I have written a novel about Hans Rott. "Unfortunately" it is written in Swedish and so far printed in some few ex. It is to be published later on. It should of course be translated so it could be more widely read perhaps in specifically Austria and Germany ..? Maybe it will be translated further on. Anyone here may have some advice or opinion? The titel is: "Komponisten – eller att döda ett geni" in English: "The composer – or to kill a genius" It is about 270 pages.
Regards
A better translation might be: "The composer – or how to kill a genius".
Yes - that is the way I translated it actually - that little word "how" just disappeared ... :)
nordanland, is it actually a novel - i.e. a work of fiction? Given that it's about Hans Rott, is it perhaps in the genre of 'faction' or semi-biography?
Hans Rott's tragic life - outlined in various places on the web - deserves a substantial, sensitive and accurate biography. There are many lessons to be learned.
It is a novel and about 270 pages. The genre is "biofiction" and the view is "erlebte rede". There is also an afterword with appendix, sources, some of Rotts poetry and presentations of most people involved in his life. It is all like an "Aristotelic" drama. You presnt a problem, it grows to a point of turning and then the catastrophy. Just "sorry" it is written in Swedish, but that is my native language. I can make a simpel translation to english of some chapter but have no time at the present. If you are somewhat interested I could mail you some pages and you can use Google for the translation. You might just get the picture.
Maybe some of you already have read or know about the following books about Hans Rott. Anyway - I have had ver good use for them:
Johannes Volker Schmidt: "Hans Rott Lebend und Werk"
Georg Olms Verlag AG, Hildesheim 2010
Hans Rott (1858–1884): "Biography by Maja Löh, commented by Uwe Harten, Verlag: Der Österreischisen Akademie Der Wissenschaften, Wien 2000
Without disparaging your work, nordanland, it is a pity there isn't a straight biography in English.
I agree fully. There are biographic articles about Rott on the net but no complete english translation of the german books. I have posted on other forums a "comment" on Rott and Brahms and Rotts fatal destiny. If you do not mind I post it here as well. For the readers who are not so familiar with the subject it might be of interest. So here it is:
About Rott and Brahms
Off course you cannot totally blame Brahms for Rotts menthal decease and disaster. There are always circumstances and more than one factor behind things like that. We might take a brief look at Hans Rotts life and situation in the late 1870:s. Rott adored his mother above all. She died from leukemia 1872 when he was 14 years of age. This was one of the first disasters in his life. A few years later his father - a famous actor in Vienna, had an accident on the stage that ended his brilliant career. The family's economy was totally ruined and Rotts father sold furniture and other things of some value to survive. In those days there were seldom "good pensions" or insurances that could cover for the unexpected. Two years after the accident Rotts father died. Hans Rott was then 18 and suddenly he and his younger brother was all that was left of the family. And Hans Rott was to struggle for their survival. Anton Bruckner had got him a job as organist in the Piaristen Church in Vienna. A much underpaid job but it gave him a department and a piano was placed in his room. Hans and his brother had to rely on help and gifts from friends to make it. Hans Rott was a deeply religious man and all his life he felt guilty because he and his half-brother had different fathers and that their parents were not married when they were born. He was also extremely sensitive and vulnerable. At the same time he had the highest plans and visions about his future as a conductor and composer. In the summer of 1879 he met the love of his life - Louise Löhr, a younger sister to his friend Freiedrich Löhr. In 1880 he had finished the orchestration work with his first symphony. He was about to marry Louise and hopefully thought he could win a scholarship with his symphony and maybe also the great Beethoven prize with a string sextet he had written. Anyway his great symphony should give him a "position in the society" and also a well paid job as an organist in one of the great churches or a prominent job as a conductor. He also contacted Hans Richter, the famous conductor, to have the Wiener Philharmonics to perform his symphony. 17 sept 1880 he stood in front of the mighty jury with the best and highest of hopes. And it turned out to become thee traumatic catastrophe of his life. There were three men in the jury, Eduardo Hanslick, Karl Goldmark and Johannes Brahms. Brahms accused Rott of theft and claimed Rott could by no means have written the symphony himself. He also recommended the young man to do whatever in life but dealing with music. Now, Hans Richter was Rotts last chance to stay and work in Vienna, the place he loved over all. If Richter would perform his symphony Rott did not have to accept a job as a choir leader in Mulhausen hundreds of miles from his beloved Louise and home city. But Richter turned him down. In a state of despair and defeat he got on the train to Mulhausen October 21. There was to be a stop at Linz and Rott had to spend the night at a hotel. We know he could not sleep because they heard him cry all night that Brahms was bolting in the walls all the time. We also know that he the next day threatened a man with a gun, shouting that Brahms had loaded the train with dynamite and he ordered the poor passenger to immediately "kill" his cigar. In the town of Simbach they arrested Rott and brought him to The Psychiatric Clinic of the General Hospital in Vienna "in a completely crazy state".
