Jonathan Kim

Mahler
Markovic
Nietzsches Midnight Song

The orchestra is seated on the stage while the audience watches the standing
figures of the conductor and alto singer. It is silent, and then after the slightest motion
made by the conductor, the harps and double basses start the beginning of the
movement in unison with each other. The basses deviate into a soft, lulling, up and
down oscillation of a major second from A to B. It is like the slightest rocking of a small
boat on cold, dark water at midnight. A brief pause as the water stills, and then the boat
starts rocking once more, but now with the variance due to natures unpredictability.
Here, Mahler has disrupted the sense of time by switching between time signatures of
2/2 and 3/2, using slurs over bar lines, and fragmenting/elongating the presented
motive.
The singers lips part as her voice enters the placid sonic landscape with the
orchestra. She sings the A the harp and basses were playing previously on O
Mensch/O Man while the orchestra underneath her swings back and forth from major to
minor. The first motive of the rocking boat originating from the basses is then
reintroduced with horns, but now with much more presence and substance. All the
while, the tonality is in a constant flux between major and minor. A pause.
A drone of a low A vibrates from the harps and basses, the brass sings a pitch in
the air and violins follow with a streak of brightly lit sound. The singer calls out to the
audience, Gib Acht, Gib Acht/Take heed, take heed. The story is about to be told.
The horns play a beautiful transcendental melody, in which the singer joins and sings in
unison with. The question is, Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht/ What says the deep
midnight?, and upon arrival of the word night, the harmony becomes minor. Then the
oboe morphs into the bird of death and caws out once, twice, and then a third time.
Below the perched bird rests the strings which have been reduced to mere tension in
the night; a hazy, foreboding mist hovering above the ground.
Ich schleif, Ich schleift/I slept, I slept the singer cries. Once again, the brass
sings a pitch in the air, which is then followed by the violins, which are now a cutting
character in the air, rather than the bright light heard before, due to the now minor,
foreboding atmosphere. The oscillating motive comes back with the horns and bright
major harmony, which is then mimicked by the cellos, and then the whole orchestra.
The death crow of the night is replaced by a nightingale, as the oboe now sings out
three times above the major harmony of the orchestra.
Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht/From a deep Dream have I awoken, says the
singer. She is accompanied by the orchestra, and her voice climbs higher and then
back down, as if stretching after waking from her deep slumber. She follows by saying
Die Welt ist tief/The World is deep, and the call and response of the brass and violin is
now echoed again, but this time with the violins first and with a minor harmony,
reflecting the tragedy of the world she has woken up to. Briefly now, winds and brass
utter a variant on the first oscillating motif. And she sings, Und tiefer als der Tag
gedacht/And deeper than the Day has thought. The brass follows her and she grows in
this phrase, expressing depth, and transitioning back into a major harmony on the word
tiefer. As she lands on the last syllable of gedacht, the harp brushes a solid, stable
major chord, generously giving an arrival point.
And now, the violins sing, with the brass singing as well. Use of the oscillating
theme is being recycled in all parts. After a brief moment of indulgence, the violins
switch the harmony back to minor, which is then followed up by the dreaded bird of
death, who now takes a bitter variation at the end of the third caw. Another transition
takes place as the oscillating motive weaves itself back into the picture, circling through
the strings, sweeping from one section to the next. Now reminiscent of the beginning of
the movement, the low strings are now oscillating with the thudding of the harps. It is a
recap.
O Mensch/O Man , she mourns as the orchestra changes harmony underneath.
She repeats, but this time the orchestra is now in a major tonality, followed by the horns
oscillating motive variant in a major key. Low strings and harps lull underneath until
everyone is silent but them.
The harps then reenter in with the low strings, who are oscillating now at a
perfect fourth. The call and response of the brass and violins starts once more, first in
major then in minor. Tief, tief/Deep, deep she says. Followed again by Tief ist ihr
Weh/Deep is its pain, tailed by a violin solo and then the cawing of the crow, but now
only twice, until a solo horn comes in and climbs up a minor third to the note that the
oboe was cawing, and then finishes the last call. Tief ist ihr Weh/Deep is its pain
again, and the solo violin once more, but this time with more fervor as he climbs up
towards the sky, and back down. The singer joins in lust, Lusttiefer noch als
Herzeleid/Joy-deeper still than Heartache. The three separate soloists, horn, singer
and violin, all sing simultaneously, displaying a unity and entwining of character. They
sing out with sentimentality until a landing point of a clear major harmony is in the air,
and the orchestra marks this point with a small nod.
The horns and winds now oscillate at multiple and larger intervals, still in the
major harmony with the sense of tranquility, with the faint tremolo of strings underneath.
Weh spricht: Vergeh/Pain says: Pass away! she cries out, as the solo violin comes in
response to her with an arched, swooping phrase. Weh spricht: Vergeh! she cries out
again, but more intensely as the harmony has shifted to minor. The solo violin responds
to her once more, but now even more dramatic, climbing swooping even higher, as a
refusal to pass away.
This bleeds quickly away as the singer preaches Doch all Lust will Ewigkeit,
will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit/ But all Joy seeks Eternity,seeks deep, deep Eternity!" Harps
are reintroduced into the scene, the main melody is being sung by the singer along with
all the violins, the brass are playing the counter melody, and the whole orchestra is alive
together. This is the full realization of the scene with the solo violin, singer, and horn.
However, it does not last forever, as the tonality slides back into minor, and the bird of
death calls out three times, for the final time, with the bitter bite at the end. And then a
full circle is made as the strings start oscillating again, going lower and lower through
the ranks of the orchestra, becoming more and more still, as if going back into rest as
the sun approaches, concluding the 4
th
movement of Mahlers 3
rd
symphony.
And that is the end of Gustav Mahlers 4
th
movement of his 3
rd
symphony, just
before the bells and voices of the 5
th
movement are sounded. This symphony was
written between the years of 1893 and 1896, when Mahler was in his mid-30s. The
piece is one of his longest works, with the first movement encompassing a half-hour.
Text from Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra: the "Midnight Song"

