Society for Music Theory

Success and Failure in Mahler's Sonata Recapitulations

Author(s): Seth Monahan
Source: Music Theory Spectrum , Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 37-58
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/mts.2011.33.1.37

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 Success and Failure in Mahler’s Sonata Recapitulations
seth monahan

This study brings Hepokoski and Darcy’s formal/dramatic categories of recapitulatory “success” and
“failure” to bear on Mahler’s canon of symphonic sonatas. Prior to the Seventh Symphony, Mahler
linked expression and formal process with striking regularity: early- or middle-period sonatas ending
affirmatively tended to feature properly functioning recapitulations, while sonatas ending tragically
showed themselves incapable of such tonal resolution. Just as strikingly, the pattern changes in the
composer’s late maturity: after 1905, Mahler seems less inclined to dramatize the tonic/non-tonic
tensions that motivated his earlier works.

Keywords: Mahler, symphonies, Sonata Theory, sonata recapitulation, narrative

A
nalysts have long been ambivalent about the role highly personal idiom. Indeed, his symphonic sonatas are idiosyn-
that sonata form should play in our understanding of cratic enough that analysts have been hard pressed even to recon-
Gustav Mahler’s music. Although no one has seriously cile them with each other. Only a generation ago, a critic as
disputed his use of inherited genres (sonata, rondo, minuet/ perceptive as John Williamson could legitimately wonder whether
trio), Mahlerians have typically defaulted to what Mark Evan any single “principle” could govern so diverse a repertory.5
Bonds calls a “generative” conception of form1—one that down- My aim in this study is to offer a corrective to these two du-
plays a composer’s dependence on preformatted plans in favor rable—but, I believe, problematic—generativist assumptions: (1)
of what is original, uniquely motivated, or (to use Robert that each of these movements is guided primarily by its own
Hatten’s term) “strategic” to the individual work.2 The result unique internal logic; and (2) that traditional sonata protocols
has been a widespread reluctance (whether anxious or merely have little bearing on the matter. Indeed, I hope to counter both
pragmatic) to bring sonata form into the analytic foreground, in a single stroke. I will argue that a surprisingly “traditional” con-
at least in a positive or normative sense. cept of sonata form informs all of Mahler’s early and middle-
Such generative thinking tends to come in three varieties. period symphonies—not as a rigid or binding schema, but as a
Most often, critics treat sonata form as an inconsequential or paradigmatic tonal and thematic drama, one that was capable of
innocuous “given” of first-movement design—a broad rhetorical underpinning Mahler’s many highly individualized realizations.
template, but little more. Hard-line generativists have occasion- We will find, contrary to received wisdom, that the central teleol-
ally gone further, questioning the relevance of the sonata con- ogy of the Enlightenment sonata—the resolution of long-range
cept altogether. Donald Mitchell, for instance, has urged us at tonal tension—is a central concern in these works, one that is
times to “forget . . . all about” Mahler’s vestigial sonata patterns intimately bound up with issues of expression and narrative arc.
to focus instead on the “real forms” built atop them.3 Still oth- My specific focus will be the works’ recapitulations, which I ex-
ers, especially Adorno and his advocates, have preferred to un- amine via James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s categories of
derstand traditional forms as reference points for purposeful recapitulatory “success” and “failure.” I will show that the ability
deviation—semantically significant, but mainly in a negative of a recapitulation to bring certain non-tonic expositional materi-
capacity.4 For all three positions, the assumption has been that als into the home key correlates strongly to a movement’s expres-
if we are interested in what is singular, expressive, or remarkable sive outcome, with affirmative or triumphant endings typically
in Mahler’s music, the traditional sonata concept will do us little coming after a “successful” reprise (whether timely or belated),
good; we will simply have to look elsewhere. and tragic endings usually following some kind of “failed” one.
This skepticism is hardly surprising when one considers the I begin by reviewing what Hepokoski and Darcy call the “es-
low esteem in which ossified Formenlehre models were held sential trajectory” of the eighteenth-century sonata, as well as the
throughout the last century. The notion of sonata form as an in- generic criteria by which recapitulations can be heard to “succeed”
flexible, prescriptive “mold” is difficult to square with Mahler’s or “fail” and their relevance to Mahler’s music.6 I then pause to
consider a range of methodological issues, with special focus on
1 Bonds (1991, 13–14). Hepokoski’s theory of sonata “deformation.”7 The analyses
2 Hatten (1994, 29–30).
3 Mitchell (2007, 391). He refers here to 6/IV, though he offers a similar 5 Williamson (1975, 203). That being said, Williamson himself would offer
assessment of 5/II (1999a, 286). 6/IV refers to Symphony No. 6, fourth several key contributions to a typology of Mahlerian sonata form in his
movement; this nomenclature is used throughout. later study of the Eighth Symphony (1983).
4 See Adorno (1992, 1998); Sponheuer (1978); Newcomb (1992); and 6 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 245).
Buhler (1996). 7 Hepokoski (1992, 143).

37

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 38 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

example 1.  The essential sonata trajectory to the ESC (adapted from Hepokoski and Darcy [2006, Figure 2.1b])

commence by inspecting clear-cut examples of success (in 1/I) cadences—the moments of EEC (essential expositional closure)
and failure (in 2/I). From there, I proceed to additional examples and ESC (essential structural closure)—shown at the dotted ar-
of both types: failed sonatas in 1/IV and 5/II, and successful ones rows’ convergences.
in 3/I, 4/I, and 6/I. The Finale of the Sixth Symphony is then A brief tour through Example 1 will orient us within the
shown as partially reversing the prevailing pattern; there, minor- plot-scheme and introduce essential nomenclature.9 The expo-
mode recapitulatory success contributes to the rhetorical/expres- sitional drama commences with a characteristic primary theme
sive failure of the symphony as a whole. Finally, I sketch Mahler’s (P), which establishes the tonic key and then proceeds, often by
incremental move away from these closure-oriented tonal dra- way of a transitional zone (TR), to a mid-expositional break or
mas, showing the tonic-fixated late sonatas to be incompatible “medial caesura” (MC).10 At this point a secondary theme (S)
with the paradigm documented above. enters, to propose a new tonic and eventually secure it with a
definitive perfect authentic cadence—the EEC, the exposition’s
sonata theory and the sonata plot paradigm tonal/rhetorical goal. From there, the music will often lead to a
closing theme or themes (C), which reinforce the newly
Over the past decade, Hepokoski and Darcy’s Sonata Theory attained key with additional cadential rhetoric.11 Barring exten-
has set out ambitiously to change the way our discipline con- sive recomposition, the recapitulation will proceed similarly—
ceives and analyzes sonata form. At the heart of their project is except now of course the secondary theme will be in the home
a single suggestive proposition: that sonata form is less a rigid
mold or schematic template than a dynamic process, structured 9 For a more detailed discussion see Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, Chapter
around a set of genre-defining tasks or goals. For these authors, Two, 14–22).
10 Expositions lacking a medial caesura are said to be “continuous,” distinct
the eighteenth-century sonata is an “expressive/dramatic” linear
from the “two-part” format described here (Hepokoski and Darcy [2006,
unfolding, a paradigmatic musical plot organized around the 51]). Though lacking a well-defined secondary thematic zone, continuous
attainment of two “generically obligatory” perfect authentic ca- expositions observe the same tonal/cadential protocols as their two-part
dences (PACs).8 Example 1 illustrates the “essential trajectory” cousins, and are similarly directed toward the moment of EEC. See the
of a standard (“Type 3”) sonata, with these load-bearing analyses of 1/I and 3/I below.
11 Strictly speaking, Hepokoski and Darcy’s P, TR, S, and C refer to “zones”
8 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 13). Colloquial descriptions of sonata form as or “action spaces,” not to specific themes. This nomenclature is well suited
“dramatic” are of course legion (cf. Tovey: “all true sonata style” is “dra- to eighteenth-century practice, in which a single rhetorical function may be
matic” [1927, 135]), but the idea has rarely been explored in depth outside shared by a succession of distinct themes or modules. I use the singular
of Rosen’s seminal works (1988 and 1998) and never conjoined with such term “theme” here and elsewhere (i.e., “primary theme,” etc.) both as a
a richly built analytic/hermeneutic apparatus. Other authors to consider shorthand and a means of reflecting Mahler’s more characteristically Ro-
the sonata as a paradigmatic plot include Newcomb (1987, 165–67); Tre- mantic tendency to organize sonata form around two discrete, integral, and
itler (1989, 210); Maus (1991, 3); and Almén (2008, 77). contrasting theme-agents.

