Classical Music Forum banner

I cannot understand why some who loves Wagner would dislike Mahler

15K views 91 replies 32 participants last post by  Machiavel 
#1 · (Edited)
Mahler extracted from Wagner so much of what made Wagner's writing great and then improved it. Gave it much more form, more counterpoint, more emotion, and toward the end of his life, more dissonance. He also removed the distraction of opera and got to the music much more directly. In my eyes, Wagner is Copernicus and Mahler is Galileo.
 
#50 ·
I agree wholeheartedly - there is genius music in Wagner, but I don't care for much for the mythology and romances. Btw, listened to 'Prologue' and liked it, especially from 8:57 to the end with great liking for about 9:25 when the contrabassoon and trombone and clarinet sounds begin to squawk about - very engaging to listen to. I'll try to check out more of your stuff. Also, btw...if you didn't read that interview w Barenboim re Mahler in this thread posted by 'brianwalker' on first page, you should give it a look. I thought it was great.
 
#6 ·
Mahler extracted from Wagner so much of what made Wagner's writing great and then improved it.
No.

Gave it much more form,
A bad thing.

more counterpoint,
Who gives a ****.

more emotion,
No.

and toward the end of his life, more dissonance.
A bad thing.

He also removed the distraction of opera and got to the music much more directly.
He removed the thrust of the drama, the humanity of the passion, and the literary critical interest.

In my eyes, Wagner is Copernicus and Mahler is Galileo.
In my eyes, Wagner is a mountain and Mahler is a mountain goat.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Many reasons, as Hilltroll suggests, it could be any reason depending on the individual listener.

The thing I can think of is that Wagner was telling these epic stories, not really related to his own life, whereas Mahler was essentially telling his own story (very autobiographical).

Obvious elephant in the room is that Wagner mainly did opera, while Mahler's forte was the symphony. They are different things, though both of them broke down conventions of these genres, thus the stricter boundaries between them of the past really began to vanish during their time & in their music. Eg. Wagner's gesamkunstwerk thing kind of has a counterpart in Mahler view of the symphony containing the whole world. But they just did things their own way, that's it I guess...
 
#18 ·
Warm tingly feeling is a good way to describe it actually!

I don't think Wagner gets to truth. I don't think he was searching for truth. It doesn't sound as though he was pained or reflecting the overcoming of inner struggle. His compositions sound wholly removed from introspection.

But he was capable of great music and beauty and, at least on the exterior, great pathos.
 
#22 ·
The thing I can think of is that Wagner was telling these epic stories, not really related to his own life, whereas Mahler was essentially telling his own story (very autobiographical).

So to once again play the devil's advocate, you are suggesting that some self-centered git relating the boring personal details of his autobiography is more interesting than a narrative exploring issues and ideas beyond those of the self?:D
 
  • Like
Reactions: Woodduck
#23 ·
The thing I can think of is that Wagner was telling these epic stories, not really related to his own life, whereas Mahler was essentially telling his own story (very autobiographical).

So to once again play the devil's advocate, you are suggesting that some self-centered git relating the boring personal details of his autobiography is more interesting than a narrative exploring issues and ideas beyond those of the self?:D
That's why I like Wagner better than Mahler.
 
#27 ·
I don't understand when Wagner fans complain about the length and overblowness of Mahler's symphonies.

Ummm.... when do Wagner fans do this? Of course I'm speaking for myself here, but as a fan of Wagner I'm also quite enamored of Mahler, Richard Strauss, Bruckner, Puccini, and many others who might be seen as heirs of Wagner.
 
#29 · (Edited)
^^I think neither are typical of their time. Wagner especially, who else wrote operas like him, esp. in German? (eg. the length as well as other things). Mahler too, the only guy nearest to him is Bruckner, but of course he is different. In the late c19th, in terms of the symphony, there were guys like Tchaikovsky and Brahms to name two biggies, who didn't write hour long symphonies. As for opera, it's similar thing, Wagner is atypical of the operas produced in his time. There were some composers who did Wagner rehash after, but they are small fry now. The big impacts where by guys who took Wagner's ideas on board in opera and did their own thing with them, not just glorified rehash. Two biggies there are R. Strauss and Berg. But their things came after 1900, in the case of Berg's Wozzeck, in the 1920's.

So both Mahler and Wagner revolutionised their genres, but they were pretty unique in what they did. By the time their innovations and refinements became more kind of mainstream or understood (well, by composers at least), the whole ball game had changed. The era of mammoth things was over, basically. For one example, none of the 20th century Viennese School wrote a symphony, and they pared things down (eg. Schoenberg's Chamber Symphonies for 15 instruments). Berg's Lulu symphony or suite doesn't strictly count, it was extracted from the opera, but one can argue, in any case, it's the only "symphony" from those three guys (correction, there's also Webern's one, but at 8 minutes and in two short movements, hardly comparable to a Mahler symphony in many ways).