After an attempt to take his own life he was transferred the provincial Asylum of lower Austria. Here he stayed for almost four years and died from tuberculosis. From this one might realize that Johannes Brahms was perhaps not the one and only reason behind Rott collaps. It is quite evident though that he started the process that so sadly ended Rott in an asylum. We also know that Anton Bruckner openly accused Johannes Brahms - who also attended the ceremony - of Rotts mental collapse and early death. Right or wrong - Brahms was the evil daemon in Hans Rotts imagination and short life. One might add that Rott about five months after the fatal jury decision got his scholarship from the education department - despite Brahms harsh treatment. But then it was already too late and Rott was all indifferent.
There have been many speculations about Brahms very rough behavior against Rott. We can see two kinds of reasons here. First, Brahms might have had personal reasons to dislike Rott. Secondly, it was a matter of politics. Brahms and Hanslick were defenders of the old school. Their great antagonist was Wagner and they also saw Anton Bruckner as a Wagner follower. Especially Hanslick was full of disgust and hatred when he wrote his sarcasms over Bruckner and Wagner in the leading music journals and papers. Hans Rott was in Brahms and Hanslicks eyes a true Wagnerian and must be fought to any cost. But there might have been personal reasons. Rott used a Schumann motif a couple of times in his symphony which easily could remind Johannes Brahms of his beloved Clara Schumann. Rott also used some of Brahms motifs from his first symphony in the final. Brahms might have thought that the young man was making fun of him. And maybe another thing – Hans Rott was only 20 years of age when he wrote his first symphony. Brahms himself was 40! Bruckner at Rotts funeral speech accuses Brahms of nothing but pure jealousy.
Speaking of "many speculations", would anyone like to speculate on the "anticipations" of Mahler (particularly his 1st and 5th symphonies) that are to be found in Rott's symphony? As I write I am hearing the piece for the very first time, having previously read nothing on Rott apart from the contents of this thread. The extraordinarily familiar "anticipations" in the third movement caused my head to rotate abruptly through ninety degrees, and other stylistic and thematic resemblances are plentiful throughout. It's inconceivable to me that Mahler didn't know this score, and more than merely quoting from it magpie-fashion or out of respect (why should he offer Rott a musical tribute that none of his audience would have detected?) I suggest "used" it fundamentally when creating his own (not-so-?) individual voice!
Thank you, nordanland. I had no idea of any of this background to Rott's mental illness, never mind the involvement of Brahms, Goldmark and Hanslick. What a sad and sorry tale.
Mahler knew Rott's symphony!
Here's what he wrote:
"a musician of genius ... who died unrecognized and in want on the very threshold of his career. ... What music has lost in him cannot be estimated. Such is the height to which his genius soars in ... [his] Symphony [in E major], which he wrote as 20-year-old youth and makes him ... the Founder of the New Symphony as I see it. To be sure, what he wanted is not quite what he achieved. ... But I know where he aims. Indeed, he is so near to my inmost self that he and I seem to me like two fruits from the same tree which the same soil has produced and the same air nourished. He could have meant infinitely much to me and perhaps the two of us would have well-nigh exhausted the content of new time which was breaking out for music."
See also http://www.hans-rott.de/music.htm (http://www.hans-rott.de/music.htm) for more.
The possibility of Mahler's specific plagiarism of Rott's themes has been raised by Norman Lebrecht and doubtless others, and he's right that the most obvious quotations are to be found in Mahler's second, not the first and fifth as my Penguin Guide has it.
http://slippedisc.com/2014/09/something-rotten-in-the-state-of-mahler/
I see that Rott's symphony is contemporaneous with Das Klagende Lied at a time when the two composers were in direct contact, so maybe "drawing from the same well" is the charitable way to put it!
Ah, but actually it was recognizing the choppy violin theme from Movement III of Mahler 5 that caused me to put my neck out. Are we guessing the plot of nordanland's novel?
Thanks for giving us that "comment" on Rott's life. I am sure we all agree that it is a truly tragic story, and that we lost someone with the potential for greatness. Contrary to some claims, profound mental disorder is no stimulus to artistic creativity but rather its enemy, and not least because of the reactions of society.