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 39

key, driven toward the tonic-cadential ESC, the telos of the so- hermeneutics; in many analyses, these data are presented neu-
nata plot as a whole. Another closing zone and/or a coda may trally, without interpretation.15 A handful of critics have even
follow. challenged the idea that tonal plot might be a motivating factor
At first glance, this simple scheme might seem a meager for- in this music at all—the assumption being that Mahler’s ges-
mula for musical drama—especially on a Mahlerian scale.12 But tural, rhetorically micro-articulated forms are meant to “replace”
each of these zones can be vastly expanded and elaborated, their Beethovenian “goal-oriented” tonal plots.16 But a systematic in-
generic goals forestalled, ramified, or evaded through any num- quiry suggests otherwise. As I will show, Mahler just as often
ber of rhetorical strategies. Rather than serving as a Procrustean used his battery of discursive, “novelistic” techniques to drama-
“mold,” the sonata can now act as what Almén would call the tize the imperative tonal arc of the Enlightenment sonata. The
“primary narrative level”—an overarching dramatic framework difference, of course, is that the consummation of this tonal arc
that organizes and gives context to more localized details and is by no means a foregone conclusion. Success and failure are
gestures.13 Far from reducing away the unique details of indi- now vital stakes in the unfolding narrative.
vidual works, this plot-paradigmatic conception gives us a bet-
ter foundation on which to creatively engage and interrelate nonresolving recapitulations as sonata
them. “deformations”
A process-based model offers three further advantages when
confronting Mahler’s dauntingly heterogeneous corpus. First, it The “imperative tonal arc” of the traditional sonata leads, of
allows us to overcome the greatest limitations of “spatial” or “ar- course, back to the tonic. For Hepokoski and Darcy, this arc is
chitectural” models of form: their literal fidelity to the acoustic directed specifically toward the tonic-cadential ESC, which
surface and their resulting tendency to accentuate schematic di- closes off the secondary theme area and announces the comple-
versity. Committed wholly to depicting “what happens,” they tion of the sonata’s “generic mission.” However, if it happens
offer little incentive to weigh the significance of what does not that no ESC is forthcoming—if S is staged such that it cannot
happen—a critical factor in Mahler’s discourse of obstruction, produce a proper tonic cadence, or if it crystallizes in a non-
deflection, and staged collapse. The shift to a plot-paradigmatic tonic key—the result is what these authors call a nonresolved, or
approach permits greater intertextual nuance, allowing us in “failed,” recapitulation (by the same logic, a non-cadencing ex-
many cases to view the sonatas’ unique formal features as com- position would also be said to fail).17 In such cases, the burden
plications or disruptions within shared processes or teleologies. of tonal closure generally falls to the coda, and thus outside of
Second, a dynamic, plot-based approach provides the entry “sonata space” proper.18 Nonresolving recapitulations are rare in
point for a systematic examination of Mahler’s long-range the eighteenth century and appear only sparingly, to striking
tonal/cadential strategies. Given his career-long propensity to effect, in early and middle-period Beethoven.19 But the tech-
dramatize the attainment and evasion of cadences, it is surpris- nique turns up increasingly throughout the Romantic era; for
ing that issues of closure receive so little focused attention.14 It Bruckner it even became a default strategy, a means of prolong-
is rare for analysts to take stock of which themes attempt to ing tonal/dramatic tension deep into the coda.20
cadence, or in what key—even when such attempts spin out As already suggested, the notion that sonatas may proces-
over dozens or even hundreds of measures. With its abiding sively “succeed” or “fail,” depending on the effectiveness of their
concern for “expressive/dramatic” cadential trajectories, Sonata closure mechanisms, sheds new light on the relation of tonal
Theory sensitizes us to these processes and to the harmonic plot and expression in much of Mahler’s pre-1906 music, with
narratives they help to articulate. the analyses below revealing two basic tendencies. First, his af-
Finally, Hepokoski and Darcy’s model offers a much-needed firmative/major-mode sonata endings tend to follow properly
interpretive framework for these “harmonic narratives” them- functioning recapitulations (or, in two cases, post-sonata spaces
selves, by situating them in relation to certain classical and/or
Formenlehre norms. Though Mahler’s key plans are well docu- 15 Though, curiously, a few analysts have tried to capture the “coherence” of
mented, they have played at best a marginal role in formal this music almost entirely in terms of its key distributions; see Lewis (1984)
on the Ninth Symphony and Hailey (1992) on the Sixth.
16 Micznik (2001, 226). Cf. Adorno: since Mahler “could no longer rely sim-
12 Though neither has published on the topic, Hepokoski and Darcy have ply on tonality, fulfillments became for him a task of the purely musical
long advocated the relevance of Sonata Theory to Mahler’s corpus in the form,” and “The less the music is articulated by tonal language, the more
classroom and in personal correspondence. I am grateful to both authors strictly must it ensure its own articulation” (1992, 43 and 48).
for sharing analyses of various movements with me and to Hepokoski for 17 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 245, 177–79).
allowing me to audit his senior Mahler seminar at Yale. 18 Within Sonata Theory this distinction between sonata and non-sonata (or
13 Almén (2008, 163–64). “parageneric”) spaces is fundamental. See Hepokoski and Darcy (2006,
14 Paul Whitworth’s recent dissertation is a noteworthy exception (2002, 281ff.).
138ff.). By underscoring the immense significance carried by authentic ca- 19 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 246–47) cite no instances prior to the slow
dential gestures (successful or otherwise) in Mahler’s style, Whitworth of- movement of Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Op. 1/2 (1795); Hepokoski (2001–
fers a helpful complement to Hopkins (1990), who in his focus on closure 02, 136–44) discusses this work at length, as well as the Egmont Overture,
via “secondary parameters” seems at times to equate cadential infrequency Op. 84 (1810).
with diminished rhetorical potency. 20 Darcy (1997).

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 40 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

