THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE SPIRIT - CLIMAXES OF THE MAHLERIAN SYMPHONIC DRAMATURGY

Abstract

Whether we are talking about opera music or symphonic music, each of these genres develops specific dramaturgies and climaxes, closely dependent on the stage action in the first case, or programmatic intentions in the second case. Between these there can, of course, be influences, similarities, contrasts, etc. The present study proposes an analysis of the existing climaxes in the symphonic music of the Viennese composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), to distinguish a certain taxonomy or typology of them, but also to give a broader perspective on them. Mahler stands out due to the mastery with which he constructs his musical dramaturgies of symphonic essence. The postromanticism that is attributed to him is characterized by a fragmentation of the musical syntax, which stems from the composer's intentionality subordinated to the transmission of a great diversity of ideational meanings. But here we are not only talking about the diversity of ideational meanings, but also about their breadth and depth, and the claim to express them with the help of musical art. The tragic feeling of life, the fragility of the human being, the obsession with death, the desire for salvation, the vision of paradise, the action to change society, the access to the depth of the self, the involvement in personal becoming are some ideas that Mahler tried to translate into music, debated themes in the writings of Dostoevsky, which Mahler often read. The famous phrase that Mahler addresses to the composers of the dodecaphonic school "reading from Dostoevsky is more important than the counterpoint" (Höweler, 1952, p. 475) further confirms this. In this way, the premises of existentialist philosophy and expressionism in art are created, by experiencing an individual freedom and a subjectivism that reaches, at least in the field of musical art, the highest heights.