Am I right in thinking that Rott was badly treated by people who would normally be honest and decent, or were their overly critical responses actually an artefact of Rott's paranoia?
Quote from: semloh on Saturday 22 October 2016, 21:40
Am I right in thinking that Rott was badly treated by people who would normally be honest and decent, or were their overly critical responses actually an artefact of Rott's paranoia?
This last point seems important: What sources does the report of Brahms/Goldmark/Hanslick's behavior rely on? Just Rott? Or are there independent/impartial witnesses? The behavior as described in Nordanland's post goes way beyond rejection and can only be described as rude manners and total lack of professionalism, not to mention cruelty. So I am a little skeptical: Did Rott's paranoia result in an overly colorful account of the scene? I can see Hanslick as overtly and overly partisan, but that Brahms himself would have been the most fanatical of the Brahmsians doesn't jibe with what I remember reading about the man.
BTW if Brahms suggested the symphony might be plagiarized, did he think it was stolen from Mahler, the other way around from some posts in this thread?
Rotts symphony was completed 1879. Mahlers first symphony was completed 1888. So who plagiarised who is maybe a delicate question. We know that Mahler and Rott were mates. Students of the same class. Of course they had much in common and of course they inspired eachother. But as said - Rotts symphony was completed some 9 years before Mahlers ...
Reagrding Rotts fatal mishap compeeting for the national scholarship where Brahms, Hanslick and Goldmark formed the jury - the biographies just give you the protocols from the jury session. Rott does not write much about it in his letters. It is rather between the lines. Anothger interesting thing is that Rott in the end got the state scholarship despite the harsh verdict of Brahms and Hanskick. My guess - and in my novel - I assume this is the work of Goldmark. On the other hand. When Rott got the the state scholarship it was too late. He was in a mess, locked up in a asylum.
Mahler 1 wasn't "completed" in 1888 (it only reached its final form in 1896- or perhaps later), though its first version was. Do we know that Brahms knew Mahler's first in either form?
At least the basic outline seems to be supported by pp 51-52 of Peter Franklin's The Life of Mahler (1997) & footnote, I see...
In 1880 Mahler's status can have been no higher than Rott's and even if he detected similarities Brahms would not have known (or probably cared) who stole from whom! A detailed comparison of Rott's symphony with Das Klagende Lied would be revealing. I don't know the latter well enough, but if there are close parallels that might indicate that Rott and Mahler were truly "drawing from the same well". If, on the other hand, the similarities are few it would suggest that Mahler drew on Rott's themes for his later works.
The biography I read of Brahms of course reinforced what I already knew of his genius, but it was sad that he was kind of mean to those who didn't reach his standards. Of course poor Bruckner tried and tried, but maybe his obsequity was offputting along with his "Wagnerism". Brahms despised Herzogenberg's music (some of which is pretty to me) and put up with him in his social circle because he liked his wife Elisabet, some said it was jealousy that he didn't marry her instead, but he eventually said "Herzogenberg is able to do more than any of the others." (wiki) I felt sorry for
Joachim, too, who seemed to have to "earn" his approval from Brahms, none of which has anything to do with Hans Rott, I wish I could read not only the new novel but also the German biographies, such a sad story, and then there were Hugo Wolf, and even Robert Schumann himself who spent their last days in mental hell, and back then the "treatments" were non-existent or more than hellish themselves. And I would like to kick Hanslick in the seat of his pants, or other nether regions.
I might add that Mahler once played Rotts symphony on the piano for all Rotts friends (Rott was at the asylum). One of Rotts best friends (Joseph Seemuller) told Rott when he visited him at the asylum. Rott was by this time quite confused and absent. His answer or reaction might be of interest. He only said "Yes, Mahler is a genius." Mahler also later planned to perform the symphony as conductor at Hof Opera - I think it was in 1900 - but he never did. This also has created some speculations and discussions of course ... But all this talk about Mahler stealing "everything" from Rott. Especially Paavo Järvi seems to be totally convinced of that. But I think it is of course pretty unfair. Mahler and Rott were mates for some time. They had very different personalities but they shared the same passion for the same kind of music and they were both as young students fascinated by Wagner and enthusiastic members of the Wagner society in Vienna. At school they later participated in a kind of competition and examination work. Mahler got the first prize and they laughed at Rott. Eight pupils in the class. Seven prizes and Rott got none. He found comfort though in two things. Bruckner stood up for him at the examination and he also had another very unexpected supporter: When Mahler got home with his prize his mother was very angry with him and said that Rotts piece of music was much better than his! Nice compliment indeed ... Well ... ;-)
I am sorry I brought up the topic of plagiarism. The most natural explanation is probably the simplest: We have two very young men (20 something) who share an intense enthusiasm. They would talk for countless hours about their musical ideas, in the process sharing a lot of them. At least this is how I remember being young felt like. Then they would go on and write their works, not even remembering any more which ideas were whose. This idea is also compatible with Mahler's "obituary", which I think is a little weird--expressing emotional closeness:
Quote from: jdperdrix on Saturday 22 October 2016, 13:09
Indeed, he is so near to my inmost self that he and I seem to me like two fruits from the same tree which the same soil has produced and the same air nourished. He could have meant infinitely much to me and perhaps the two of us would have well-nigh exhausted the content of new time which was breaking out for music.
