[linz]

Mahler was a great supporter of the Second Vienna School, being Schoenberg, Berg, Webern. My question is, if Mahler had lived longer do you believe he would have still have continued to support Arnold Schoenberg's descent into extreme chraomatism and atonality? Such as what would be his most extreme work up 1912, 'Pierrot Luniare' which was coincidently composed roughly a year after Mahler death.

 

[3rdplanetsounds]

If you hear the first movement of the ninth and his some what completed first movement of his tenth,there's some passages that embark on a more atonal feel.Even in this form it still sounds objectivley 'mahlerian' .I think what a sensative soul mahler was,his reaction to the first world war expressed in his music could have been done in this new format of musical thinking.Even so,I think mahler would of still championed schoenberg and co.even if he didn't totally go done that route himself.

 

[linz]

I think Mahler would have surely embraced atonality for the sake of Expressionism in music Romantism, as in a type of lunacy arising from the hyper element, which dates as far back as the fiery opening to the second movement of Mahler 5th. But twelve-tone, I'm not so sure he would have embraced?

 

[myaskovsky2002]

You are missing some of the most significant chain links between Mahler and Schönberg: Zemlinsky (his brother in law)and Schreker, Zemlinsky's "friend".

Martin Pitchon, a Zemlinsky and Schreker amateur.

 

[elgar's ghost]

Had he lived then maybe he would have felt the need to cut back on his conducting career and free up more quality time for composition - taking into account his flair for the dramatic musical gesture could we then have hoped for some really troubled/intense/mystical chamber works at last? A cycle of quartets written between, say, 1914 and the mid-30s is too tantalising to even think about for too long...

 

[Sebastien Melmoth]

This thread reminded me of an assertion I've made and still hold: that had Debussy lived another decade he would have composed in pantonal or even 12-tone. (His late piano Études are way out there.)

But on the topic, I can say this: even when Schönberg was composing in 12-tone (his Serenade, Op. 24, for example) he was very much influenced by Mahler's example (in this case, the Seventh Symphony).

Would Mahler have composed pantonally? Almost certainly not; however, he would have remained a big influence on later composers like Berg (for example).

 

[superhorn]

It's impossible to know how Mahler's music would have developed if he had lived longer,as tantalizing as this speculation is. Possibly he would have written an opera or operas. That would have been something!
You can hear the roots of the second Viennese school even in Bruckner's uncompleted 9th symphony. This is a work so radical for its day that one can scarcely believe that it was written by a composer born in 1824,when Beethoven and Schubert were still alive.
The grinding dissonances and extrme chroamticism (for the 1890s) are astonishing.

 

[Jean Christophe Paré]

I do not think so, and I always have a problem with putting atonality all in the same basket. There's a difference between opting for ambiguous tonal centers, dissonance when the effect is desired and suits the music - which it certainly can - and twelve-tone music with its complete dismissal of the hierarchy of notes and intervals.

 

[myaskovsky2002]

I'm sorry but this one is easy

Schönberg invented the dodecaphonism...Dodecaphonism is not something naturally born from the music at that time used...After Schönberg many other composers tried to go into the same direction (e.g. Schreker, with his opera the other Christopherus) but he couldn't ...Dodecaphonism is a technique....mathematical technique....Schönberg was a bit the DaVinci of music then...a real genious, but his latest works are pitifull....It comes from an old guy (the choirs are stupid...."Arnold Schönberg wishes you happy birthday..." etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Works-Arnold-...1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291232382&sr=1-1-fkmr0

Martin