and Poetry in the Songs of Gustav Mahler. Berne: Peter Lang: 1981.
S. D. Lee 6

Del Mar, Norman. Mahlers Sixth Symphony: A Study. London: Eulenburg Books, 1980.

Diether, Jack. The Expressive Content of Mahlers Ninth: An Interpretation. Chord and
Discord 2/10 (1963): 69-107.

Draughon, Francesca and Raymond Knapp. Mahler and the Crisis of Jewish Identity.
Echo: a music-centered journal III/2 (Fall 2001): <http://www.echo.ucla.edu/volume3-issue2/
knapp_draughon/knapp_draughon1.html>

Feder, Stuart. Before Alma . . . Gustav Mahler and Das Ewig-Weibliche. In Stephen
Heing, ed. Mahler Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997: 78-109.

________. Gustav Mahler, Dying. International Review of Psychoanalysis 5 (1978): 125-48.

Filler, Susan M. Mahler in the Medical Literature. News about Mahler Research 23 (March
1990): 8-13.

Fischer, Kurt von. Die Doppelschlaggur in den zwei letzten Stzen von Gustav Mahlers 9.
Symphonie: Versuch einer Interpratation. Archiv fr Musikwissenschaft 32 (1975): 99-105.

Floros, Constantin. Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies. Trans. Vernon and Jutta Wicker.
Portland: Amadeus Press, 1993.

Franklin, Peter. Funeral rites Mahler and Mickiewicz. Music & Letters LV/2 (1974): 203-08.

________. The Life of Mahler. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

________. . . . his fractures are the script of truth. Adornos Mahler. In Stephen
Heing, ed. Mahler Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997: 271-94.

________. Mahler: Symphony No. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.

Fssl, Karl Heinz. On the Order of the Middle Movements in Mahlers Sixth Symphony.
News about Mahler Research27 (March 1992): 3-7.

Greene, David. Mahler, Consciousness and Temporality. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1984.

Heing, Stephen E. Mahlers Todtenfeier and the Problem of Program Music. 19th
Century Music XII/1 (Summer 1988): 27-53.

________. The Making of Mahlers Todtenfeier: A Documentary and Analytical Study.

Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1985.

________. Miners Digging from Opposite Sides: Mahler, Strauss, and the Problem of
Program Music. In Brian Gilliam, ed. Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and
his Work. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992: 41-53.
 S. D. Lee 7

________., ed. Mahler Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Holbrook, David. Gustav Mahler and the Courage to Be. London: Vision Press Ltd., 1975.

Johnson, Julian. Mahler and the Idea of Nature. In Jeremy Barham, ed., Perspectives on
Gustav Mahler. Aldershot, Hants, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005: 23-36.

________. The Status of the Subject in Mahlers Ninth Symphony. 19th Century Music
XVIII/2 (Fall 1994): 108-20.

Kaplan, Richard A. Temporal Fusion and Climax in the Symphonies of Mahler. Journal of
Musicology 14/2 (Spring 1996): 213-32.

Knapp, Raymond. Suering Children: Perspectives on innocence and vulnerability in

Mahlers Fourth Symphony. 19th Century Music XXII/3 (Spring 1999): 233-67.

________. Symphonic Metamorphoses: Subjectivity and Alienation in Mahlers Re-cycled Songs.

Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2003.

Kolleritsch, Otto, ed. Gustav Mahler: Sinfonie und Wirklichkeit. Graz: Universal Edition for
the Institut fr Wertungsforschung, 1977.

Krummacher, Friedhelm. Gustav Mahlers III Symphonie: Welt im Widerbild. Kassel:

Brenreiter, 1991.

La Grange, Henry-Louis de. Gustav Mahler. English, Vol. 1. Garden City, NY: Doubleday &
Company Inc., 1973.

________. Gustav Mahler. Vienna: The Years of Cha"enge (1897-1904). Vol. II. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 1994.

________. Gustav Mahler. Vienna: Triumph and Disi"usion (1904-1907). Vol. III. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1999.

________. Music about music in Mahler: reminiscences, allusions, or quotations? In

Stephen Heing, ed. Mahler Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997: 122-68.

Lea, Henry A. Gustav Mahler: Man on the Margin. Bonn: Bouvier, 1985.

Lebrecht, Norman. Mahler Remembered. London: Faber and Faber, 1987; New York: W. W.
Norton, 1988.

Lewis, Christopher O. Tonal Coherence in Mahlers Ninth Symphony. Ann Arbor: UMI
Research Press, 1984.
S. D. Lee 8

Mahler, Alma. Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters. Ed. Donald Mitchell; trans. Basil
Creighton. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985.

Mahler, Gustav. Ein Glck ohne Ruh: Die Briefe Gustav Mahlers an Alma. Ed. Henry-Louis de
La Grange, Gunther Weiss, and Knud Martner. Berlin: Siedler, 1995.

Mathis, Michael. Arnold Schoenbergs Grundgestalt and Gustav Mahlers Urlicht.

International Journal of Musicology 5 (1996): 239-59.

Matthews, Colin. Mahler at Work: Aspects of the Creative Process. New York and London:
Garland Publishing, 1989.

McClatchie, Stephen. The 1889 Version of Mahlers First Symphony: A New Manuscript
Source. 19th Century Music XX/2 (Fall 1996): 99-124.

________. Hans Rott, Gustav Mahler and the New Symphony: New Evidence for a
Pressing Question. Music and Letters 81/3 (2000): 392-401.

McGrath, William J. The Metamusical Cosmos of Gustav Mahler. Ch. 5 in Dionysian Art
and Populist Politics in Austria. New Haven: Yale UP, 1974: 120-62.

________. Mahler and Freud: The Dream of the Stately House. In Klein, Rudolf, ed.,
Gustav Mahler Ko"oquium 1979. Kassel: Brenreiter, 1981: 40-51.

