Symphony I

Originally Posted by Sir Violinist1

I should update my instrument list because I have changed it around a bit, I have added a contrabassoon because I need that cracking tone in its lower registers for the first movement. And concerning the large percussion section, most of it is used for the first movement in song of thunder and lightning which is only natural since a thunderstorm is full with random noise, in the last movement the only "real" used frequently percussion are the timpani the cymbals and the bells. I'll update the list later, but thanks for the response and the help, do you have any further suggestions?

In Mahler's 3rd symphony there is Post horn solo. Why not have a post horn solo?

Wow you know so much about Mahler, I have actually heard of Mahler and his solo horn in the 3rd symphony, never heard it though. Believe it or not I did consider to make a solo section for the F. horn but That's about it, the violins woodwinds piano/harp bass and even percussion have more solos than the brass instruments perhaps it's because I don't know to much about them, enlighten me if you want to, I understand id you don't.

Originally Posted by Sir Violinist1

Wow you know so much about Mahler, I have actually heard of Mahler and his solo horn in the 3rd symphony, never heard it though. Believe it or not I did consider to make a solo section for the F. horn but That's about it, the violins woodwinds piano/harp bass and even percussion have more solos than the brass instruments perhaps it's because I don't know to much about them, enlighten me if you want to, I understand id you don't.

I just thought it would be a romantic effect!
An easy solution as I said before is to simply place a muted C trumpet playing a solo from a balcony to get that dreamy post horn effect

Mahler had funny ideas didn't he. This also makes me think of the cow bells that he uses in the sixth symphony, those are really cool. Adding an Austrian alpine feeling to the symphony.

Yeah, I think Mahler was known for throwing instruments in random places all over the concert hall!

Originally Posted by CaltechViolist

My only real concern with the orchestration you're using is that it looks a bit unbalanced. With such a large percussion section, and a chorus added on top of that, the woodwind section actually seems weak, unless the percussion is to be used relatively sparsely. Given how bass-heavy the brass section seems to be, may I suggest the addition of a bass clarinet and/or a contrabassoon?

There is no balance problem if it is handled well. There's nothing "big" about that percussion list. It's about as standard as it gets, except for the timpani, which I will speak about later.

Woodwinds by 2s with 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba is about as standard as it gets in a symphony orchestra. In this particular case, there are 2 extra woodwinds - flute 3 and a piccolo.

My one concern is why specify the tunings of the timpani?
And why specify 6?

Very few orchestras have 6 on-hand. They generally have to rent the extras, and most are leery to hire a second timpanist.

Why not simply go with the standard 4?

You DO know that they can be retuned on-the-fly?

If your music requires so heavily chromatic a timpani part that 6 timps are needed, with 2 players, then my concern is more with your technical approach than anything else.
You rarely will need more than 4 timpani and one single player.

This is a wonderful idea for a symphony, it's very grand and inspiring. I'd like to know that you have the craft necessary to pull it off.

I don't want to sound like the only downer in the group, but I've been there, done that. HUUUUGE projects, and not able to pull it off for lack of experience.

Or you actually pull it off, and a few years later you realize that what you did is all crap and all wrong and full of glaring errors of structure and orchestration.

Keep the project on ice. It's a great idea. It's a beautiful structure. Use it as your final project for your bachelor's or master's degree.

Oh, and while I love orchestral works with chorus... I'd leave them out of it. Adding voices to the mix is a logistical nightmare. Most orchestra choruses are too busy to learn a new work since they already have a busy concert season of their own to prepare (and this does include orchestra chorusus... they ALSO have concert seasons of their own).

Funny you say that Qccowboy, the main reason for this is because the main melody of the first movement which uses the drums to an absurd amount contains in a simple 4 quarter note form Eb, D, C#, C, sometimes it changes to D#,D,Db,C which are harmonically the same. The theme sounds a bit haunting especially in the lower registers (you can even try it on a piano or keyboard if you have one) and I threw in the two extra timpani because there is to be a section in the symphony were there is to be a barrage of drums symbolizing thunder, I even went as far to plan to write music for a stage light operator to symbolize lightning what do you think of that? And by the way, concerning the chorus they are in this symphony very rare, I'll actually explain to you later the real purpose of the chorus. But overall I must ask is there anything I should try to work out, watch out for or any hints about this composition?

