Can and should music also be understood on the basis of extra-musical ‘content’? The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir takes a nuanced stance on this much-debated question: whilst she herself is happy to draw inspiration from programmatic ideas, and is delighted when her compositions evoke vivid associations in the audience, these need not necessarily coincide with her own. For her, the aim is to use extra-musical impulses to create music that then stands entirely on its own. This approach means that both Thorvaldsdóttir’s work titles and her programme notes leave ample scope for interpretation.

In the case of the orchestral work Metacosmos, composed in 2017, the focus is on entering another world, another space, possibly another dimension. Thorvaldsdóttir writes: “Metacosmos is built around the natural balance between beauty and chaos – that is, how elements can come together in (seemingly) perfect chaos to form a unified, structured whole. The idea and inspiration behind the piece, which is as much connected to the human experience as it is to the universe, is the speculative metaphor of falling into a black hole – the unknown – with endless constellations and layers of opposing forces that connect and communicate with one another, expand and contract, struggle for power, whilst the various sources pull at you and you realise that you are being drawn into a force beyond your control.”

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1

In the 1870s, Camille Saint-Saëns conceived a series of four symphonic poems modelled on those of Franz Liszt. He derived the individual structure of each piece from a specific poetic idea: for example, that of a dance of death (Danse macabre, 1874) or an episode from the ancient legend of Heracles (Le rouet d’Omphale, 1872; La jeunesse d’Hercule, 1877). In his First Cello Concerto from 1872, however, he had no ambitions for programme music – which is understandable, as any extra-musical content would only distract attention from the true hero, the soloist. However, Saint-Saëns developed a compact form for the concerto, the sort often found in symphonic poems: several sections (in this case three) follow one another without a break and can be interpreted both as independent movements and as parts of a larger whole.

At the start of the concerto, immediately following a tutti beat, the main theme of the work is heard from the solo cello: a triplet figure plunging down from the upper register, followed by a three-note motif. Saint-Saëns contrasts this brilliant theme with a lyrical one. A short cadenza by the soloist and a powerful closing phrase from the orchestra round off the presentation of the themes. The development that now follows quickly reveals itself to be merely a varied repetition. The lyrical theme leads into a new section of the work: an intermezzo in the style of an 18th-century minuet. This section is also clearly set apart from its surroundings by its key (B flat major) and instrumentation (woodwinds, horns, muted strings). It ends with the return of the main theme from the beginning of the piece. A reprise of a traditional sonata movement? At most a hinted-at one, for although further familiar elements from the opening appear later, the ‘Finale’ certainly also has its own themes, which are rather restrained in expression: first an elegantly syncopated melody, later another that begins in the lowest register of the cello. The brilliance of the finale stems above all from the soloist’s lively, spectacularly virtuosic passages between the thematic sections. Camille Saint-Saëns dedicated his concerto to the cellist Auguste Tolbecque, a remarkable musician who – unusually for the time – also played the viola da gamba, collected historical instruments and published books on the subject.

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1

»Titan« – the title of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 unmistakably points to a programmatic background. Yet for a long time, the composer was unsure whether he should make this background public. On the one hand, he evidently felt the need to express himself verbally, to make his unconventional works more accessible to the audience. On the other hand, he feared misunderstandings and oversimplifications that might arise precisely from a fixed programme. Thus, when the Symphony No. 1 – composed between late January and early March 1888 – received its Budapest premiere the following year, he conducted it without offering any commentary. Four years later, however, in Hamburg, he gave it the title ‘Titan, a tone poem in symphonic form’ and provided a detailed explanation:
»Part 1: ‘From the Days of Youth’, pieces on flowers, fruit and thorns. I. ‘Spring and No End’ (Introduction and Allegro commodo). The introduction depicts the awakening of nature from a long winter’s sleep. II. ‘Blumine’ (Andante). III. ‘Full Sail Ahead’ (Scherzo). Part 2: ‘Commedia humana’: IV. ‘Stranded!’ (A funeral march in ‘Callot’s style’). The following serves to explain this movement: The author drew his inspiration for this piece of music from the parodic illustration ‘The Hunter’s Funeral’, well known to all children in Austria, from an old children’s fairy-tale book: the animals of the forest accompany the coffin of the deceased hunter to his grave; hares carry the little flag at the head of a procession of Bohemian musicians, accompanied by cats, toads, crows and the like playing music, whilst stags, does, foxes and other four-legged and feathered creatures of the forest escort the procession in comical poses. At this point, the piece is intended as an expression of a mood that is by turns ironically humorous and eerily brooding, upon which immediately follows .. ... V. ‘Dall’Inferno’ (Allegro furioso), as the sudden outburst of despair from a heart wounded to its very depths.” Mahler later reduced the five movements listed here to four by removing the Blumine movement.

