Gustav Mahler Fan Club

Hans Rott: Symphony 1 Analysis Slight pause from the Bernstein lectures to go over Hans Rott, a short-lived composer who was incredibly influential on Mahler's pieces and Bruckner's 7th. I don't even need to explain how similar he sounds to Mahler, just hear it! We'll be continuing with Bernstein next week!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwYSQOhsKc&ab_channel=ImWalde

Watching the "Unanswered Question" - Lecture 2 Bernstein talks on connecting syntax to Chomsky's universal grammar, showing how language become structures. He brings this to transpositions, augmentation, and deletion in music, while continuing to bring back the comparison of music to language. Bernstein clearly highlights many of these connections in music and language, many of which aren't much touched on. Like language, music can be transformed and basic structure is the building blocks of each. Next lecture is on musical semantics, something we covered a lot in Mahler's works. See you then!

Watching the "Unanswered Question" - Lecture 1 Bernstein talks about phonology and its application to music, where pitches are universal, and the balance between diatonicism and chromaticism. Mahler's Kindertotenlieder uses these kinds of pitches, where he was able to construct music that sounded more "Chinese" based on the Chinese songs he based his lieders on. Continuing next week!

Watching Gustav Mahler: Autopsy of a Genius Day 2 We have finished Gustav Mahler: Autopsy of a Genius, starring the Leonard Bernstein. It was a really good documentary that starred with Leonard Bernstein-so many powerful lines from the maestro. Matthew also recommended to begin watching Leonard Bernstein's Harvard Lectures, many of which he talks about music in the present social scene, and it's where the famous string analysis came from!