while at the same time not forgetting to indicate:
Quote from: jdperdrix on Saturday 22 October 2016, 13:09
To be sure, what he wanted is not quite what he achieved.
I only brought it up because Brahms seems to have brought it up in that infamous jury session. (It is highly unlikely he had any concrete evidence of course other than the fact that a 20 year old was the author of the symphony in question.) But I should have left the topic alone.
I'm not sure how much further we're going to get with this topic - so much is sheer speculation. A novel is certainly one way of treating the subject; however, the danger is surely that we mix the little we actually know with mere guesswork. And then everyone's got a point of view...
Brahms and Mahler were, iirc, friends even already at the time; if a judgment of plagiarism was made by Brahms (and I'm not convinced one was), that might be a reason why, even though Mahler and Rott were, agreed, equally known so far as the wider public was concerned.
Concerning the so-called "plagiarism" of Rott's theme in Mahler's 2nd, I have another opinion.
So I'd like to point out this fact:
in this movement Mahler quoted, but transforming them, many themes from different composers:
- the Trio of the Scherzo from Bruckner's Fourth symphony
- the Trio of the Scherzo from Beethoven's 10th Violin Sonata
- the end of the ninth lied from Dichterliebe by Schumann
to this list one can add... the theme from the Scherzo of Rott's Symphony.
That would not be a plagiarism but a quotation. ;)
How do you know that Mahler is quoting these themes by other composers if he is transforming them, M. Couton? Transformed themes are not quotations because quotations cannot be so unless they are left untransformed.
For example, if I say I am quoting somebody's words but actually change them, I am not quoting them at all...
Well, it sounds obvious to me... Just listen and compare:
Bruckner 4th, Trio of the Scherzo
https://youtu.be/7S6MsieXCp4?t=4m30s
Mahler, Scherzo
https://youtu.be/8ZGra5BL6-k?t=49s
Beethoven, Violin Sonata n°10, Trio
https://youtu.be/hca8kQjB6no?t=19m
Mahler, Scherzo, first Trio
https://youtu.be/8ZGra5BL6-k?t=1m51s
Schumann, end of Dichterliebe n°9
https://youtu.be/L-Nkm8cBLgE?t=11m16s
Mahler, end of the Scherzo
https://youtu.be/8ZGra5BL6-k?t=10m13s
Moreover, it fits very well with the parodic mood of the original Lied (St. Anthony Preaches to the Fishes).
By the way, there is no surprise that Berio chose this very movement as a basis to create his collage masterpiece: Berio quotes Ravel, Debussy, Boulez, himself, Stockhausen... and Mahler quoting himself quoting Bruckner, Beethoven, Schumann... Rott... and others??
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 28 October 2016, 22:31
How do you know that Mahler is quoting these themes by other composers if he is transforming them, M. Couton? Transformed themes are not quotations because quotations cannot be so unless they are left untransformed.
For example, if I say I am quoting somebody's words but actually change them, I am not quoting them at all...
I don't think it matters for the question of plagiarism: Quotation, allusion, transformation: Each of these are not plagiarism.
I also doubt we can take criteria for quotes in language and use them unmodified for musical quotations. Shostakovich does not belong here (though he admired Mahler), but he is maybe the most famous quoter. And his "quotes" (designated as such by everybody, including apparently himself) are almost always transformed, just listen to the Moonshine Sonata in his viola sonata.
So, quotations that are soon transformed and merged into a bigger picture all of his own. Interesting. So, does Mahler make similar use of Rott anywhere (I'm thinking in particular of the scherzo of Rott's Symphony)?