that nullify or counteract a tonally defective reprise). Conversely, To address these concerns, we must pause to examine two of
tragic/minor-mode conclusions typically come on the heels of the study’s foundational concepts: (1) Hepokoski’s “dialogic”
failed or malfunctioning recapitulations—those unable to effect image of form; and (2) its attendant (and controversial) notion
the proper tonal resolution and achieve closure. of structural “deformation.”25 In a dialogic analysis, “each work,
In most cases, we shall find that Mahler’s sonata dramas are at each of its moments, is understood to imply a dialogue with
oriented specifically around the ability of the secondary theme (S) a constellation of normative sonata options within the genre at
to attain tonic closure.21 On this point, the fit with Hepokoski that time and place in its history.”26 The individual work is nei-
and Darcy’s model is especially striking. For these authors, S is ther the mere exemplar of some reductive schema, nor the sui
privileged as the theme entrusted to enact a sonata’s “most de- generis fruit of a free-ranging imagination. Rather, it is the
fining events”—the cadential moments of EEC and ESC.22 To product of a composer’s productive, dialectical negotiation with
capture its purposive drive toward these goals, they fashion S as the “backdrop” of compositional options that are generically
an anthropomorphic musical “agent” on a kind of “mission.”23 “available” in his or her historical moment.27 When a composer
This “subjectivized” view of S accords well with the psychody- ventures beyond this horizon of perceived norms, the result is
namics of Mahler’s sonata designs. In many cases, we can hear what these authors call a “deformation”—a “stretching or distor-
the composer’s primary themes as objective or situational—they tion of a norm beyond its understood limits” or a “pointed over-
depict the “world” in which the drama unfolds. By contrast, his riding of a standard option.”28 Deformations range broadly in
S-themes often carry hyperbolized affective traits suggesting a scope, from isolated syntactic features to entire formal designs,
musically embodied persona, negotiating that world and react- and are usually understood to serve some expressive purpose. In
ing to its stimuli.24 The analyses ahead show what we gain by the larger picture, the deformation principle also supports an
merging these conceits, by imagining the Mahlerian S-theme as attractive model of style change. A procedure that is novel at
a musical agent bent on controlling its own modal/tonal fate, one point may be vernacularized over time, eventually becoming
seeking to secure closure in the tonic major while avoiding a a recognized feature of the style—an “available” default and thus
“tragic” collapse into minor (tonic or otherwise). Mahler is no longer a deformation.29 These mutations might then be sub-
rarely subtle about these matters: in most cases, failure will be ject to their own manipulation by later composers, giving rise to
less a matter of cadential niceties than of S finding the tonic key families of derivative procedures or forms.30
at all; in a few others, protracted efforts to pin down a glimpsed
tonic major will fall spectacularly to pieces. 25 For recent challenges to deformation theory, see Horton (2004, 153ff.);
Naturally, we would do well not to overstate the similarity be- Taruskin (2005, 2000–01); Horton (2005–06); and Straus (2006; though
tween Mahler’s sonatas and those of his Viennese forebears. The see also Hepokoski and Darcy [2006, 614–21]); Wingfield (2008); and
practical analytic differences are evident in each of the vignettes Webster (2009, 99–100).
that follow. As discussed below, the sheer size and diversity of 26 Hepokoski (2009, 181).
Mahler’s canvases mean that zooming out to a synoptic perspec- 27 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, vi).
28 Ibid. (11).
tive will incur a greater proportional loss of surface detail. We
29 Ibid.
shall also have to contend with the various, and often extravagant, 30 Hepokoski and Darcy are inconsistent on this point. In some places we read
programs and paratexts that guided Mahler’s structural decisions. that widely appropriated techniques are “no longer to be regarded as defor-
More important still are the broad methodological questions mations” (2006, 11), while in others we find some procedures granted defor-
that loom whenever we bring a classically calibrated gauge to mational status more or less indefinitely, even after vernacularization. (Vande
early modernist repertoire. This study’s interpretive approach Moortele has also noticed this disparity [2009, 4–5].) These contradictions,
turns on the principle of negative semantic function—the at- I believe, point to tensions between two competing models of historical in-
fluence. On the one hand is a linear paradigm, in which compositional de-
tribution of significance to an event that is not present in the
vices follow a natural lifespan through novelty, normalcy, and finally cliché.
music, but one that is nevertheless considered to be “obligatory” On the other is what Dahlhaus calls a “circumpolar” model, in which some
within some transcendent system of norms. (In this case, the cultural watershed exerts a direct, disproportionate, and undiminished influ-
obligation is the tonal resolution of S.) Here, apprehensive read- ence across successive generations (1989, 152). (Dahlhaus cites Beethoven,
ers might reasonably ask: Is it not anachronistic to evaluate but Rosen makes a similar case about the hypostatized Formenlehre sonata
Mahler according to “normative” practices that are several gen- itself [1998, 365–66].) When Hepokoski and Darcy refer to nonresolving
erations old? And if tonal resolution is (by a small margin) the recapitulations as “deformations” irrespective of decade or context—even
when, as with Bruckner, they are a first-level default (Darcy [1997, 258])—
exception among Mahler’s secondary themes, why should we
we see evidence of a circumpolar view, one in which the unchanging “text-
elevate it to the status of a “norm”? book” sonata serves as a dialogic referent for composers of several generations.
The glitch, of course, is that a term intended to connote the “strikingly non-
21 Mahler’s two “continuous” expositions, lacking S-themes, are exceptions. normative” (Hepokoski [1992, 143]) can come to label procedures that are,
See Note 6 above. in certain respects, anything but. Clearly this is a frame-of-reference issue: if
22 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 117). our expectations are guided by an idealized Formenlehre scheme, Bruckner’s
23 Ibid. (17). reprises are indeed “strikingly nonnormative.” If, on the other hand, our cri-
24 Eyuboglu makes a similar observation (2002, 3). As Adorno points out, teria are “epistemically specific” to Bruckner (as advocated by Horton [2005–
such a “subjective” voice is a musically constituted fiction, and should not 06, 17]), then nonresolution becomes foreseeable and ordinary. Which view
necessarily be equated with Mahler’s own (1992, 24–25); Monelle expands we favor will depend on our analytical aims and our convictions about what
upon this thesis (2000, 170–95). the composer asks of us as listeners.

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 41

By tracking a work’s divergence from an ideal type, a defor- “deformations” in the strong sense—that is, as deliberately and
mational hearing brings not only added drama and semantic meaningfully nonnormative. There are several reasons to do so,
richness, but also new hazards. One is contrivance; as Richard beginning with the unusual significance that early nineteenth-
Taruskin warns, the more extreme a putative deformation, the century (specifically Beethovenian) practice had in Mahler’s
greater our chances of mistaking mere dissimilarity for mean- own symphonic thinking. Although his reverence for Beethoven
ingful deviation.31 Another is arbitrariness; we must guard was hardly unusual, Mahler was self-consciously conservative,
against assigning a deformation the same meaning, or even in- imbibing little of the New German dogma regarding instru-
tensity of meaning, in every instance in which it occurs. Most mental music’s inadequacy. He saw his symphonic enterprise as
importantly, there is the question of norms: clearly, a dialogic enriching and continuing the Beethovenian legacy rather than
conception is only as convincing as its hypotheses for what superseding it. And unlike Strauss, he seems not to have chafed
“normative sonata options” actually were at a particular time against (what he understood to be) the traditional forms. Even
and place. This is the question Hepokoski and Darcy’s mono- before the anti-programmatic turn that produced the neo-clas-
graph seeks to answer with regard to late eighteenth-century sical Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, he declared that the “laws”
sonata composition. Their work’s success owes much to the pe- of the symphonic “groundplan,” passed down through Haydn
riod’s comparatively uniform practice; in this era, composers’ and Beethoven, were surely “profound and eternal.”35 Later, he
reliance on a shared formal/syntactical vernacular was extensive would announce “I’m quite happy if I can . . . pour my content
enough that one can speak convincingly of universally “common into the usual formal mould, and I avoid all innovations unless
options” and variously ranked “generic defaults.”32 they’re absolutely necessary.”36 With these comments, Mahler
But after Beethoven, two new factors—the fixation of the himself sets up Beethovenian practice as a “backdrop” of sorts
canon and the reification of formal schemes—complicate mat- for his own agenda, while even hinting at the significance of
ters considerably. Setting his or her pen to paper, a composer of suppressed norms. To this we can add a more specific point:
Mahler’s generation might be entering into dialogue with Mahler’s correlation of recapitulatory resolution and affective
(which is to say imitating, quoting, troping, negating, or “mis- outcome (discussed above) may strike us as too consistent to be
reading”) a daunting array of models: idiosyncratic masterworks incidental, suggesting at the very least that tonal resolution was
of the past, “rule of thumb” abstractions derived from—but a basic “issue” in his compositional grammar. And such a crisp
often bearing limited resemblance to—the latter, and increas- alignment of binary oppositions (resolution/triumphant ending
ingly diverse contemporary trends. So as we cross over into the versus nonresolution/tragic ending) invites the addition of oth-
later nineteenth century, the assessment of any single work’s ers: in this case normative design (and thus success) versus non-
dialogical orientation is bound to be a more speculative enter- normative design (and thus failure).37
prise than before. We may also find that it is less plausible to
reconstruct a single, universally applicable “backdrop” of norms
for most points on the post-Beethovenian timeline; beyond cer-
he presumes to censure—any such ideal type would, at the poietic level, be
tain generalizations, questions of normative construction might
the complex product of a composer’s specific repertory knowledge and
better be addressed on a case-by-case basis, drawing on our various learned and/or intuited generalizations (2008, 171). Perhaps Wing-
knowledge of a composer’s style, influences, and aesthetics. field’s deeper objection is to the reductivism seemingly inherent in our cul-
In Mahler’s case, we can safely assume that his work was tural habit of referring to this abstraction in the singular: “the” textbook
informed by some kind of idealized, transcendent “sonata-con- sonata. But it seems likely to me that this shorthand merely reflects the
cept”—one acting in the capacity of a Kantian “regulative assumption that composers’ individual, a posteriori sonata-concepts would
idea,”33 within which recapitulatory resolution would have been have been relatively uniform at least in their most basic elements. It by no
means implies that composers approached the form identically, or that a
a universally recognized norm.34 The pressing question is
composer’s own listening and study would not have impacted his/her work
whether we should understand his departures from that norm as in significant and detectable ways. (Neither does it suggest that composers
were bound to “stick to the [sonata] script” as they understood it; free cus-
31 Taruskin (2005, 2000–01). tomization would always have been an option.) Whether or not one finds
32 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 8). this assumption of “relative uniformity” warranted (I do), it is worth noting
33 Hepokoski (2001, 46). that at least some nineteenth-century composers seem to have thought
34 As part of their ongoing critique of deformation theory, Horton and Wing- along similar lines. Mahler and Strauss both casually refer to sonata form
field have challenged the utility and even the existence of such a concept, as though it were a single, communally-shared constructive principle—one
under the premise that “the models of sonata form proposed by Marx, Cz- that was both ubiquitous and stable since the time of the Viennese classics
erny, Reicha and others are not reducible to one general formula” (Horton (Bauer-Lechner [1980, 66]; Schuh and Trenner [1955, 82–83]). To say the
[2005–06, 7]; see also Horton [2004, 154] and Wingfield [2008, 154]). For least, neither intimates that his sonata-concept was so personal that it was
me, this critique misfires on several accounts. Setting aside the question of not more or less interchangeable with that of his contemporaries.
whether the theories of Marx, Czerny, et al. can be reduced to a single for- 35 Bauer-Lechner (1980, 66). Mahler refers here both to “traditional” forms
mula (to an extent they can, I believe), we should not suppose that such a and to the phrase structures within them: “The only difference is that, in
sonata-concept—despite often being named for convenience after the For- my works, the sequence of the movements is not the same, and the variety
menlehre—was ever, in the minds of serious composers, grounded solely or and complexity within the movements is greater” (Ibid.).
even mainly in the particulars of theoretical treatises (a view they seem 36 Ibid. (131; italics original).
mistakenly to attribute to Hepokoski and Darcy). As Wingfield himself 37 Following Hatten (1994), the “marked” elements of the binaries align here:
observes—in what seems to be unwitting agreement with the authors nonresolution, tragedy, nonnormativity, and failure.