Yours,
S.V.I

there is a wonderful instrument that you can use for thunder, without having to tax the orchestra's finances by demanding extra timpani:

it's a huge sheet of aluminium, and is regularly used for creating the effect of thunder.

Also, don't forget that chromatic passages on the timpani risk actually NOT coming out clearly. If your theme is D - D# - E, for example, there is a very strong possibility that the actual notes will not sound as such. It largely depends on the dynamic (loud tends to lose its precise tuning) and teh orchestration around it (timpani tend to mimic/echo whatever is playing at the same time). And just to be clear, D# and Eb are not different notes to a timpanist. He will simply ignore your "retuning" and leave the drum "as is". The sort of fine-tuning that a string player would bring to that microtonal difference is pretty much impossible on timpani.

For example, with an orchestrated C major chord, you could actually get away with an orchestral tutti and your timpani playing a B natural! the timbre will be more important to the overall effect than the actual tuning. You would NOT hear the timpani as being "out of tune". you would actually hear simply a C major chord (dependant on dynamic, partially).

And just so you are clear... you will need 4 identical timpani to get Eb - D - Db - C. Or one 28 inch (for the C), and the others all 25 inch. Chances are VERY strong that your timpanist will simply PLAY that melody all on the same 25" drum.

If you can truly justify the need for all those timpani, then by all means do so.

I, on the other hand, am of the philosophy that even if an effect would be "cool", if it seems unrealistic from a logistical standpoint, then I either abandon it or find some other way of achieving the effect.

Wow thanks

Originally Posted by Sir Violinist1

Wow you know so much about Mahler, I have actually heard of Mahler and his solo horn in the 3rd symphony, never heard it though. Believe it or not I did consider to make a solo section for the F. horn but That's about it, the violins woodwinds piano/harp bass and even percussion have more solos than the brass instruments perhaps it's because I don't know to much about them, enlighten me if you want to, I understand id you don't.

One more thing

First watch this to get the right feeling: MySpaceTV Videos: Bernstein & Mahler 9th Last Movement Prova by Gustav Mahler

Fernorchester.

I could go on forever talking about Mahler! (have read 50 books about him).

One more thing, it's the very special "Fernorchester" effect that Mahler uses in his symphoni nr 2 in c-minor. Creating a feeling of vast distances.
I remember back in the 80s when I heard it played at a concert hall one time. It was like magic to hear the distant orchestra playing, hidden behind the choral stage's wooden wall, which created a dreamy pleasant, muted sound effect. The listening audience was bewitched by the hidden brass sound that fooled everybody to think that they had been transported to a distant Mahlerian, Bohemian landscape ("Böhmen", called Czechoslovakia at that time.)

Leonard Bernstein has commented on that, by saying: "As Mahler grew up there in the Slavic area of Bohemia, then Moravia in a little town called Iglau in the Province of Austria, he became familiar with many other kinds of different ethnic music cultures and rythms, very different from the German music tradition. This added interesting material to the young Gustav's musical imagination", which integrated well with the impressions of the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss later in his life. Richard Strauss also became his best friend and colleague. Sometimes later in their careers they conducted their own works the same evening, at the same place, each of them taking turns.
Afterwoods they would sit and discuss their performances. Richard Strauss having conducted his Symphony in F Minor and Mahler his "Titan" Symphony for example. Strauss and Mahler recognized each other's strengths as composers, and immediately established a strong friendship that would last until Mahler's death. Mahler, was sometimes envious over his younger colleague's success and become intrigued by Strauss's programmatic symphonic-poem ideas, which affected the direction of Mahler's own works for the next several years.
1894, 30-year-old Richard Strauss conducts a concert in Hamburg on January 22, and spends time with Mahler which deepens their friendship. At the same time, Strauss is engaged in negotiations with Mahler's boss Pollini for the Hamburg position, behind Mahler's back. Mahler knows that Pollini desperately wants him to sign a new contract to remain at the Hamburg Opera, and since Mahler wants to leave, he makes outrageous demands, primarily to conduct symphonic concerts. But when Mahler finds out about Strauss's maneuvers, he probably softens some of his demands, and Pollini agrees to all of them, and on February 5 Mahler signs a new 5-year contract. The rivalry between Mahler and Strauss apparently does no harm to their friendship, as they will continue to try to get performances for each other's works.