"Moonshine Sonata"?... (There's a reason that title, not Beethoven's own, was "Mondschein"- yes, Moonshine is a clever mixing of Moon and "Schein"... but still...)\
(Re Rott, finally heard his string quartet, via Naxos Music Library, though a recording of it was available here in our Uploads for some time. Lovely!!!!)
For our non-English native speakers:
'Mondschein' = 'Moonlight'
'Moonshine' = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine)
This discussion is like going back to the beginning again: it contains biographical and musical inaccuracies and I'm sure much of the ground has already been covered correctly on this site.
On biography, Rott wasn't about to marry Louise and that was a highly significant factor among many which led to his mental illness. The roots of his collapse accumulated over a few years and Brahms and the train was merely the final trigger. Possibly the heavy use of triangle in the symphony was even resembling a sound he kept hearing in his head back as early as 1878. He found out about his illegitimacy very late and that was among the traumatic blows, rejection and lack of recognition that marked his life. Though Mahler was mixed up, he could cope with whatever happened; Rott was more highly strung and never could.
On the Music, Mahler deliberately quoted from Rott and did so more than from any other composer and he continued to do so throughout the Mahler symphonic cycle. Yes, Mahler 2 does make significant play of Rott, around the resurrection theme but most interesting is Mahler's 1st. For this is the only one in which Mahler draws from a second Rott work, the Suite in E, which builds in the finale and rounds off the symphony with the standing bell horns chorale.
Mahler was not plagiarising but recycling Rott as a memorial to a sometime friend, and as a monument to Rott's ideas. For though each had a different style and clearly had Rott lived what we have would be regarded as very early and rudimentary, nevertheless Mahler was impressed both by Rott's tunes and by his structural and other ideas. We hear Rott stalking through the Mahler cycle with brass fanfares, over-brief love theme, ghost waltz, mixing beauty with banality, bird sounds, etc. And Mahler never just took a Rott theme but transformed it and often ran two tunes together.
Mahler was most taken with the second half of Rott's symphony and with Rott's treatment of Wagnerian quotes, with his own 1st echoing Rott's Lohengrin underscoring and elsewhere, Rott's take on the Siegfried Idyll & Brunhilde's awakening. This second half of Rott's symphony is significant for turning into a personal narrative, the Scherzo as an imagined fantasy of a Viennese Ball with Louise in which he totally loses it emotionally, and which is quite prophetic of what then happened in real life, and the finale in which he imagines gaining recognition as a composer. Mahler in turn used some narrative in his symphonies but whereas the identity of his hero is attributed to being himself, probably it is a merged character of Rott and himself. Mahler took Rott's early death quite badly but then, his life was surrounded by death and he obsessed with this. Rott also obsessed over death and many of the poems he set for his songs had this has an important theme.
Finally, whilst Rott's symphony is undoubtedly his most important work, we have many others which have been performed and recorded.
An interesting post - thanks.
Interesting certainly, but nullius in verba as my professor used to say (I didn't necessarily go along with him). Whose conclusions/speculations are these, and what are his or her sources? Much of Paul's persuasive narrative seems to imply a privileged view of the workings of both Rott's and Mahler's minds. Unless Mahler openly confessed to his "recycling" of Rott's ideas at the time his symphonies were first performed (and after his own failure to have Rott's symphony performed), we can hardly be blamed for enjoying some speculation of our own.
As for "going back to the beginning", musicology isn't a field like the hard sciences in which we can ever come to a definitive conclusion and move on. Like most arguments, this one comes down to the precise meaning of words like "plagiarism" and "memorial" and the slants we put on them. I think Paul Banks's phrase "creative exploitation" nicely captures the ambiguity of Mahler's motives.
Can we once and for all settle the matter of Mahler's 'use' of Rott's music? Did Mahler quote him precisely anywhere (i.e. if only to develop a theme in his own way) or are we talking about such close correspondences of musical invention that Mahler couldn't have written 'X' without Rott's prior 'Y'?
Certainly not "metamorphoses of a theme by..." but a creative dependency of a subtler kind reflecting the two composers' spiritual affinity. The quotations may not be exact, but they are so close and so numerous as to leave no doubt that Mahler knew what he was doing, and that his symphonies would have been quite different had Rott survived or never existed at all. The world wouldn't immediately have noticed, but surely Mahler must have realized he'd be rumbled in the end?
Can we be more specific, please? What did Mahler use of Rott's, and where?
