Mahler lite It was August of a new century when, in 1900, Gustav Mahler completed what would become (albeit much later) the composer's most popular, most approachable work. Sunny, humorous and commencing in the key of G major, the fourth symphony is still considered by some to be a kind of Mahler lite, especially those classical music fans who, like their brethren in the theater, consider tragic works to be the apex of artistic accomplishment. But the symphony, which will be performed this Sunday and Tuesday by the Honolulu Symphony, offers an intriguing rebuttal to the dour + difficult = art equation. Laughter and cheer can also line the path to musical nirvana, especially when your guide is the witty, ever complex Mahler.
His popular work dares to
be funny and sunnyBy Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.com
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A symphony in G formed against a backdrop of Preparation H, the composer's own path to the work was, shall we say, a bit stony. Ever the touchy genius, Mahler seems to have been especially bothered by hemorrhoids during the composition of the Fourth. And when these weren't a problem, there was the constant twittering of birds around the Maiernigg cabin where he did his composing. ("The following year it was found that they had been nesting in the roof," reports Henry-Louis de la Grange in his landmark, four-volume Mahler biography.)Mahler was a 40-year-old bachelor still months away from meeting the love of his life, Alma Mahler, and the composer of three previous symphonies that left Vienna's music scene distinctly unimpressed.
Yet somehow Mahler was able to extricate himself from turmoils both internal and external, his pen conjuring up musical images of serenity and levity that seem utterly at odds with the composer's famous glumness. Terror can indeed be found in the Fourth Symphony, but it's of a wholly unique type, a terror that, as Mahler wrote, can only surface in the presence of beauty.
Presented by the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra Mahler's Fourth Symphony in G
When: 4 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall, 777 Ward Ave.
Cost: $15 to $55
Call: 792-2000Program notes: Keri-Lyn Wilson guest-conducts the Honolulu Symphony's performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony featuring Chinese soprano Ying Huang, who played the title role in the 1995 French film version of "Madama Butterfly." Also of interest is a rare performance of Schwantner's Percussion Concerto, featuring HSO's principal percussionist, James Lee Wyatt III.
"Imagine the uniform blue of the sky," he wrote in a letter. "Occasionally ... it darkens and becomes phantasmagorical and terrifying: but it is not that it becomes overcast, for the sun continues to shine in its eternal blue, only to us it suddenly seems horrific, just as, on the most beautiful day in a sunlit forest, one can be seized with panic and terror."
Still, paroxysms such as these are fleeting. The world according to Mahler's Fourth is one where simplicity is a badge of honor, wisdom is found in innocence and good triumphs a bit too easily over evil.
It was a world diametrically opposed to the composer's own experience of the time, though one he would gradually grow into. Two years later, happily married and ensconced in a brand-new villa that offered perfect privacy, his health problems in remission and his symphonies finally appreciated by the public, Mahler at last felt a joy he had never before known.
So what did he sit down to write? Why the great, tragic Fifth Symphony, of course.
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