Here is a letter written by Gustav Mahler to Richard Strauss before the two masters knew each other well,


Letter written by Gustav Mahler to Richard Strauss. (Proof that deep humanism existed between a very known Jewish-Bohemian-Austrian composer and and a very known Germanic-Garmisch-Partenkirchen-German composer),
Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.


Those who doubt that there was a true and warm friendship both as colleagues and as professionals between those two masters can go and read about it to expand their knowledge of the late romantic composers' artistic relationships around the time when the senior authority Richard Wagner was conducting at Bayreuth. At that time, everybody, including the young Mahler, Strauss, Humperdinck and Bruckner (also senior, started to compose symphonical at age 44), Liszt (senior), Brahms (senior) and especially King Ludwig II of Bavaria, gathered around Wagner. The mad king was famous for building fairytale castles using the Bavarian government's money. He financed the whole spiel, realizing Wagner's dream of a "Festspielhaus". Thanks to him all Wagner's debts had been paid. What a lucky bastard Richard was!
_______________________________________

Hotel Blauer Stern
Prague August 1888.


Dear Colleague

Since my return to Munich is likely to be seriously delayed, would you be kind enough to let me know what steps I should take in order to have a symphony of mine performed in the next concert season in Munich - and whether there is any prospect in this.

Please, dear friend, give me a little advice and - help, if it is possible.


With sincere regards

Gustav Mahler
_____________________________________________

Gustav Mahler named it "Fernorchester" as it is called in German. What a soulfull idea!

Gustav grew up hearing endless parades of marching military music outside his window as a kid in Bohemia and by using it later in his symphonies was a way of documenting about his first important musical impressions. One reason why Gustav has so many examples of "Trauermusik", sorrow music in his symphonies is because he witnessed many funerals during his early years, which must have made unforgetable and deep impressions that would show up later in Mahler's most dramatic symphonic moments. This at a time, long before anybody knew anything about this little boy's musical genius. A dark period in his life was also when several of his siblings died one after the other. 1874 Mahler's 13-year-old brother Ernst, the closest to him in both age and affection, dies after a long illness; Mahler says later that no other death affected him so deeply. While staying at an aunt's house over the summer, he begins composing an opera called Herzog Ernst von Schwaben ['Duke Ernst of Swabia'] which probably reflects on this relationship, but after going back home to Iglau the aunt cleans out the attic and, not realizing its significance, burns the manuscript of the opera.


While listening, just think about; how very long most of his symphonies are!

ONE OF HIS SYMPHONIES IS SAID TO BE THE LONGEST IN THE WORLD, and it is!!


I'm then thinking of his third symphony, almost 2 hours long, which he wrote during some holydays in the Austrian alps, having a break from his demanding job as a conductor. A place filled with fresh air and peacefull sounding cowbells hammering around his nervous head while he was sitting in his famous composer's hut. Lol, he was funny without knowing it himself

From Bruno Walter's (famous Mahler conductor) memoir of Mahler: "I arrived by steamer on a glorious July day; Mahler was there on the jetty to meet me, and despite my protests, insisted on carrying my bag until he was relieved by a porter. As on our way to his house I looked up to the Höllengebirge, whose sheer cliffs made a grim background to the charming landscape, he said: 'You don't need to look — I have composed all this away!" The rockface became the introductory theme of the Third Symphony, the unison chant for eight horns, which he dubbed in one sketch "What the rocky mountain tells me."