Eg. By the time Schoenberg's Gurre-lieder was premiered, 10 years after being written, the era of big things was over. The audience who Schoenberg saw as being stuck in the past cheered, and he thought they were dinosaurs, he only reluctantly went to the stage to acknowledge their applause. Music had moved on in 10 years, the era of bigger being better was larely over, seen as an anachronism...
 
#36 ·
Wagner is atypical of the operas produced in his time. There were some composers who did Wagner rehash after, but they are small fry now. The big impacts where by guys who took Wagner's ideas on board in opera and did their own thing with them, not just glorified rehash. Two biggies there are R. Strauss and Berg. But their things came after 1900, in the case of Berg's Wozzeck, in the 1920's

Wagner's impact was immense... and in no way limited to opera. Yet I agree that he had no clear immediate heirs in the field of opera. It is later composers such as Richard Strauss, Debussy, and in his own way, Puccini, who took the ideas of Wagner further... in their own unique manner. Of course this might be said of most major influential figures. Beethoven has no immediate clear heir (although some might suggest Schubert... who was really but a younger peer). Brahms is the most obvious composer who builds upon Beethoven... but Brahms is later and like Strauss and Mahler, has his own unique voice and vision.

So both Mahler and Wagner revolutionised their genres, but they were pretty unique in what they did. By the time their innovations and refinements became more kind of mainstream or understood (well, by composers at least), the whole ball game had changed. The era of mammoth things was over, basically... the era of bigger being better was larely over, seen as an anachronism...

I don't know if I would agree with this. While later composers may not have rivaled Wagner's operas in terms of scale, you do recognize a similar richness and grandeur of orchestration in Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Korngold, Zemlinsky, Szymanowski, and even Stravinsky. I agree that there was a certain intimacy of scale... born of chamber music and the cabaret as well as (in part) an intentional rejection of the extremes of Romanticism. One sees the same thing in early Modernism... in the small cubist paintings of Picasso and Braque, and the initial abstractions of Mondrian, Kandinsky, and Klee... but Modernism soon reveals an audacity and grandeur of intention equal to Romanticism. Richard Strauss' works are no less rich and lush than those of Wagner. Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and a good many of his operas are no less ambitious. Nor are Shostakovitch' operas and a number of his symphonies, or Prokofiev's ballets. Taken into the late 20th century we find a certain irony involved in the fact that the composer often seen as the epitome of Minimalism, Philip Glass, has produced some of the longest and least "minimal" operas. Scale and ambition seems to be something that continually wavers in the arts. Today, the visual arts are dominated by a grandeur of scale which in many ways in contrasted by the vapid and shallow vision. It is as if all this bluster was but a bluff for lacking anything of substance to say. This most certainly was not true of Wagner and the greatest of the Romantics. In a contrary manner, we should recognize that the intimacy and diminutiveness of works by Satie, Debussy, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch (the Preludes and the Quartets), Berg, etc... should not be confused with a lack of ambition.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DavidMahler
#37 ·
I can agree that Wagner's drama or story can kind of get in the way of enjoying the music sometimes. When I listened to T&I all the way through with the translation of the libretto in my hand, I loved the music, but the libretto got really annoying. It was like Wagner just sat down and said "hmm now how many annoyingly nauseating ways can I make these characters say they love each other?"

In fact, this is a breif summary of Act II as I remember it:

Tristan: I love you!
Isolde: I love you more!
Tristan: I love you the most
Isolde: I love you the mostest!
Tristan: No I love you the mostest
Isolde: OMG there are people after us!
Tristan: Oh no! well its ok cause I love you
Isolde: No I love you more!
 
#38 ·
I can agree that Wagner's drama or story can kind of get in the way of enjoying the music sometimes. When I listened to T&I all the way through with the translation of the libretto in my hand, I loved the music, but the libretto got really annoying. It was like Wagner just sat down and said "hmm now how many annoyingly nauseating ways can I make these characters say they love each other?"

In fact, this is a breif summary of Act II as I remember it:

Tristan: I love you!
Isolde: I love you more!
Tristan: I love you the most
Isolde: I love you the mostest!
Tristan: No I love you the mostest
Isolde: OMG there are people after us!
Tristan: Oh no! well its ok cause I love you
Isolde: No I love you more!
That sounds lovely. It's what I imagine true love to be like.
 
#41 ·
I hope there will be blood.

Grabs my popcorn...
 
#43 ·
When dialogue is sung, I feel disconnected from it. That's why I'm not a huge opera fan. Lieder is more abstract and because of this, I connect to it much more. The final movement of Mahler's 8th by the way is really well done considering I don't enjoy sung dialogue.
 
#44 ·
I like both Wagner and Mahler, but I listen to them quite differently. Mahler is a more abstract sort of emotion, while Wagner is contextual. Also, at least in Wagner's less internal dramas, the variety of emotions is varied in a less "hill and dale" way than Mahler. Bruckner is even more up and down in his contrasts than Mahler. That's quite different from Wagner. Also, Wagner's complex use of leitmotifs is totally unique. I don't know any other composer who structures things that way.