Haven't we been here before? The most obvious to me were the quotations from the third movement of Rott's symphony in the scherzi of Mahler 1 and 5, but other writers have noticed many more. I wasn't convinced that Mahler quotes Rott's string quartet in his Adagietto though.
Well, we've been here before, but not at the level of detail provided by Nicolas Couton with regard to Mahler's use of music by Bruckner, Beethoven and Schumann in his 2nd Symphony. So: are we talking about equally specific quotations of Rott by Mahler, or merely imitations? And if we're talking about quotations, let's be much more specific, if possible with YouTube examples...
It's all out there if you have the time and energy to track it down, so maybe someone who knows far more about it than I do will provide us with chapter and verse? As of today I was surprised to discover that Donald Mitchell appears to have overlooked it even in the second (1978) edition of his 3-volume biography of Mahler.
QuoteIt's all out there if you have the time and energy to track it down
No doubt; but until someone does, we're still in the realm of assertion, not proof...
Hi matesic, Of course it's speculative and no, I wasn't writing this as a sourced research paper. I've seen no evidence to support my view that Rott's 3rd and 4th movements of his symphony were biographical narrative. All I can do is read his biography, listen to the music and match what I hear with when it was written. For instance, the Scherzo was written away from Louise and Vienna during his summer holiday in Neustift am Walde between July 3 and September 13, 1879. This was after he had fallen in love with Louise and before he had declared himself to her. As it happened, he wasn't allowed to marry her but given that he was without means and reputation and she was 17, it was a fairly obvious fear for Rott to have at that time that he wouldn't be allowed to marry her. In the Scherzo I hear a Viennese Ball, a love theme, and his frustration with rejection and in the finale, his ultimate gaining of recognition alongside Wagner, Bruckner (start & end of 5th Symphony last movement) and Brahms, who he quotes, with the ending described by others as ascending into Valhalla.
We can't know for sure what Mahler actually thought even from what he said, like anyone else. But calling Rott and himself "Two fruits from the same tree" gives room for suspecting he thought he had a right to pick some of Rott's fruit. Sometimes it's suggested Mahler didn't deliberately use Rott's music: it was just in the air of Vienna. Mahler knew music backwards and anything he used from other composers was intentional and held purpose and meaning for him. I believe Rott, both as a personality and as a source of music, had significance for Mahler. Whilst I'm sure I'm not alone, to believe that isn't proof of course. On "Memorial" – then quoting Paul Banks, this is an odd conjunction as he wrote that Mahler "enshrined the memory of his friend in his own music". To me, that is a memorial, described by the guy who rediscovered the score, although I can understand if others think I've stretched his meaning.
For anyone wanting to read about Mahler's use at the end of his 1st symphony of the core theme from Rott's Suite n E, Internationale Hans Rott Gesellschaft DIE QUARTE No 2/2005 is still available: www.hans-rott.org/die-quarte/DIE%20QUARTE%20-%20THE%20FOURTH%20II_2005.pdf
The Suite is OOP, recorded just the once: Hermus/Philharmonische Orchestra/Accousence ACO-CD 20305
(Alan can email me if he wants to put the MP3s on our site)
How I failed to become aware of this fascinating double controversy over the last 25 years I have no idea, but I'm catching up fast. The correspondence between Mahler's 1st symphony and Rott's Suite in E surely deals a hammer blow to the idea that both composers were merely afflicted by the same "something in the air" or the water supply.
For me a crucial difference between Mahler's exploitation of Rott's themes and his quotations of other composers is that one does not listen to Bruckner 4, Beethoven's 10th violin sonata or Schumann's Dichterliebe and immediately think "Mahler used that!", whereas such is certainly the case with Rott's symphony. On my third hearing the third movement scherzo sounded even more like a supernatural premonition of some of Mahler's, uncomfortably like the corpse that fertilized Mahler's soil.
Becoming increasingly feverish, I even started wondering about the plot of Das Klagende Lied, the relationship between the brothers, the contest for the red flower in the forest with its prize of a fair princess, the fratricide with the murderer eventually exposed by the music played by the flute carved from one of his victim's bones! But surely Mahler chose that story while Rott was alive and well?
QuoteThe correspondence between Mahler's 1st symphony and Rott's Suite in E surely deals a hammer blow to the idea that both composers were merely afflicted by the same "something in the air" or the water supply.
You may well be right. But we we need chapter and verse here. Which part of Rott's Suite did Mahler use/copy /exploit in his 1st Symphony? Specifics, please!
Follow Paul's link 3 posts above this!