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 42 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

example 2.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 1 in D, first movement (development omitted)

Finally, it is worth noting that certain hermeneutic aspects From the standpoint of global narrative, such exclusions are well
of deformation theory resonate persuasively with existing tradi- nigh unpardonable; as Adorno writes, Mahler’s “totalities” are
tions of Mahler reception. Hepokoski and Darcy urge us to hear built up from details that are both “irreplaceable” and essential
nonresolving recapitulations as moments of semantic overload; to understanding.42 But as much as my focus on sonata form is
they are by nature “powerfully expressive” malfunctions,38 dis- a dramatic one, it is beyond the scope of this study to present a
posed to create “a sense of unease, alienation,” or “futility,”39 and complete narrative image of each movement discussed.
betraying a sonata’s “insufficiency” to fulfill its own “generic de- Accordingly, I have limited my focus here to the crucial events
mands.”40 Undoubtedly, these colorful descriptives would prove of the sonata process, which is to say mainly expositions and
too narrow or hyperbolic in some contexts; I would resist apply- recapitulations—their parity, their divergence, and their drama-
ing them arbitrarily. (The same goes for the term “failure” it- tization of tonic/non-tonic polarities. To the extent that devel-
self.) But in Mahler’s case they are entirely appropriate. By opmental events directly impinge on these trajectories, I have
imagining sonata failure as a form of immanent critique, endeavored to include them. But there are many teleological
Hepokoski and Darcy echo Theodor W. Adorno, who heard threads winding through these movements, and some have in-
Mahler’s music staging its own “brokenness” as an indictment of evitably been left out. My hope is that curious readers might
harmonious Enlightenment symmetries.41 (In this sense, Sonata explore for themselves how the sonata-based narratives outlined
Theory offers one perspective on how we might flesh out here might integrate or interact with the other subplots and
Adorno’s analyses with the details he notoriously withheld.) storylines woven into these richly multivalent works.
That said, I would not go so far as to suggest that sonata failure
could itself produce a sense of “unease” or “futility,” and thank- early paradigms of success and failure: 1/i and 2/i
fully there is no need to. In Mahler, these structural failures are
always components of broader, easily perceived, expressive nar- The opening movements of the First and Second
ratives. Indeed, the appeal of these sonata-based readings may Symphonies offer vivid early examples of sonata success and
ultimately lie in their revelation that Mahler’s “deep” structural failure, respectively. At first, 1/I might seem an unlikely candi-
processes can be heard to operate closely in tandem with the date for a model of “normative” sonata form.43 The exposition is
hyperexpressive musical surfaces that so captivate his listeners. among Mahler’s most unusual: a single stream of lyrical melody,
Before moving on, a few words are in order about the based on the Wayfarer song “Ging heut Morgen über’s Feld,”
scope and aims of the analyses to follow. As might be imag- unfolds in three broad stanzas, without conflict or contrast (see
ined, in striving for analytic breadth—in committing to at- Example 2). The development’s eccentricities are just as numer-
tend to each of Mahler’s twelve dauntingly complex sonata ous: a lengthy return to the slow-introductory music; a tumultu-
forms—I have had to accept certain compromises in terms of ous premonition of the F-minor finale (m. 305); and the first of
analytic depth. Nowhere is this more regrettable than in my Mahler’s famed Durchbruch passages (m. 352), one that barrels
relatively scant treatment of Mahler’s development sections.

38 Darcy (1997, 258). 4 2 Adorno (1992, 19).

39 Hepokoski (1993, 94). 43 Some analysts are reluctant to call it a sonata at all. Barham calls it an “os-
40 Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 245). tensible” sonata (2007, 60); Roman (2007) apprehensively labels its sections
41 Adorno (1992, 32–33); Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, 254). with scare-quotes (“exposition,” and so forth).