Mahler Remembered
Norman Lebrecht Page 210
August 1906 with Bernard Scharlitt, Viennese musician and critic.
To my remark that he and Strauss shared a point of contact in having set Nietzsche to
music, Mahler retorted: The explanation is simply that we both, as musicians, sensed
what might be called the latent music in Nietzsches mighty works.
His Zarathustra is born of the spirit of music, absolutely symphonic in its construction.

Page 73
Nietzsche is the pop philosopher of his day, a fount of quotable asperities. Mahler is
drawn to his theory of eternal recurrence, a cyclical fatalism that states that what
comes around in nature comes around; all one has to do is wait for the next revolution.
Does he really believe in this fatalistic creed? Does he believe anything in Nietzsche?
Not for longer than it takes him to compose it. Finished with Nietzsches song of the
Ubermensch, the supreme male, he never again professes the superiority of man over
woman. Later he will advise his fiance to throw Nietzsches works on the fire. Along
with the mystic scientist Fechner, whose animal souls infuse the third movement,
Nietzsche fulfills a passing need. Mahler has a magpie approach to the world of ideas.
He has no fixed belief except in Arthur Schopenhauers force of will and the existence of
a benign Creator.

Bauer-Lechner, Erinnerungen an Gustav Mahler, 44.
He tells Natalie that he has plumbed the very roots of Nature, which music can reach
like no other art or science.

Bruno Walter
Gustav Mahler
Translation by Lotte Walter Lindt
New York Alfred A Knopf
1972
Page 124, 125
while a composer can translate moods, ideas, and feelings into music, music, in its
turn, calls forth ideas. In his Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music Nietzsche says
that music scatters pictures like sparks, thought its nature is such that its pictures are
different in kind from those which may have sponsored them. In the creative process
there is often a loosely woven interplay between music and idea. Dreamlike images rise
and fade, give stimulus, feeling, and color to the music; they alternate with periods of
thought and indistinct moods, while follows its own path, obeys the law of its own logic.

Page 131
The third movement is, like the second, genuinely symphonic. A dream of the universe
took possession of Mahlers mind, and his soul lovingly poured itself out in music. But
as the dream passed from flowers and animals to mankind, he longed for the word, and
moved by the mystery of human destiny changing between grief and joy, he made
Nietzsches Mitternachtsgedicht the poetic theme for the nocturnal music of the fourth
movement.