I'm afraid I'm not expert enough. I need concrete audio examples, as offered by N. Couton. Can't be too much to ask, surely.
Thanks for the link, Paul. Having read the article and seen the music examples I'm convinced.
It's also very clear from listening to Rott's Suite, I must say.
Trouble is, I don't have Rott's Suite in E, so I can't judge for myself. As far as I can see, it's only been recorded once - and that's now unavailable.
I've emailed you, Alan. ;)
Thanks, Mark. I need more time to digest this.
I've finally figured out how ncouton manages to enter youtube videos at a specific time point. Is there a Windows program to do it less laboriously?
Mahler Symphony No5 Movement III
https://youtu.be/vOvXhyldUko?t=32m12s
Rott Symphony in E Movement III
https://youtu.be/SxjLWC1aTh8?t=30m5s
Not an exact quotation of course, but I'd say Mahler's debt to Rott's idea goes far deeper than with the little phrases he appropriated from other composers. He often uses those in a context completely different from that of the originals, whereas these two scherzi movements are clearly out of the same box. Mahler can't have expected his "tribute" to be discovered during his lifetime, so I'd be much more inclined to call it "creative exploitation" after Paul Banks.
Very interesting indeed - thanks. Just what I was looking for. I'm convinced.
So do we now say that Mahler was indeed plundering Rott for his own purposes? And if so, was this grand larceny or creative borrowing?
But why would he feel the need to do so? His imaginative resources seem to have been extraordinary without resorting to "plundering" from contemporaries. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that these are unconscious "borrowings".
Of course Mahler never heard Rott's symphony played by an orchestra, just in piano reduction. Mahler's composed his 5th shortly after reacquainting himself with Rott's score with a view to a performance that never took place. In the excerpts above even the orchestration is similar. If this was an unconscious "borrowing" Mahler must have had a pretty leaky conscious memory!
:) I take your point. But I still don't understand why, apart from it being a "tribute", he felt the need to.
This was the time Mahler wrote the accolade that jdperdrix quotes on page 1 above, suggesting that his feelings of 20 years earlier had been rekindled. My best guess is that his sense of bromantic kinship was such that he came to feel almost as one being with his long-lost classmate, whose death he may even have experienced some guilt over. Having failed to get Rott's symphony performed (apparently the technical difficulties due to Rott's inexperience were the major stumbling block) maybe Mahler felt he owed it to Rott to bring his music back to life in another way?
I notice from some more-than-usually perceptive comments on the youtube performance I excerpted above that somebody else has been inspired to write a novel about it! Unfortunately (?) it doesn't seem to have been published online.
At a slight tangent, I note that a study of Rott was published in 1999 in German ...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hans-Rott-Begr%C3%BCnder-symphonie-Musik-Konzepte/dp/3883776084/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478543858&sr=1-1&keywords=hans+rott (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hans-Rott-Begr%C3%BCnder-symphonie-Musik-Konzepte/dp/3883776084/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478543858&sr=1-1&keywords=hans+rott)
...which, when translated, means:'Hans Rott: Founder of the New Symphony'.
I was wondering what 'New Symphony' means here. Was Rott, as Mahler himself proclaimed, any more the founder of a new concept of symphony than, say, Berlioz, Liszt, Bruckner or Draeseke? After all, in a sense, every generation has renewed the concept...
By the way, friends may find the following paper of interest:
http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.99.5.1/mto.99.5.1.james.pdf (http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.99.5.1/mto.99.5.1.james.pdf)
Quote from: matesic on Monday 07 November 2016, 15:05
This was the time Mahler wrote the accolade that jdperdrix quotes on page 1 above, suggesting that his feelings of 20 years earlier had been rekindled. My best guess is that his sense of bromantic kinship was such that he came to feel almost as one being with his long-lost classmate, whose death he may even have experienced some guilt over. Having failed to get Rott's symphony performed (apparently the technical difficulties due to Rott's inexperience were the major stumbling block) maybe Mahler felt he owed it to Rott to bring his music back to life in another way?
If Mahler wanted to "bring back (Rott's) music in another way" wouldn't he have had to mention him somewhere (e.g. as part of the German tempo marking?) since nobody had heard Rott's work and very few had even seen the score? Or was this just aimed at Rott's soul in heaven--in which Mahler did not believe? One has to remember that creating a work of art is a conscious activity, especially if the work is as complex as a great symphony.
The last sentence of the "accolade" (which points out that Rott didn't quite get to the "New Symphony" yet) seems to match the difference between the two movements (which are substantial despite the "common" roots) quite precisely. The whole thing seems weird to me.