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 43

forward so forcefully that it overwrites the recapitulation of the wayfarer’s juvenile escapades. But in m. 305 the new theme’s true
main theme.44 colors emerge: it is the seed of the finale’s F-minor “wounded
But despite its schematic idiosyncrasy, the movement is ab- heart” music, which begins to unfold here in a terrifying prolep-
solutely straightforward from the standpoint of sonata process; sis.48 It is in response to this dark premonition that Mahler un-
its tonal/cadential trajectory could hardly be spotlighted more leashes the bombastic tonic-key Durchbruch (m. 352).
emphatically. The exposition’s hundred-measure stringendo is Raymond Knapp smartly suggests that the ensuing recapitu-
aimed directly at a single cadence: the dominant-key EEC in m. lation—a perfunctory affair, despite the addition of a few new
135. And in the recapitulation Mahler brings this same music twists—might represent a retreat from this maturational arc back
back to serve up the correlative, tonic-key ESC in m. 416—an into the “obliviousness” of the exposition.49 This image of the
ecstatic arrival well suited for the “generic goal” of an entire formulaic recapitulation as a kind of avoidance behavior is at-
movement. Understandably, analysts have tended to pass over tractive for several reasons. It allows us to hear the mannered
this conventional tonal scheme in favor of more distinctive fea- triumphalism of the recapitulation’s new “hunt” theme (m. 358)
tures. But in so doing, they have neglected to consider its stra- as willfully rather than incidentally naïve—as if in defiance of
tegic role in the movement’s overall conception. Given the adulthood’s unpleasant revelations.50 It also sheds new light on
harmonic sophistication of Mahler’s other sonata-form move- the most crucial difference between the orchestral movement
ments from 1888 (1/IV and 2/I), we can hardly attribute its and its source song: the omission of the latter’s off-tonic
simplicity to inexperience. I would argue instead that this blithe, Abgesang. There, Mahler equates tonal nonclosure with expres-
“naïve” sonata design is programmatically motivated—no less so sive deflation: the wayfarer ends up stranded in a melancholic F
than the form’s more striking or singular features. major, alienated from the bucolic D major of the opening. Here,
On the whole, the movement inhabits the same expressive/ the tonic-major reprise derives much of its meaning from its
programmatic world as its source song, depicting an adolescent ability to resist this kind of tonal/affective malaise. The spring-
traveler in buoyant communion with his spring surroundings.45 time of youth may not be endless, as the program suggests—but
The sonata’s structural and processual properties are crucial to by consummating the sonata plot, Mahler ensures for the mo-
this psychological characterization. Being both monothematic ment that his hero’s ordeals lie safely over the horizon.
and “continuous,” the exposition proper (m. 63ff.) lacks any Though the First Symphony soon moves on to weightier
significant element of contrast; it portrays a mind both self- matters, Mahler was not through with his portrait of the way-
absorbed and -assured, prior to any confrontation with an farer-hero’s idyllic youth. Remarkably, it would be a topic of the
oppositional Other—whether fate, foe, or female.46 The sonata- Second Symphony’s opening movement as well—now as a series
protagonist’s goals are rustically unpretentious and smoothly of flashbacks amid the hero’s funeral rites (Todtenfeier).51 Here
attained, with little trace of conflict or impediment. (Notice we encounter a sonata design diametrically opposed to the one
how the main theme reaches the dominant in only eight mea- discussed above; it is episodic, contrast-driven, and structurally
sures, as casually as Mahler’s wayfarer might hop over a fence.47) unsound, culminating in a graphic and programmatically moti-
This is not music that has transcended struggle; it is a music too vated sonata failure. Example 3 shows the movement’s outlines,
credulous to foresee that struggle is inevitable. again with the development omitted. The topmost brackets di-
Of course, glimpses of turmoil will not be lacking. But these vide the exposition into two broad subrotations, each beginning
will only serve to bring the deliberately guileless sonata plot into with a presentation of P in the tonic and culminating in a minor-
greater relief. In the development, there appears a new, cantabile, mode PAC.52 The first subrotation establishes the movement’s
cello theme whose circumspection and modal instability suggest
the awakening of a more sober, adult sensibility (mm. 167–202);
the music, it seems, would feign to grow up. Repeatedly, the 48 Compare to 1/IV, mm. 62, 86, et passim. Mahler described this finale theme
as “the most terrible of battles . . . with all the sorrows of this world”
major-mode pastoral sphere tries to absorb this “mature” topic
(Bauer-Lechner [1980, 240]), one that began with the “outcry of a deeply
(mm. 221, 257, and 291), making it more amenable to the wounded heart” (1893 program; see Mitchell [1995, 158]). Measure 305ff.
in 1/I specifically foreshadows 128ff. in the finale.
49 Knapp (2003, 169 and 174).
44 On the “breakthrough” principle, see Adorno (1992, 6–10 and 24–25); see 50 This theme first appeared in the development (m. 209; also in D), where it
also Buhler (1996, 129ff.). is recognizable as a regressive simplification of the affectively complex
45 Mahler’s original title for this movement was “Frühling und kein Ende!”; “maturational” theme that precedes it (mm. 167–202). There, too, it com-
the entirety of Part I (movements I–III) was designated “Aus den Tagen der poses over the rotationally expected return of the primary theme.
Jugend.” The slow introduction was intended to depict “the awakening of 51 Mahler explained that in this movement “it is the hero of my D major
nature from a long winter’s sleep” (Mitchell [1995, 157–59]), a theme Symphony who is being borne to his grave, his life being reflected, as in a
Mahler would revive a decade later in the Third Symphony. clear mirror.” The Andante, too, was to be “a memory . . . out of that hero’s
46 As later in 3/I, the movement’s primary contrast obtains between the so- life” (Martner [1979, 180]; emphasis original). These same themes appear
nata- and non-sonata spaces rather than within the sonata itself (in this in his program for the symphony; see Mitchell (1995, 179–84). (Mahler
case, song-based gemächlich sections and the slow “introductory” music). composed the Todtenfeier movement at roughly the same time as the First
47 Indeed, modulation by fifth is so effortless that Mahler goes a notch too Symphony [1888]; he would finish the Second in 1893–94.)
far—note the long stretch of E major in mm. 92–107—and must sheepishly 52 Double subrotational expositions are a staple of Mahler’s style, appearing
retreat back to A major for stanza three. in 3/I, 4/I, 8/I, 9/I, 10/I, and possibly 7/I (see Note 116 below).

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 44 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

example 3.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, first movement (development omitted)

main rhetorical opposition: the C-minor funeral march (P), sig- striking resilience. Undaunted, S will return twice in this key,
nifying the bitter present and its anguished uncertainties (“Why each appearance longer and more robust than the last: first in
did you suffer? Is it all only a vast, terrifying joke?”), and the lu- the development (m. 129), then in the recapitulation (m. 361).55
minous E-major “Gesang” theme (S), a poignant reminiscence And yet its ephemeral character continues: neither sounding is
of the hero’s former “passions and aspirations.”53 ever validated by a proper four-sharp key signature, and each
As discussed above, the generic task of this pastoral S would disintegrates into minor without cadencing. In the latter case,
be securing the secondary key, E major, with a strong PAC. this results in a “doubly” failed recapitulation (see Example 3): a
However, Mahler takes pains to portray the theme as ephemeral “wrong-key” S unable to produce an ESC. And as the last light
and unstable: he withholds any root-position tonic (the music of E major fades (m. 388), the failed S-reprise quickly yields to
hovers over a series of dominant pedals) and leaves the three- the bleak C-minor of the closing and coda zones. As antici-
flat tonic key signature in place, giving the music a precarious, pated, structural failure points the way toward expressive failure.
transient look even on the printed page. Ultimately, S proves But just as we should not mistake correlation for narrative
unable to substantiate its proposed tonality; in m. 59 it collapses causality (it makes little sense to say that the movement ends
into Eb minor for an ominously conclusive PAC.54 Unwilling to tragically “because” S was reprised off tonic), neither should we
accept so symbolically bleak a key for expositional closure, the arbitrarily equate “failure” here with the worst of all possible
music makes a second pass: P returns, launching the second outcomes. This secondary theme may be tonally “alienated,” to
subrotation (m. 64)—but now, except for a briefly galvanized use Hepokoski’s term56—it is excluded from the tonal resolu-
major submediant (m. 74), the music remains trapped in the tion—but it has at least been permitted to retain its ardent
minor mode, eventually settling on a grim EEC in G minor (m. major-mode character. Surely a more dire outcome would have
97), the portal to a progressively enervated closing zone (C). been a presentation of S in the tonic minor, suggesting an emp-
Strong closure notwithstanding, this exposition is still per- tying of its redemptive potential and a full capitulation to the
haps best understood as a rhetorical failure. After the promise relentless march. (Mahler would resort to this blackest of op-
of an E-major EEC, the minor-dominant ending (delivered tions only once, in the Finale of the Sixth; see below.) Instead,
by the “wrong” theme, and in the “wrong” key) offers only we have a more ambivalent situation. Frozen in the past tense,
cold comfort, and has unavoidably tragic implications. What the hero’s idyllic E-major memories remain happily “un-
is remarkable, though, is that for all its transience, the touched” by the grim reality of the C-minor present. But nei-
S-theme’s E-major tonality (the “true” secondary key) shows ther are they able to transfigure that reality and lift the music

53 The quotations are Mahler’s; see Martner (1979, 180) and Mitchell
(1995, 183). 55 The first of these appearances features an eight-measure lead-in in the
54 Eb minor is the modal inverse of the symphony’s goal tonality. In the devel- tonic major (mm. 117–29). There is only one other full instance of S, a ton-
opment, the movement will lose itself in an Eb-minor underworld for nearly ally itinerant developmental episode that passes through F, C, Bb, and Eb
a hundred measures (mm. 244–320), searching for—and occasionally catch- minor (m. 208).
ing—glimpses of the finale’s emancipatory Eb major (mm. 282–88). 56 Hepokoski (1993, 94).

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 45

example 4.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 5 in C# Minor, second movement (development omitted)

into a more affirmative C major. Their function here is mainly a return, one that (unusually for Mahler) encompasses the
bittersweet valediction.57 Death, they seem to reassure us, can- P-theme materials and the coda as well.
not divest us of our most cherished recollections. But neither As Example 4 shows, the exposition falls into two broadly
can we take the things remembered with us when we cross to differentiated and internally variegated thematic zones. P pres-
the other side. ents two distinct ideas in the tonic A minor: the infernal P1—
less a theme than a torrent of windborne motivic debris—and
more instances of sonata failure: 5/ii and 1/iv the more properly thematic (but short-lived) P2. S offers rhe-
torical contrast but no expressive relief; it is staid and self-
For those who know its chaotic surface (to say nothing of its possessed, but resolutely bleak in its funereal comportment.59
countergeneric placement in the second-movement slot), it will And only briefly can it keep the movement’s disintegrative im-
come as little surprise that the Fifth Symphony’s Hauptsatz pulse at bay: after repeated attempts to force itself into the rela-
(1902) is Mahler’s most dysfunctional sonata form.58 Fraught tive major (mm. 93 and 123), S simply dissolves, swept aside by
with collapses, digressions, and discontinuities, its sonata archi- the implacable anti-refrain of P1 (m. 141).60
tecture is taxing to follow at the musical surface and nearly in- This egregious expositional failure sets the tone for what is
coherent at the level of musical process. Its recapitulatory failure to come. The development moves with increasing perseverance
is Mahler’s most explicit. As in 2/I, the secondary theme returns to crystallize some viable major-mode contrast (mm. 161, 266,
outside the tonic, again partly “frozen” in its original key. But 288, and 316—the last of these in the tonic major). But each
this S-failure is symptomatic of a more broadly defective tonal hopeful impulse unravels in turn, leading to a mounting sense of

