{"id":3162,"date":"2024-08-12T00:11:14","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T04:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2024-08-12T00:11:16","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T04:11:16","slug":"mahlerei-as-inspired-by-zero-mostel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2024\/08\/mahlerei-as-inspired-by-zero-mostel.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Mahlerei&#8221; &#8212; As Inspired by Zero Mostel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mahlerei (Scherzo from Symphony No. 4) - Mahler arr. Horowitz\/Schnyder - Colorado MahlerFest 2024\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vS7oI5q-6ec?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For a period of three decades, I have made music with the renegade bass trombonist David Taylor. These sessions began with sight-reading Beethoven cello sonatas in my living room. They accelerated with our mutual discovery that certain Schubert songs \u2013 especially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Nfjj5frL0cQ\"><strong>Doppelganger<\/strong><\/a> &#8212; potently inflamed Taylor\u2019s instrument. A few years ago, I threw caution to winds and turned the Scherzo of Mahler\u2019s Fourth Symphony &#8212; a whirling waltz\/scherzo &#8212; into a sui generis concertino for bass trombone and chamber ensemble:&nbsp;<em>Mahlerei<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Mahlerei<\/em> was premiered at the Kennedy Center and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/music\/2022\/04\/21\/post-classical-ensemble-mahler-kennedy-center\/\"><strong>praised in the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. I subsequently invited Daniel Schnyder to revise the accompanying parts. The resulting final version (the video above) was brilliantly realized at last May\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2024\/05\/why-colorado-mahlerfest-matters.html\"><strong>Colorado Mahlerfest<\/strong><\/a>, with a conductor (Kenneth Woods) and instrumentalists steeped in Mahler style.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My initial inspiration was an insane performance in my head of Zero Mostel singing Mahler\u2019s scherzo in Yiddish. What I wound up with, I would say, is more \u201cJewish\u201d than the original, and also funnier. But it purports to additionally capture the radiance and pathos of its source. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a nutshell: I have stitched together the various tunes Mahler distributes among his players and fashioned a relentless trombone excursion. Mahler\u2019s movement tracks an unusual trajectory. A bustling perpetual-motion waltz in C minor somehow yields a celestial D major vision. In&nbsp;<em>Mahlerei<\/em>, the bass trombone is an irritant whose intrusions are magically subdued by D major angels. I have fashioned the solo part accordingly \u2013 including a choreographed exit near the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a <em>New York Sun<\/em>&nbsp;review of Mahler conducting the New York Philharmonic, W. J. Henderson \u2013 one of the great names in American musical journalism \u2013 memorably wrote: \u201dWe used to think that Beethoven\u2019s scoring was tolerably simple and that most of it was purely harmonic. . . . But we are rapidly learning that it is quite as contrapuntal as Bach\u2019s and that what we foolishly supposed were mere thirds or sixths in chord formations are in reality individual melodic voices which must be brought out by exploring conductors.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so it is in Mahler\u2019s scherzo. Fashioning my concertino, I became acutely aware that Mahler foregrounds a concatenation of individual voices \u2013 including differentiated first and second violin parts that had never before registered in my ear. Using single strings accentuates this barnyard dimension \u2013 especially when realized by instrumentalists and a conductor who understand Mahler\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David Taylor and I are currently preparing a version of Schubert\u2019s\u00a0<em>Winterreise<\/em>. You can sample our Schubert <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/08\/schubert-lieder-on-the-trombone-continued.html\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>. And for trombonists or conductors interested in\u00a0<em>Mahlerei<\/em>, I possess scores and parts at hand. Have at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David and I gratefully acknowledge Ken Woods&#8217; exemplary advocacy, and his Colorado Mahlerfest band:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Caroline Eva Chin and Sophia Ann Szokolay, violins<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lauren Spaulding, viola<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Parry Karp, cello<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Geib, bass<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hannah Porter Occena, flute<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jordan Pyle, oboe<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gleyton Pinto, clarinet<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarah Fish, bassoon<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lydia Van Dreel, horn<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jack Barry, Matthew Dupree, Adam Vera, percussion<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brian du Fresne, harmonium<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Karcher-Young, piano<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a period of three decades, I have made music with the renegade bass trombonist David Taylor. These sessions began with sight-reading Beethoven cello sonatas in my living room. They accelerated with our mutual discovery that certain Schubert songs \u2013 especially Doppelganger &#8212; potently inflamed Taylor\u2019s instrument. A few years ago, I threw caution to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-P0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3168,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions\/3168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}