One more thing, this concerning his second symphony.
Gustav Mahler finished his second symphony in 1895. Unfortunately this was also the year when Mahler's younger brother shot himself to death. This could explain why this symphony is so dramatic! The wild bassline in the beginning of the 2nd symphony sounds like the roar of a lion who is frustrated and restless!

Wish you all luck with your symphony and remember that Mahler fought an incredible battle against the besser wissers of his time. But as we all know, besser wissers multiply very quickly, even today


Not only intellectuals from that era, but even the great composers could lash out and say incredible stupid things. Here is one example!

I promess you, you won't believe it when I tell you... he he!

Okay... let's go:


One time Herr Pjotr Tjajkovskij made clear to everyone how much he hated Johannes Brahms, he said about Johannes Brahms: "I have played some piano music by Brahms, what a talentless bastard he is!". Well, Mahler didn't go that far, but he expressed his bitterness towards Brahms in a different more civilized way at the time when he submited his score of Das Klagende Lied to the competition for the Beethoven Prize, whose jury included Brahms and Hanslick. At the decision in December Mahler failed to win, and for the rest of his life he blamed this loss for his inability to make a living as a composer and for the resultant necessity to have a conducting career, "condemning me to the hell of the theater".

While talking about Brahms, who had the reputation of being rude.
In September 1880 Hans Rott, the favorite student of Anton Bruckner, 22-year-old, suffering from lack of both family and money, and from an unrequited love, submits his symphony to the Beethoven Prize competition, and goes to play it to Brahms, who enters a cruelly harsh judgment: "the composition contained besides such beauty so much triviality and nonsense that the former could not possibly stem from Rott himself". Brahms advises Rott to give up composition. Rott's symphony boldy combines the styles of several major German/Austrian composers, and in the last movement contains a theme presented 3 times which sounds much like that from the last movement of Brahms's own 1st Symphony -- Brahms may easily have misinterpreted the combination of that with Wagnerian-style material as a put-down. All this stress is too much for Rott and his mind snaps.
On October 22 or 23, he goes insane while traveling, urging another passenger not to light his cigar because Rott is under the delusion that Brahms has filled the train with dynamite. Rott spends the rest of his short life in an asylum, where he continues to compose and uses his manuscripts for toilet paper, saying 'that's what human works are worth'. In 1882 on March 23, in the asylum, 23-year-old Hans Rott attempts to hang himself, unsuccessfully.

read about Hans Rott: Hans Rott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans Rott Gesellschaft: Hans Rott - Der Begründer der neuen Symphonie / The Founder Of The New Symphony


epilogue,

Gustav Mahler, Dying

The last time Gustav Mahler ever conducted was Tuesday evening, 21 February 1911, at Carnegie Hall in New York. As he turned to the next to final work on the programme, the score on the stand before him had a curious appearance. The title page bore a picture of a mother at the cradle of her child; in the background there followed a coffin (Phil. Soc., 1910). The work was Berceuse Elegiaque, a song of mourning in the form of a lullaby. It was written by the Italian composer Ferrucio Busoni whom Mahler had only recently befriended. A letter from Busoni the previous spring which starts, 'Dear Master and Friend, ' hints at some common bond as he writes: 'I cannot let you go without taking any farewell, and it is in my heart to tell you that I honor and love you equally as a man as a musician; that I feel we have been brought nearer together by these weeks in America…'. Busoni adds in parenthesis: 'thanks to our common sufferings' (A. Mahler).


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fun link, the "Gustav Mahler Hotel in Iglau, Moravia": hotel GustavMahler



Before you go to bed, listen to Leonard Bernstein's: MySpaceTV Videos: Mahler 9th Final Movement Bernstein prova by Gustav Mahler


Pic 1. Mahler at the age of six with his first manuscript.
Pic 2. Hans Rott.
Pic 3+4. Graffiti in Toronto, somebody walks around in Toronto spraying "Gustav Mahler" on the concrete walls!

forgot, Mahler also used guitar