New Music USA Online Library

Mahleriana

Ernesto P. Pellegrini

This work, especially written for Fred Ehnes who commissioned it and premiered it (1995), derives its title from the various Mahlerian musical sources which are utilized throughout it. But, the title also suggests a stylistic approach to a musical language that reminds one of much of the highly romanticized mannerism often associated with Gustav Mahler (1868-1911), the great master of the turn of the century. The primary sources are taken from Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder’s “nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle, Flammen,” and the first movements of Symphony No. 9 and Symphony No. 3. The Kindertotenlieder quotations are dispersed very briefly between each of the short interludes of the four section work. In a very free manner, the French horn quotation from the Symphony No. 9 makes up the third section, and, the source derived from the Symphony No. 3, a march-like melody, serves as a closer in the final section of the work. The first section, marked grave, contains much of the style and many of the musical cliches often identified with Mahler, and these “flavorings” are retained throughout the work but are always interwoven with touches of modernism, producing a resulting effect of a sentimental viewing and appreciation of a bygone era which vanised long ago. Even though the work is composed in one continous movement, it is never the less organized in four sections which are connected by three interludes and which are labeled as follows: I. Grave - Interlude I II. Tempo di valzer, ma molto rubato - Interlude II III. Andante comodo - Interlude III IV. Allegro moderato (variazioni) - Coda

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