145
Everyone who knew Mahler will recall how often his expression would change suddenly
from cheerfulness to gloom. It was as though he was reproaching himself for having
lightly forgotten some sorrow.
146
What grim darkness underlies life, he said to me once, deeply affected and his
distracted countenance still marked by the spiritual paroxysms from which he had
emerged. He went on to speak in broken accents of the tragic dilemma of human
existence. Whence have we come? Whither are we bound? Is it true, as Schopenhauer
says, that I willed this life before I was conceived? Why do I fancy I am free, when my
character constricts me like a prison? To what purpose is all this toil and suffering? How
can cruelty and evil be the handiwork of a loving God? Will death at last reveal the
meaning of life?
147
Yet his spirit never knew escape from the torturing question-For What? It was the
driving impulse of his creative activity. Each work was a fresh effort to find the answer,
and even when he found it, the old, unassuageable longing would rise anew. His nature
was such that he could not hold an achieved spiritual position; none had constancy.
150
More insistent was the problem of reconciling the suffering and evil of the world with the
goodness and omnipotence of God. If his music expresses, as it does, his longing and
questioning alive, and forever rekindled them.
154
In discussion the intuitive quality of his remarks invariably called forth the admiration of
scientific friends. When I first knew him, in Hamburg, he was completely under the
influence of Schopenhauer. Nietzsche made a powerful but not a lasting impression. He
was attracted by the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the core of its intellectual
content. Nietzsches anti-Wagnerism made him indignant, and later he turned against
him; the aphorist was bound to antagonize the master of symphonic form. In his later
years he was by the philosophy of Hartmann. But the sun in the sky of his spiritual world
was Goethe.

Mahler and Strauss
Pg 120-121
Like Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler was affected by Nietzsches spirituality. It is not
that either tried to dissolve and convert Nietzsches ideas directly into music, but rather
that they were inspired by them to produce basic ideas of their own work. More
extensively than Strauss in his Zarathustra (of 1896) Mahler grappled over and again
with Nietzsches thought as his spoken and written statements to me also testify
driven by an unrelenting urge to escape the discord in his own nature. Howeever much
they differed in their physical and intellectual make-up, they yet agreed in their
adherence to Nietzsches art, and in their productive reaction to the challenge of
programme music - Ludwig Schiedermair musicologist who knew both Strauss and
Mahler in his youth

Floros pg 92
Mahler had adapted Schopenhauers idea that all love is compassion...On the contrary,
the concept of love was suspect for Nietzsche. In The Happy Science, Nietzsche
instsists,-in contrast to SChopenhauruer-that from sexual love one had taken the
concept of love as an opposite of egoism, whereas it may be precisely the most
unabashed expression of egoism. It may there for be concluded that the intellectual
content of the Third Symphony is diametrically opposed to Nietzsches philosophy,
leading Mahler to toy from time to time with the idea of call the work My Happy Science.

Floros believes that the intellectual content of the Third opposes Nietzsches
philosophy. It is most likely true. God is praised later in the symphony-also contrary to
Nietzsche. However, this may not be completely relevant or important. Mahler, at a
time where he vehemently opposed Nietzhsche, calls his work grand in an interview. He
was merely writing music inspired by the text. This does not require him to fully
embrace Nietzsches views. There is a sense of uncertainty in the piece that does
reflect Mahlers own uncertainty with life.


What draws every man to philosophy is the meaning of life and the search for self. Who
am I? What do I live for? What do I die for? What am I to do? The search for reality.
Searching for answers
Embracing possible answers, then letting them go and opposing them.
Mahler set the 4
th
movement of his 3
rd
symphony to a poem by Nietzsche, a philosopher
that he would later vehemently reject.
Floros page 5 (91) Mahler vs Nietzsche

Mahler: an outcast, a witness of death, a seeker of answers.
Death, the unavoidable. How many different views on death are there? What was this
all supposed to mean? Was it to mean something, if anything at all?
The concept of Apollonian versus Dionysian

How can a man who has not pondered the great questions of life say he has lived, for is
not life the search for these answers?