57 Mahler writes this leave-taking directly into the music, as a series of Wag- 59 Hepokoski hears this, Mahler’s only minor-mode S, as a corruption of the
nerian allusions: the Liebestod (m. 364) and “Brünnhilde’s farewell” (mm. “gendered two-block exposition” typical of many post-1840 sonatas: “what
370 and 384). ‘ought’ to be the generically redemptive feminine, major-mode second
58 Mahler called 5/II a “Hauptsatz” on several occasions, to clarify the merely theme” is “written over” here by the F-minor march (2001, 248–50).
introductory nature of the symphony’s first-movement funeral march (Flo- 60 Nearly all of P1’s rondolike recurrences mark the collapse of some incipient
ros [1993, 45] and Williamson [1986, 30]). (In key respects, 5/I is an au- major-mode impulse. Sometimes this occurs instantaneously, as at the
tonomized expansion of the off-tonic slow introductions found in 1/I, 3/I, onset of the development (m. 141), the recapitulation (m. 323), and the
4/I, 6/IV, and 7/I.) Together, the two movements form the work’s “Part coda (m. 520); in other instances, motives from P1 gradually infiltrate and
One.” Some have imagined 5/I to be a kind of “exposition,” broken off undermine an ongoing passage (see m. 230ff., and also m. 428ff.—though
from the “developmental” 5/II, whose themes it shares (Tischler [1949, the last of these undermines a thematic region that has already collapsed
240] and Adorno [1992, 96]). into minor).

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 46 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

futility and corroborating Adorno’s vision of a “formal principle” Indeed, many of the most characteristic features of 5/II have
whose purpose is simply “to lead nowhere.”61 their origin there: the infernal primary theme; the tendency to-
The dominion of Gang over Satz continues into the reca- ward flashback and rupture; the climactic Durchbruch chorale.
pitulation, as the movement’s insatiable forward sweep begins Nevertheless, these sibling movements use their common ele-
to erode the distinctions between thematic zones and even ments to tell very different stories. And ultimately, it is the ear-
movements. Moments after locking onto the tonic (m. 334), P lier of the two that emerges as the more radical in its response
swerves toward the minor dominant (m. 342), setting the reca- to structural failure: rather than resigning itself to a languid
pitulation on its tonally defective trajectory and preparing one tonic-minor ending, 1/IV discards its failed F-minor sonata al-
of the most remarkable passages in all of Mahler’s music: the together, in favor of a transcendent escape into the symphony’s
simultaneous (off-tonic) recapitulation of P2 and S (m. 356), global D-major tonic.
culminating in an irruptive flashback to the previous move- For Hepokoski, 1/IV features a “near-perfect illustration” of
ment’s lacerating Trio I.62 The downward spiral hits bottom at what he terms a “Dutchman”-style exposition, after Wagner’s
m. 428, with a catastrophic arrival on Eb minor, the dystopian overture—one that pivots on the stark opposition between a
tritone pole of the sought-after tonic.63 But when P1 begins “tormented, driven, ‘masculine’ first theme” in the tonic minor
again to stir, suggesting the onset of another fruitless rotation and “an angelically redemptive, lyrically ‘feminine’ second
(m. 442), Mahler intervenes with his most famous Durchbruch, theme,” in the non-tonic major.67 Here, a violent, stürmisch P,
a “celestial apparition” of the symphony’s D-major finale. 64 unfolding in four long paragraphs, gives way in m. 175 to its re-
Though the chorale-premonition quickly burns itself out, the demptive counterpole—an ardently lyrical submediant S that
afterimage of its tonic D lingers into the coda (m. 520), cor- arcs broadly toward a single culminating PAC in m. 221. Initially,
roded into minor. It is only in its last few moments that the this S appears to be absent from the development, where fiery
movement exhaustedly regains the tonic A (m. 557), some two P-based episodes (mm. 254 and 317) link a disjointed series of
hundred measures after losing it. flashbacks and premonitions (see Example 5). During the last of
Here we are faced with a recapitulatory failure far more per- these, the music arrives on a C dominant (m. 436), suggesting
vasive than a “mere” off-tonic S. And yet there are reasons to imminent retransition. But in its place, there unfolds an ex-
suspect that the originating defect, the root of the disorder, is tended presentation of S in the tonic major, over a sustained dom-
still S itself. Setting aside the negative consequences of a minor- inant pedal (m. 458). Merely to call this passage a “recapitulation,”
mode ending, this sonata’s “success,” qua sonata, would have as many have, is arguably to miss a carefully crafted ambiguity.68
required a presentation of S in the tonic A minor (and ideally an A more nuanced hearing might start from the fact that this
ESC for a definitive conclusion). So it is significant that by the F-major secondary theme (anticipating the “ephemeral S” topos
time the recapitulation begins, we have already heard S in A of 2/I) is powerless to substantiate itself: as its dominant pedal
minor—at its very first appearance, in the previous movement’s draws out to maddening lengths, refusing to resolve, the music’s
Trio II (m. 323).65 Surely this is no coincidence. As Charles placid lyricism gives way to agitation, outrage, and finally ener-
Rosen, Hepokoski, and others have observed, classical conven- vation. After rising to a minor-mode shriek in m. 496, S subsides
tions seemed to dictate against “redundant” tonic-key presenta- and vanishes forever (m. 508), unconsummated.
tions of S-materials: if some portion of S appeared in the tonic Example 5 places this ill-fated S within the development,
prior to the recapitulation, it will tend to be omitted from the partly because its pseudo-retransitional dominant does, after
latter.66 Mahler may have been playing here with just such a eighty-four measures, lead to a tonic reprise (m. 533).69 But it is
proscription, cruelly obliging the music to pursue a generic goal perhaps better heard occupying a space that is neither develop-
that is categorically “unavailable” because of its prior sounding, ment nor recapitulation, a borderline region outside of the so-
and thus building futility—so obviously thematized at the mu- nata proper. Mahler’s own comments can help to clarify. In
sical surface—into the heart of the sonata itself. 1894, Richard Strauss voiced reservations to his colleague about
Futility had provided Mahler with a formal principle once an apparent redundancy in this movement. As the dotted lines
before, in the F-minor finale of the First Symphony (1888). in Example 5 show, the Durchbruch climax is foreshadowed
twice in the development: the first is in a subdued C major (m.
61 Adorno (1992, 10). 290), but the second is longer, more resolute, and (critically)
6 2 Compare 5/II, m. 392ff. to 5/I, m. 155ff. already in the target key of D major (m. 370). Mahler explained
63 In the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Mahler uses tritone relationships to
to Strauss that the first D-major passage was “merely” a proposed
signify maximal tonal difference/distance, expressively amplified by choice
of mode; See Note 99 below. Eb minor is also featured prominently in the
development of 5/II, during the extended elegiac cello recitative that begins 67 Hepokoski (2001, 448). His use of gendered terms here (“masculine” and
in m. 189. “feminine”) should be understood in light of his essay on that controversial
64 Adorno (1992, 12). topic (1994).
65 Along similar lines, it seems significant that the only time the recapitula- 68 See for instance Floros (1993, 45); Mitchell (1995, 205); Buhler (1996,
tory S approaches the threshold of the tonic minor (m. 388), the music 140); McClatchie (1996, 114); and Almén (2006, 152).
explodes convulsively into an extended (non-tonic) quotation from the first 69 In Mahler’s original version, this music was both longer and a step higher,
movement Trio I (m. 392; see Note 62 above). thus strengthening the case for its exclusion from the recapitulation; see
66 Rosen (1988, 288) and Hepokoski (2002, 131). McClatchie (1996, 113–24).