But as someone already mentioned, the big difference is that Wagner's music supports a theatrical drama and Mahler's comes from the symphonic tradition. That is totally apples and oranges.
 
#45 ·
This is an interesting thread. Why not ask the question: "why do people like some works of one particular composer and not like many others pieces by the same composer"? Why should there be an assumption that liking Wagner's music implies liking Mahler's?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sid James
#59 · (Edited)
Because there's an affinity between them in terms of harmony and orchestration and the general tenor of their music, a very close bond.

If someone adored Opus 131 and then spat on Opus 135 I, too, would raise a quizzical brow.

Lots of people tend to squeeze Mahler and Wagner in the same nutshell, so it's of course fascinating that two who are purportedly by many to be "the same" are, in fact, very distinct, that there is no "Mahler/Wagner" camp, but Mahler camp and Wagner camp, and that those who think that the two are identical are missing on something.

I love them both but they mean different things for me.

I don't think of Mahler as a symphonist in the vein of the Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven-Brahms symphony, but his "symphonies" as a Wagner-orchestral-Schubert-song synthesis. Symphony is a broad enough word to cover what he's doing, but to call his works symphonies strictly speaking is to equate Wagner's operas with Italian bel canto opera.

I think the problem Barenboim had is that he judged Mahler's symphonies as symphonies, while I judge them differently.

Consider "symphony" as one sport in the Music Olympics - say, archery, and song writing as discus throwing. Mahler did something innovative by combining the elements - like, discus throwing that aimed at objects. By the standards of archery he is not the greatest archer, and by the standards of discus throwing he may have not thrown the farthest.

Now the real question becomes whether discus archery is a "worthy" sport. I can't decide that, but I find it fruitful.

For example, often times in the discussion of the Mahler symphony Mahler's absolutely gorgeous, sublime orchestration is brought up, but it's almost always haughtily dismissed as having nothing to do with "the music" and "just orchestration", as if form and content were not one.
 
#52 · (Edited)
I do agree that Mahler and Wagner have way more in common than a comparison of any other two random composers would usually lead to. For example, try comparing Bach and Wagner. There are so many differences: Bach was a devout Lutheran who fathered 20 children, lived in abject conditions, was considered little more than a servant kapellmeister by his employers and peers, and yet still wrote hundreds of pieces that exhausted the range of musical invention that existed during is life (except for opera). Wagner, on the other hand, was not religious -- could maybe even be considered anti-Christian -- wore silks and ermine furs for the rest of his life after working as a writer of petty jingles and other trifles, and after reaching success, attained a godlike fame. And unlike Bach, he only really worked in one genre for the most part: opera, the one that Bach never touched.

Mahler and Wagner share many similarities. For one, Wagner was a huge influence on Mahler, both as a conductor and as a composer. Mahler was actually a Wagnerian conductor: he did conduct sections of the Ring for the Metropolitan Opera, if I remember correctly. Neither men were actively religious, and both were interested in atheist German philosophers like Nietzsche. This leads to another likeness: both were radical experimentalists in their music. They expanded the orchestra to include new instruments and grew it to a huge force. Both wrote on a huge scale, and both worked with dissonance, chromaticism, rapid shifts in mood and volume, and super-slow tempos.

While it is true that the key difference is that Wagner wrote operas and Mahler wrote symphonies, it's also true that Wagner was an opera composer like no other. The voices were not considered more important the orchestra -- rather, they participated in a symbiotic relationship, such that a Wagner opera can at times sound like a symphony with vocals on top of it.

Another point linking the two men is that both were somewhat mentally unstable and had tumultuous lives that involved infidelities.

To my ear, Wagner is more conventionally enjoyable on an immediate melodic level than Mahler is. I have found that it takes me more listens to Mahler's music before I can get my bearings. That is understandable, because I think of Mahler as being midway between Wagner and Schoenberg. Both composers are great, and at this point I could not choose between them.
 
#57 ·
...
To my ear, Wagner is more conventionally enjoyable on an immediate melodic level than Mahler is. I have found that it takes me more listens to Mahler's music before I can get my bearings. That is understandable, because I think of Mahler as being midway between Wagner and Schoenberg. Both composers are great, and at this point I could not choose between them.
An interesting thought there, what you say is food for thought...
 
#53 ·
Mahler's camp..

Wagner operas are overblown piece of #!?&...

Wagner's camp..


Mahler's symphonies are overblown piece of #!?&...

Me.. (hides in the corner..) :p ;)
 
#58 ·
I'm in both camps, drivin' round the German Alps with my BMW (Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner). Long story short, Wagner and Mahler share many similarities, but enough differences that I do understand why someone would love one and hate the other. But not me, I love them both equally!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top