Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Mahler and Schoenfield at the Vaudeville?
On today's date in 1895, Gustav Mahler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in the first complete performance of his own Symphony No. 2. Mahler's Second is often called the "Resurrection" symphony, as the work includes a choral setting of the "Resurrection Ode" of the 18th-century German poet Klopstock, but Mahler himself gave his symphony no such title. In a letter to his wife, Mahler confided that his Second Symphony "was so much all of a piece that it can no more be explained than the world itself." And like the world, music is often full of surprising transitions! The American composer Paul Schoenfield quotes a dramatic passage of Mahler's Second in his concerto for piccolo trumpet and orchestra titled "Vaudeville." In live performances, the sudden juxtaposition of Mahler and the Brazilian tune "Tico-Tico" always gets a laugh—which is just what Schoenfield intended. "I often suffer from depression," says Schoenfield, "and once, when I was feeling pretty low, a friend of mind suggested I try writing something happy and upbeat to see if that would help. Vaudeville was the result. I don't know if it helped me, but people say when they hear it, it makes them feel better. The music of other composers I respect has that effect on me, and I'm glad if "Vaudeville has that effect on others."