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 47

example 5.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 1 in D, fourth movement

“solution” to the movement’s turmoil; it was to be the idea of the perceived futility. (Mahler originally had the theme return with
breakthrough, without being the thing itself.70 “My intention,” its original vehemence, but then thought better of it.73) And it is
he wrote, “was to show a struggle in which victory is furthest amidst this stalemate that the D-major Durchbruch springs forth
from the protagonist just when he believes it closest.”71 (m. 623), resetting the tonality to that of the opening movement
These comments point to a rhetorical category—I shall call it and declaring the F-minor sonata a lost cause.
“hypothetical music”—that proves indispensable for interpreting Only twice would Mahler follow a failed recapitulation with
Mahler, who so often requires us to distinguish between what is so unambiguously triumphant an ending. Years later, in 6/I, he
merely hinted at (or wished for) and what is conclusively at- would rely on the coda to deliver S into the tonic, amending the
tained. I submit that this would-be “recapitulation” is exactly this sonata on its own terms and thus making for a belated proces-
kind of “hypothetical” music: the sonata dreams of a tonic home- sive “success.” Here we find something different: an interven-
coming for S, but the resolution remains out of reach, and the tion that comes from without, a kind of transcendent epiphany.
dream darkens into nightmare.72 Worse still, the music awakens And, once again, this deformation carries strong programmatic
to find the “real” recapitulation tainted by the knowledge, as in 5/ implications. In a letter to Strauss, Mahler once compared this
II, that S has already expended its one opportunity for a tonic- movement to the most profound of “spiritual struggles.” His
key presentation. It has failed before it has even begun. P enters symphonic protagonist would achieve what he called a “true vic-
accordingly (m. 533), its hedging pianissimo a reflection of tory,” but only at the ultimate cost—his very “essence” would
need to be “broken” through various trials and conflicts.74 The
finale’s short-circuited recapitulation and jarringly non-sequitur
70 Buhler discuss this passage and its critical reception at length (1996,
125–28).
ending seem to reflect just such a redemptive/transformative
71 Blaukopf (1984, 37). struggle: the overtaxed F-minor sonata (the movement’s “es-
72 Hepokoski and Darcy hear this passage in dialogue with (but not reducible sence”) is driven to “break”—that is, fail—before our very ears.
to) what they call a “Type 2” sonata, one that features a “tonal resolution” But its exertions and sacrifices, we might imagine, are necessary
consisting solely of S and C elements rather than a full recapitulation (2006, to unlock the transfiguring power of the breakthrough, as its
364; see also Chapter 17, 353–87). The Type 2 is frequently encountered
prior to 1770; its nineteenth-century use has been disputed; see Wingfield 73 Mitchell (1995, 205).
(2008, 155–60). 74 Blaukopf (1984, 37).

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 48 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

example 6.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 3 in D, first movement (development omitted)

annunciation of the global tonic D major induces a higher state The recapitulatory rotation passes through these same spaces,
of tonal/structural “awareness,” liberating us from the unscroll- except that the sonata sections are then entirely within the tonic
ing F-minor present and granting insight into a higher-level, F. This hearing posits what I call an “embedded” sonata—one
trans-symphonic unity. In such a conception, the sonata would that unfolds discontinuously, surrounded by vast expanses of
have to fail, so that the symphony, as a whole, could succeed. non-sonata “introductory” spaces.
Understandably, though, some critics have found the idea of
sonata-form successes: 3/i, 4/i a 246-measure introduction counterintuitive or far-fetched.
Accordingly, they have tended to hear that opening music as an
We turn now to those movements that correlate sonata-form expansive D-minor “primary theme,” one that proceeds to an
success with a positive rhetorical outcome, beginning with “Part eclectic, march-based “secondary” group in F major. In these
One” of the Third Symphony (1896). At nearly 900 measures, interpretations, the sonata is coextensive with the movement in
this movement is Mahler’s longest symphonic opening by a wide its entirety, eliminating the non-sonata spaces completely.
margin. It is also his most problematic from the standpoint of For our purposes, the most significant difference between
sonata-form analysis; even the most basic questions of sectional these two perspectives is the way in which they model the so-
division and thematic identity are open to multiple interpreta- nata’s tonal narrative. In an embedded-sonata reading (see
tions. Before I set out the finer points of my own hearing, I Example 6), the D-minor introduction delays the onset of the
would like first to survey the movement’s specific challenges and “real” sonata tonic F, and things proceed smoothly from there,
the ways in which critics have responded to them. with the recapitulation functioning exactly as it should. By con-
Analysts generally agree that the expositional rotation di- trast, a coextensive-sonata reading understands D minor as the
vides into two broad contrasting fields: a slow, D-minor funeral tonic and F major as the secondary sonata key. This leads to a
march (mm. 1–246) and a procession of F-major marches, most radically deformational plot in which both the exposition and
of which grow from thematic seeds planted in the former (mm. recapitulation fail—the former because it ends in the “tonic” D,
247–368).75 Where critics differ is on how best to reconcile this the latter because it ends in the “secondary key” of F.76
massive two-block design with a sonata template. One common Both interpretive traditions boast prominent adherents,77
parsing strategy has been to regard the movement’s first 246 but for me the “embedded” sonata reading is more attractive for
measures as an off-tonic introduction. As Example 6 shows, this
interpretation yields a design which, in its broad outlines, re- 76 Marvin (2008) is the first author to remark upon the unusual tonal narrative
sembles that of Symphony No. 1/I: an extended, off-tonic in- that falls out from the coextensive-sonata reading. Such progressive-tonal
troductory zone (which will return later in the form) gives way schemes are relatively common in Mahler, of course, with often-cited ex-
to a “continuous” exposition whose single long crescendo culmi- amples occurring in the finales of the First, Second, and Fourth Symphonies.
77 Danuser (1975, 92); Greene (1984, 144); Adorno (1992, 78–80); Floros
nates in an emphatic EEC in the secondary key (here, D major).
(1993, 94–95); and Darcy (2001) offer embedded-sonata readings. Coexten-
sive-sonata interpretations appear in analyses by Specht (1916); de La
75 Though even this parsing is not universal: Micznik (2005) ends the exposi- Grange (1973, 801–02); Solvik (1992, 526–27); Micznik (2005, 322–23); and
tion as early as m. 163, while Stephan (1920) extends it as far as m. 529. Marvin (2008, 61).