At the Berlin premiere in 1896, the composer once again chose not to include a synopsis: »The reason I omitted it this time is not only that I believe it fails to characterise the work exhaustively – indeed, not even accurately – but because I have seen for myself the misguided paths this has led the audience down.«

Indeed, even the title ‘Titan’ was enigmatic: most listeners would likely have thought of the rebels against the gods of Olympus known from Greek mythology. Mahler, on the other hand, as his confidante Natalie Bauer-Lechner reported, had “simply had in mind a powerful, heroic figure, his life and suffering, his struggles and defeats against fate.” Or was he alluding to Jean Paul’s 1803 novel Titan? This is supported by many further literary references in the Hamburg programme: the subtitle of the first movement, Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces, also goes back to a novel title by Jean Paul; the title of the deleted second movement to Jean Paul’s essay collection Herbst-Blumine; the title of the second major section, Commedia humana, to Honoré de Balzac’s Comédie humaine; the ‘Funeral March in Callot’s Manner’ to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Fantasiestücke in Callot’s Manner, and finally the fifth movement to Dante’s Divina Commedia.

However, the »programme« of the symphony does not derive solely from this web of literary references. The numerous musical quotations and allusions also evoke associations with specific content – references to the composer’s own works, as well as to some compositions by other composers, and to traditional melodies or musical genres, as well as to the sounds of nature.

The introduction to the first movement is entitled »Like a sound of nature«: a soft, sustained tone, somewhat reminiscent of the opening of Anna Thorvaldsdóttir’s Metacosmos, but spread across seven octaves, with shimmering harmonics and fourth-note motifs that are then shaped into cuckoo calls and later into the main theme. This theme goes back to the second song from the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), composed in 1885: ‘Ging heut’ Morgen übers Feld’ (Went across the field this morning). In the following scherzo, too, Mahler quotes his own earlier compositions, namely a piano duet written in the late 1870s and the song »Hans und Grete« from 1880. With its Ländler and waltz-like sounds, the scherzo forms an idyllic intermezzo before the third movement follows, a strange, even eerie piece which, according to Mahler, was »most misunderstood and reviled« at its first performances. Later commentators frequently cited the movement as an example of Mahler’s collage technique, in which he brings together music of highly diverse character in rapid succession, sometimes even allowing it to overlap: first the slightly modified and transposed-to-minor canon »Frère Jacques«, then the sounds of a klezmer ensemble (or, according to another interpretation, a Hungarian csárdás band) and another melody from the songs of a wandering journeyman, »Die zwei blauen Augen«. Without a break, »like a bolt of lightning from a dark cloud« (Mahler), the finale follows, containing musical allusions to Liszt’s Dante Symphony and Wagner’s Parsifal. After violent storms, the ‘sounds of nature’ from the first movement reappear, and the symphony ends with triumphant fanfares.

Jürgen Ostmann

Jürgen Ostmann studied musicology and orchestral music (cello). He lives in Cologne, where he works as a freelance music journalist and dramaturg for concert halls, broadcasters, orchestras, music festivals and record labels.