Atonalism, Nietzsche and <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i>: Pynchon's Use of German Music History and Culture

Abstract

Henry-Louis de la Grange, a scholar of Gustav Mahler's life and works, tells us that an "early plan of the <em>Fourth Symphony, </em>put together some time before that symphony was composed … contained a 'Scherzo in D major' entitled 'Die Welt ohne Schwere' ('The World Without Gravity')" (2.800). Given this suggestive title, any reader well trained by Pynchon to see connections and affiliations in the most trivial detail may recall the dialogue between Säure Bummer and Gustav Schlabone in <em>Gravity's Rainbow </em>and wonder whether Gustav's given name is meant to evoke Mahler's, and wonder also whether the song's words, if any exist, have some relevance to Pynchon's novel. Any account of the German dialectic in music that Schlabone trumpets would surely include Mahler, a contemporary of Strauss and a composer much admired by Schönberg for taking German music the first steps away from tonality, deploying dissonances first initiated by Wagner (Friedrich 167). La Grange describes the fruitful period in which Mahler wrote a series of songs including "Die Welt ohne Schwere," but he says nothing about the song's words. The instrumental music itself, according to La Grange, became the fourth movement of Mahler's <em>Fifth Symphony.</em>