Gustav Mahler's Symphonic Landscapes

Thomas Peattie considers the theatrical dimension of Mahler's reinvention of the symphony at the turn of the twentieth century.

Thomas Peattie (Author)

9781107027084, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 April 2015

234 pages, 7 b/w illus.
25.1 x 17.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.66 kg

In this study Thomas Peattie offers a new account of Mahler's symphonies by considering the composer's reinvention of the genre in light of his career as a conductor and more broadly in terms of his sustained engagement with the musical, theatrical, and aesthetic traditions of the Austrian fin de siècle. Drawing on the ideas of landscape, mobility, and theatricality, Peattie creates a richly interdisciplinary framework that reveals the uniqueness of Mahler's symphonic idiom and its radical attitude toward the presentation and ordering of musical events. The book goes on to identify a fundamental tension between the music's episodic nature and its often-noted narrative impulse and suggests that Mahler's symphonic dramaturgy can be understood as a form of abstract theatre.

Introduction: hearing Mahler
1. The expansion of symphonic space
2. Distant music
3. Alpine journeys
4. Symphonic panoramas
5. The wanderer.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC], Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN], Social & cultural history [HBTB], History [HB], Opera [AVGC9], Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV], Theatre studies [AN]