This is a fascinating and enlightening discussion. Thank you to everyone contributing. The expertise on UC never fails to amaze me. As a lifelong fan of Mahler, my first encounter with Rott's music obviously impressed me, but I had no idea that his work preceded Mahler. I just foolishly assumed that he was an imitator. I certainly know better now!
'Tribute', 'conscious' or 'unconscious' 'quotation', 'borrowing', 'plagiarism' - I suppose that in the end it will come down to a matter of interpretation rather than an in controvertible fact.
Anyone who knows the ending of Mahler 1 who wants to actually hear Rott's Suite in E is welcome to email me for the MP3s of the OOP recording: pbarasi54@btinternet.com - although it will cost you 13MB + ideally also getting it on this site's downloads if, unlike me, you are savvy enough to do that.
Gentlemen: I have removed the confusing multiplicity of Mediafire links for obvious reasons:
1. Links to downloads are not to be posted on this board.
2. There was no indication as to the source of the downloads anyway. Please remember that such links are only to be posted in the Downloads board, together with details of the source, performers, etc, and are held there until the moderators OK them.
Thanks.
OK, but I assume a youtube link is OK here?
https://youtu.be/8kyxhAcNHBM
Yes, of course. Thank you!
Listening right now to Rott"s Symphony, I would find more natural, or more fair, to compare, in fine, this symphony written in 1878-80 with Mahler's Klagende Lied (written in 1879-80).
And what would you conclude from this comparison, M. Couton?
That Mahler already found, and completely, his style and manners while Rott was still looking for his own way between Bruckner and Brahms...
Thanks. Do you believe that Mahler ever took anything from Rott's music?
Yes but superficially, like quotes or homages as I wrote earlier in this topic.
This is what Paul Barasi wrote in reply 31:
QuoteOn the Music, Mahler deliberately quoted from Rott and did so more than from any other composer and he continued to do so throughout the Mahler symphonic cycle. Yes, Mahler 2 does make significant play of Rott, around the resurrection theme but most interesting is Mahler's 1st. For this is the only one in which Mahler draws from a second Rott work, the Suite in E, which builds in the finale and rounds off the symphony with the standing bell horns chorale.
Would you agree, M.Couton?
I agree that he stole from it
which implies intent and several other things besides.
(And what was the expression sometimes attributed to Picasso or to Stravinsky? (Something?...) borrows, genius (not a genius- genius, the noun) steals? Which I anyway've taken to mean that both owe to the past (generally and specifically, to times and to people, to people and to pieces, to pieces and to specific things in them...)- of course!!... - but the former's owings tend to stick out and be more noticeable because less assimilated; the latter has absorbed them into their way of doing things, has become master of them, makes use of them- and made them part of their stack of tools, their own, "stolen" them truly. Do you notice the Rott quotes as quotes of _something_ even if you do not know them as quotes of Rott, the way I anyway sometimes notice that (famous film composer's name omitted for space reasons) seems to be glancing at -something- on those occasions when I don't know what his inspirational source is (e.g.)?...)
Besides all which, they are both wonderful listening experiences.
No, I certainly don't notice Mahler's Rott quotations as being of "something", which I guess according to Eric's theory means it was Mahler's genius stealing rather his talent simply imitating. Their perfect assimilation also makes it impossible to regard them as homages of the conventional sort, prompting us to think "Ah, that's from Rott - what a tragedy!". But then again, now we're familiar with their sources their sheer obviousness at several points throughout Mahler's symphony cycle suggests a conscious act of quotation rather than merely a manifestation of his multi-filched toolbox. It's a mystery.
I don't know if others read the 'comments' section below the Youtube recording of the Rott symphony?; (posted by Stephen Jablonsky2 years ago)
"You can understand why Brahms hated the piece. It is just like Bruckner, only better. The fact that something so modern and powerful was written by a kid of 22 must have added to the ire. Listening to the piece is like discovering the store where Mahler bought his ideas. He took as much as he could carry and took them home and recooked them. Rott was dead four years when Mahler started his First Symphony but the seeds had been planted."
When you consider that all music is made up of scales and arpeggios, it is inevitable that the same ideas will surface independently from time to time. But the Rott / Mahler 5 comparison sounds very derivative. Perhaps Mahler was simply saying "This is how I think Rott should have done it"?
"All music is made of scales and arpeggios" writes HugoMiller-
belatedly: except that which isn't, of course.