Mahler's Bruckner, between Devotion and Misprision

Abstract

This article centers on a detailed study of Mahler's performing version of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony. This study, which is based on the orchestral materials used in Mahler's performances in Vienna (1900) and New York (1910), outlines the changes Mahler made to the work, particularly a series of major cuts, and considers their musical significance. The article uses these observations as an occasion for analyzing aspects of Mahler's complex personal and musical relationship to the older composer. It argues that, beyond the manifest issues of symphonic form and style raised by Mahler's adaptation, something deeper was also at work: in performing Bruckner in a heavily edited form Mahler was unconsciously negotiating his own artistic relationship to his great predecessor. This process must have been particularly fraught given Mahler's deeply contradictory sentiments about Bruckner's music, the two composers’ personal relationship, and the public's image of their affiliation. The article argues that Mahler's treatment of Bruckner's Fourth was palpably haunted by what Harold Bloom famously defined as “the anxiety of influence” and that this led him to attempt to remake Bruckner's symphony in ways that were more in keeping with his own artistic self-image. It concludes by suggesting that later generations have inherited something of Mahler's anxiety about his musical affiliation with Bruckner.