Gustav Mahler: L'âge d'or de Vienne

Gustav Mahler #2

by Henry-Louis de La Grange

Ceci est la deuxième partie de la biographie détaillée du compositeur autrichien Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) par l'éminent musicologue français et spécialiste de Mahler: Henry-Louis de La Grange.

A quarante ans, Gustav Mahler entre dans la plus active période de sa vie, la plus fertile, la plus brillante. De 1900 à 1907, on va voir l’interprète et le créateur se fortifier l’un l’autre devant une Europe médusée par le polyvalence d’un génie qui renouvelle du même souffle la direction d’orchestre, la mise en scène d’opera et la composition symphonique. Aucun musicien avant lui ne s’était exprimé sur des registres aussi différents. Aucun, si ce n’est Richard Wagner dont l’ombre règne encore, n’avait à ce point remué de l’opinion, suscité tant de passions et décienché de telles controverses.

Mais, à y regarder de plus près, l’éclat de l’astre ne s’explique vraiment que par la richesse de la constellation. Vienne est alors le centre du monde intellectuel et artistique, la Babylone d’une civilisation qui s’effondre, à la fois le territoire de toutes les nostalgies et le tremplin de toutes les questions lancées vers le futur. Autour de Mahler, nous rencontrons au jour le jour, à chaque pas, Dvorak, Lehar, Richard Strauss, Gustave Charpentier, Eugen d’Albert, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg et ses deux disciples, Berg et Webern, mais aussi les peintres, les architectes et les décorateurs de la Sécession que mène Klimt, les écrivains Hauptmann, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Dehmel, le dramaturge Max Reinhardt et jusqu’à la danseuse Mata Hari.

Mahler, on s’en rend compte aujourd’hui, est le point de mire de cette extraordinaire société de l’imagination, qui vit au rythme des succès et des scandales de l’Opéra de Vienne. C’est que, en soumettant la vénérable institution impériale aux exigences de sa propre rigueur, il l’a ouverte à toutes les audaces du temps, surtout avec le plasticien Alfred Roller dont les décors construits et les subtils éclairages électriques ont fait entrer la révolution du théâtre moderne dans ce temple de l’art lyrique le plus traditionnel.

Cependant, entre les saisons viennoises, toujours surchargées, et les étés agrestes, toujours laborieux, Mahler trouve encore le temps de voyager avec sa musique. On le suit en Allemagne, en Russie, en Hollande, en Pologne, en Belgique, et la galerie des portraits vivants s'enrichit de Pfitzner, Nikisch, Weingartner, Oskar Fried, Mengelberg, Lilli Lehmann... Les événements politiques de ce début de siècle se lisent aussi dans le quotidien de l' Mahler a pour amis Paul Clemenceau et le Colonel Picquart de l'Affaire Dreyfus; sympathisant travailliste, il participe au défilé du 1 er mai 1905.

Une figure centrale, fascinante et inquiétante à la fois, se détache peu à peu de cette immense fresque animée. C'est Alma, " la plus belle femme de Vienne ", la muse ensorceleuse, que Mahler épouse pour le meilleur et pour le pire comme il a épousé cette ville dont elle est le reflet, la réplique, presque l'incarnation. Car il y a, chez l'éblouissante égérie, le même charme et le même égoïsme naturel, la même culture et la même insouciante cruauté, Evidemment, Mahler ne sait pas jusqu'où l'une et l'autre le conduiront pour les quelques années qu'il lui reste à vivre.

Genres: Biography, Music, History, Classical Music

1285 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 1995

About the author

The son of an American mother and French father who was a senator and former governor minister, Henry Louis de la Grange studied the humanities in Paris and New York and literature at Aix-en-Provence University and at the Sorbonne. It was in 1945 when attending a performance of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter that he first became interested in the composer. He began what became a lifelong investigation of Mahler's life and works, the research of which formed the basis of his multi-volume biography of the composer.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume 2 of Henry-Louis de la Grange’s titanic uber-biography covers the period of Mahler’s accession to the directorate of the Vienna Hofoper and Philharmonic, the earliest performances of his second, third, and fourth symphonies, and the composition of the fourth, fifth, and sixth symphonies, as well as the Kindertotenlieder. This period also encompasses the end of the devoted and thoughtful Natalie Bauer-Lechner as a source and the beginning of the completely horrid, narcissistic and over-wrought Alma Schindler. The book is so full of detail, it can be utterly overwhelming, and the smart reader will need some sort of strategy for parsing it all out. But one benefit of LaGrange's use of the sources is the context he provides to every quote. For instance, I have long thought of reading Natalie Bauer-Lechner's book of recollections of Mahler, but LaGrange's quotes provide so much contextual detail that I don't think I need to.

What does one get out of this book?
Details of how Mahler engineered change at the Vienna Hofoper
Descriptions of all the artists of the time and how Mahler worked with them.
Reception of Mahler's own works, as well as all his actions as a conductor
Much detail on the anti-Semitic press, and how they constantly hounded every move Mahler made with both the opera and the Philharmonic.
Much biographical detail from Natalie Bauer-Lechner's Mahleriana, which was unpublished with this biography was first written. Nice to have all of her comments put completely into context of what was going on at the time. 
Mahler's musical programming--his likes and dislikes, and his occasional struggles with living composers. 

To give just a few examples of the hysterical journalism with which Mahler had to contend, these comments come from the first reviews of Mahler’s fourth Symphony:

"The first movement could be Daniel in the lion's den, Orpheus slaughtered by the Maenads, genius delivered to the beasts!" William Ritter

"It also contains musical jokes of doubtful taste. A horde of goblins roams around tormenting the audience, and while they don't actually slap their faces, they pierce or tickle their ears, pull their hair and repeatedly hit them on the nose." Munich Allgemeine-Zeitung

"It was nothing but 'technique, calculation, vanity, a morbid and insipid supermusic, a shapeless stylistic monstrosity that collapses under a surfeit of witty details.'" Theodor Kroyer

Anyone familiar with the placid fourth symphony will find these comments both shocking and amusing. Occasionally, though, the critics were capable of genuine insight:

From the Journal de Liege: "Mahler's [second] Symphony, despite its grand design, is to a certain extent the work of a skeptic. The vast poem of life exalts fatality and the inexorable grip of Destiny far more than singing our sublimated sufferings and joys...One feels oneself engaged in a sort of flirtation with a joy which is lacking abandonment or confidence...the work seems to be analysing itself...This life is no longer simply lived, it spills over from among the alchemies of skepticism and disillusionment."

Likewise, the press critics did on occasion appreciate Mahler’s reform efforts at the Hofoper:

"Hirschfield reviewed the performance [26 Nov 1899] at great length and found it 'worthy of Bayreuth': for the first time in Vienna, Die Meistersinger had been treated as the light, fast-flowing comedy it really was; the dialogues had been speeded up; instead of a trailing encumbrance, the orchestra had become a moving force--it had never drowned the singers, so that each word and all the most subtle relationships between the motifs could easily be perceived."

By and large, though, the press was harshly critical of Mahler, his music, his conducting, and of course, his race. In that regard, the book becomes a bit of a slog: reading page after page of the Viennese press pounding on Mahler gets mighty tiresome. But that was the environment in which Mahler worked.

This is a magnificent book, and I look forward to tackling volume 3 later in the year. Maybe by the time I have read volumes 3 and 4, Oxford will finally have gotten around to publishing the revised volume 1.

[Michael]

Same comment as Volume 3

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awaiting the fourth volume before I embark on the entire series...the agony is killing me!!