Gustav Mahler's Symphonic Landscapes

The relationship between Gustav Mahler's career as conductor and his symphonic writing has remained largely unexplored territory with respect to his provocative re-invention of the Austro-German symphony at the turn of the twentieth century. This study offers a new account of these works by allowing Mahler's decisive contribution to the genre to emerge in light of his sustained engagement with the musical, theatrical, and aesthetic traditions of the Austrian fin de si cle. Appealing to ideas of landscape, mobility, and theatricality, Thomas Peattie elaborates a richly interdisciplinary framework that draws attention to the composer's unique symphonic idiom in terms of its radical attitude toward the presentation and ordering of musical events. The identification of a fundamental tension between the music's episodic nature and its often-noted narrative impulse in turn suggests a highly original symphonic dramaturgy, one that is ultimately characterized by an abstract theatricality.

Author: Thomas Peattie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 04/06/2015
Pages: 234
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.90h x 7.00w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781107027084

Review Citation(s):
New York Review of Books 12/17/2015 pg. 75

About the Author
Peattie, Thomas: - Thomas Peattie is Assistant Professor of Music at Boston University. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Acta Musicologica, Music and Letters, and Naturlaut. His essay 'In Search of Lost Time: Memory and Mahler's Broken Pastoral' appears in the collection Mahler and his World (2002). His research interests include the Austro-German symphony, Gustav Mahler, early modernism, sound reproduction, auditory culture, aesthetics, and historiography.