Micznik, Vera. The Farewell Story of Mahlers Ninth Symphony. 19th Century Music XX/2
(Fall 1996): 144-66.

________. Is Mahlers Music Autobiographical?: A Reappraisal. Revue Mahler Review 1

(1987): 47-63.

________. Mahler and The Power of Genre. Journal of Musicology 12/2 (1994): 117-52.

________. Ways of Telling in Mahlers Music: The Third Symphony as Narrative Text. In
Barham, Jeremy, ed. Perspectives on Gustav Mahler. Aldershot, Hants, UK; Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2005: 295-323.

Mitchell, Donald. Gustav Mahler: The Early Years. Rev. and ed. by Paul Banks and David
Matthews. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980.

________. Gustav Mahler: The Wunderhorn Years. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1980.

________. Gustav Mahler: Songs and Symphonies of Life and Death: Interpretations and
Annotations. Woodbridge, Suolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2002.
 S. D. Lee 9

________. The Modernity of Gustav Mahler. In Weiss, Gnther, ed., Neue Mahleriana:
Essays in Honour of Henry-Louis de La Grange on His Seventieth Birthday. Berne: Peter Lang,
1997: 175-90.

Mitchell, Donald and Andrew Nicholson. The Mahler Companion. Oxford and New York:
Oxford UP, 1999.

Morgan, Robert. Ives and Mahler: Mutual Responses at the End of an Era. 19th Century
Music II/1 (Summer 1978): 72-81.

Murphy, Edward W. Sonata-rondo Form in the Symphonies of Gustav Mahler. The Music
Review XXXVI (1975): 54-62.

Newcomb, Anthony. Narrative Archetypes in Mahlers Ninth Symphony. In Music and

Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992: 118-36.

Newlin, Dika. Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg. Rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

Nodnagel, Ernst Otto von. Gustav Mahlers zweite Symphonie. Die Musik 2 (1903): 337-53.

Olsen, Morten Solvik. Culture and the Creative Imagination: The Genesis of Gustav
Mahlers Third Symphony. Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1992.

Painter, Karen, ed. Mahler and His World. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002.

Ratz, Erwin. Zum Formproblem bei Gustav Mahler: Eine Analyse des ersten Satze der IX.
Symphonie. Musikforschung 8 (1955): 169-77; repr. in Danuser, ed., Gustav Mahler.

________, ed. Mahler, IX. Symphonie: Partiturentwurf der ersten drei Stze, Faksimile nach der
Handschrift. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1971.

Redlich, Hans Ferdinand. Bruckner and Mahler. London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1963.

Reed, Philip, ed. On Mahler and Britten: Essays in Honour of Donald Mitche" on his Seventieth
Birthday. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press/The Britten-Pears Library, 1995.

Reilly, Edward R. A Brief History of the Manuscripts. In Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 2
in C Minor Resurrection Facsimile, ed. Gilbert Kaplan. New York: Kaplan Foundation, 1986.

________, ed. and trans. Gustav Mahler and Guido Adler: Records of a Friendship. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1982.

Roman, Zoltan. Mahlers Songs and their Inuence on his Symphonic Thought. Ph.D.
diss., University of Toronto, 1970.
S. D. Lee 10

Samuels, Robert. Mahlers Sixth Symphony: A Study in Musical Semiotics. Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 1995.

Schoenberg, Arnold. Gustav Mahler. In Style and Idea. Ed. Leonard Stein; trans. Leo
Black. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984: 449-72.

Smoley, Lewis M. Gustav Mahlers Symphonies: Critical Commentary on Recordings since 1986.
New York: Greenwood Press, 1996.

________. The Symphonies of Gustav Mahler: A Critical Discography. New York: Greenwood
Press, 1986.

Solvik, Morten. Biography and Musical Meaning in the Posthorn solo of Mahlers Third
Symphony. In Neue Mahleriana: Essays in Honour of Henry-Louis de La Grange on His Seventieth
Birthday, ed. Gnther Wei. Berne: Peter Lang, 1997: 339-60.

________. Mahlers Untimely Modernism. In Barham, Jeremy, ed. Perspectives on Gustav

Mahler. Aldershot, Hants, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005: 153-71.

Specht, Richard. Gustav Mahler. Berlin: Schuster & Loeer, 1913.

Sponheuer, Bernd. Logik des Zerfa"s: Untersuchungen zum Finalproblem in den Symphonien Gustav
Mahlers. Tutzig: Hans Schneider, 1978.

Stefan, Paul. Gustav Mahler; Eine Studie ber Personlichkeit und Werk. Munich: Piper, 1920.

Stephan, Rudolf. Mahlers sinfonische Dichtung Todtenfeier. Nachrichten zur Mahler-

Forschung 13 (1984): 6-7.

Tibbe, Monika. Lieder und Liedelemente in instrumentalen Symphoniestzen Gustav Mahlers.

Munich: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1971; 2nd ed., 1977.

Tischler, Hans. Mahlers Impact on the Crisis of Tonality. The Music Review XII(1951):113-21.

Ulm, Renate, ed. Gustav Mahlers Symphonien: Entstehung, Deutung, Wirkung. Kassel:
Brenreiter, 2005.

Walter, Bruno. Gustav Mahler. Trans. James Galston. New York: Vienna House, 1973.

Williamson, John. Dissonance treatment and middleground prolongations in Mahlers later

music. In Stephen Heing, ed. Mahler Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997: 248-70.

Zychowicz, James L. Mahlers Fourth Symphony. Oxford and Toronto: Oxford UP, 2000.

________. The Partiturenwurf of the Adagio of Mahlers Ninth Symphony. Revue Mahler
Review 1 (1987): 77-101.