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 49

several reasons. First, and perhaps most importantly, it seems defining features. Pursuant to its theme of cosmological diver-
more closely to resemble Mahler’s own hearing of the piece. sity, Mahler decreed that the Third Symphony, unlike its two
The 1896 manuscript clearly refers to the opening music as an predecessors, would have “nothing to do with the struggles of
“Einleitung,” even assigning that section its own programmatic an individual.”83 In place of a unifying heroic subjectivity, we
title (“Pan Awakens”), distinct from that of the rest of the find instead the decentered, “novelistic” heterogeneity that
movement (“Summer Marches In!”).78 And in that same score, made this work a landmark in Adorno’s critique. Adorno heard
he tellingly labels the work—on this one occasion only—a 3/I upending the “top-down” power dynamic of traditional so-
“Symphony in F major.” Though the title page would eventually nata form. “Thumbing its nose” at the dictates of prefabricated
come to bear the opening tonic D minor, it seems unlikely that schemes, this “exultantly barbarous” music obeyed only the
Mahler would ever have chosen to title the entire work after the spontaneous impulses of its rough-hewn thematic partici-
key of its opening movement’s secondary theme. pants.84 In this “bottom-up” emancipatory allegory, Adorno
Another reason to favor the interpretation in Example 6 is argued, aspects of large-scale architecture were epiphenomenal
that it brings 3/I into a closer relationship with Mahler’s wider or simply fortuitous.85
sonata praxis. Speaking very broadly, the recurring off-tonic in- Adorno’s image of a “disempowered” sonata86—one that has
troduction is a staple of his style—appearing in 1/I, 4/I, 6/IV, lost its purchase on the music’s overriding logic—harmonizes
and 7/I—while the coextensive model’s “entirely off-tonic reca- especially well with an embedded-sonata reading since, in the
pitulation/coda” is wholly anomalous.79 There are also specific latter, many of the movement’s distinctive features are heard to
intertextual links worth drawing out. Understanding the open- marginalize or relativize the sonata in the work’s broader hori-
ing music as “introductory” draws out important parallels with zon of meaning. First, there are the vast and internally complex
7/I, whose own recurring introductions borrow heavily from “introductory” sections, which (1) tend to dwarf and balkanize
those of the present movement,80 and also with 6/IV, whose the sonata sections they precede; (2) frequently lack a discern-
massive trirotational structure can be heard to alternate between ibly introductory character; and (3) present tonal narratives to
extended sonata and non-sonata spaces.81 As hinted above, this rival those of the sonata itself.87 The movement’s thematic
view also invites us to hear 3/I as an expansive recomposition of structure also undermines the sonata’s perceptual profile. Being
1/I. In addition to sharing the same broad expositional format “continuous,” the present exposition, like that of 1/I, lacks the
(slow generative introduction → continuous exposition), these pointed thematic dualism that is the Mahlerian norm. But
two movements observe similar tonal strategies (in each, the where the earlier movement responded by narrowing its focus
EEC is in the parallel major of the introduction’s local tonic) (to a single, long-spun Lied melody), 3/I responds with further
and programmatic agendas: as in 1/I, the cyclically-organized diffusion, stringing together a chaotic procession of marches
introduction of 3/I was to represent nature awakening from and fanfares, upsetting any sense of hierarchy. Finally, the so-
dormancy, while its vigorous, folk-toned exposition depicted nata process itself is seemingly deprioritized, even as it is
summer in full bloom, an “eternally radiant day.”82 brought into relief. Despite their emphatic setup as long-range
There is, however, a crucial programmatic difference, and goals, the EEC and ESC are hastily overturned by striking
one that lights the way toward many of the later movement’s common-tone (PL) transformations and jarring topical shifts
from the banal to the phantasmagoric (mm. 362ff. and 857ff.).
78 See Franklin (1991, 24 and 92–93) and Bauer-Lechner (1980, 59–60). Of Mahler strikes a delicate balance here: without negating them
course, as Micznik (2005) argues, Mahler’s paratexts are only helpful to a outright, he makes the boisterous expositional and recapitula-
point, since their fit with the musical facts is sometimes frustratingly tory successes seem pro forma, even trivial, as the music turns
loose—as, in the present case, when the composer makes no programmatic abruptly away toward more profound topics. But in the reca-
accommodation for the fact that the music of the Einleitung keeps coming
pitulation, at least, he is equally quick to reinstate the comedic
back (mm. 369 and 643).
79 Although 1/IV begins and ends in different keys, it is arguably not the so-
tone and assure us that all is well. Only moments after it is lost,
nata that ends off-tonic; after the non-sequitur lurch to D major in mid- the ESC’s F-major tonic is hastily reinstated (m. 863), launching
recapitulation, the music makes no pretense of bringing the sonata itself to
a cadential/rhetorical close.
80 Mitchell makes a similar observation (1975, 329). Compare the tremo- 83 Letter to Ludwig Schiedermair, cited in Franklin (1991, 27). See also
lando-accompanied brass ariosos in 7/I (mm. 1ff. and 338ff.) to those of Bauer-Lechner (1980, 53).
3/I (mm. 54ff., 99ff., et passim). See especially mm. 346–50, which ap- 84 Adorno (1992, 77–80).
proach an outright paraphrase of the earlier movement. 85 Some might wish to go a step further than Adorno and forgo any compari-
81 See Monahan (2008, especially Figure 6.5, 355), which posits a single son with traditional sonata form. But such a hearing would be at odds with
“epic” plot type shared by the two movements. Mahler’s own conviction, cited above in Section II, that the movement re-
82 Bauer-Lechner (1980, 62). Compare Mitchell (1995, 158) on 1/I with lied on the “same basic groundplan” (albeit with increased “variety and com-
Bauer-Lechner (1980, 59) on 3/I. We might also note that both move- plexity”) that one finds in the Viennese classics (Bauer-Lechner [1980, 66]).
ments’ recapitulations culminate, after significant deviation, in an exact 86 Adorno (1992, 95).
transposition of the exposition’s EEC-attaining passage. Mahler builds 87 Although the overall trajectory of introductory space is from D minor to
such a parallelism into all of his movements that feature both EECs and major (thus mirroring the symphony as a whole), many auxiliary keys are
ESCs (1/I, 3/I, 4/I, and 6/I), lending credence to Hepokoski and Darcy’s involved, especially in rotation two (mm. 369–529; not shown in Example 6).
idea that the EEC functions in part to “predict” how the ESC attainment One prominent off-tonic passage is even transposed, sonata-like, to the local
will work out (2006, 18). tonic D to conclude the final rotation (compare m. 424ff. with m. 703ff.).

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 50 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

example 7.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 4 in G, first movement (development omitted)

a manic twelve-measure coda and granting the movement’s The logic of this anomaly may once again be programmatic.
lowbrow denizens the last laugh. As is well known, the Fourth Symphony keeps its extramusical
If sonata form boasts only a supporting role in the Third agenda concealed until the finale, a solo-soprano setting of the
Symphony, it returns to the fore in the tautly neo-Classical Wunderhorn text “Das himmlische Leben.” There, in an act of
Fourth (1899). As is often remarked, 4/I is self-consciously ar- “retrospective enlightenment,” 89 Mahler reveals the work’s
chaic in both form and dialect. Its stylistic surface is an ironized founding poetic image—a fantastic (and often macabre)
pastiche of old-Viennese gestures and their customary textures, glimpse of Heaven through the eyes of a child—as well as the
and its sonata form aspires (at least superficially) to a Mozartean wellspring of its musical materials. It is here that we discover,
clarity. The topmost brackets in Example 7 show that 4/I inher- as Paul Bekker writes, that the first three movements have
its an abbreviated double-expositional layout from 2/I (cf. merely been a staging ground, their purpose being the “prepa-
Example 3). Exposition 1 (mm. 1–72) goes through all the paces ration and gradual clarification” of the song-finale’s opening
of a standard eighteenth-century two-part format, including a Uridee.90 For this reason, Bekker hears the Fourth unfolding
well-defined transitional zone, medial caesura (m. 37), and simultaneously on two narrative levels: as a trans-symphonic
S-theme in the dominant. But, as in 2/I, difficulties arise on the teleology whose main character is the protean Uridee; and as a
first pass toward the EEC. Here, Mahler grants the PAC itself
(m. 58), but stages a dramatic textural/dynamic collapse at the
same instant, making for less than satisfactory closure. After sev- (Save for a few beleaguered appearances of its headmotive [mm. 116, 188,
eral brash interruptions (mm. 62 and 66), an impatient P even- and 199], P1 is conspicuously absent from the development.) Further, this
tually chases away the doddering, lightweight closing theme tonic-key P-return is arguably no more or less “rondolike” than similar re-
(C1), reinstates the tonic, and sets an apparent repeat of the ex- turns in the expositions of 2/I, 7/I, 8/I, 9/I, and 10/I, and the invocation of
position in motion. This time, however, the EEC-problems are rondo design does little to explain the exposition’s truly unusual feature—
parametrically reversed: the closure (m. 91) is rhetorically con- the return of the closing-field C2 to the tonic key—since that music is not
part of any “rondolike” repetition scheme. (It is not a feature of traditional
clusive, but the key is wrong. Arriving prior to modulation, the
sonata-rondos that their expositions end in tonic or observe a broad ABA
dreamy bucolic C2 is set securely in the tonic—the one key that tonal design.) Finally, as Darcy points out, the sonata-rondo does not ap-
is patently “unavailable” for expositional closure.88 pear to have been a recognized generic “option” for opening movements at
any point before or during Mahler’s lifetime (2001, 71), suggesting that its
88 A number of analysts, including Stephan (1966), Williamson (1983), and invocation here may be problematic for broader historical reasons.
Knapp (1999), have heard the return of P in m. 77 as evidence of a sonata/ 89 Mitchell (1999b, 194).
rondo hybridization. While this tonic-key recurrence might strike us as 90 Bekker (1969, 147–48). In the opening movement, the Uridee appears in
informally “rondolike,” there are reasons to be wary of aligning this move- several guises: as the development’s famous “dream ocarina” theme (m. 125;
ment with the sonata-rondo as a historical genre. First, the ostensibly ron- Adorno [1992, 53]); as the climactic “paradise” theme (mm. 209 and 251;
dolike section (mm. 77–101) occurs within the exposition, rather than at the Floros [1993, 118])—itself a variant of the exposition’s S-theme; and as the
onset of the development as it would in virtually all traditional specimens. tonic-key C2 theme which ends the exposition.

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 51

series of subsidiary dramas (sonata, scherzo, Andante), the na- an escape into the past, but the manifestation of the past within
tive themes of which have only local consequence. the present, as a set of routines as seemingly arbitrary as the first
Bekker’s double-teleological framework can help to explain movement’s infamous exposition repeats. Crucially for our pur-
the expositional failure when we consider two factors. First, the poses, its bookend sonata-form movements deal obsessively
C2 theme that coincides with the faulty tonic “EEC” (m. 91) is with the tonal protocols of the traditional model; nowhere in
the work’s first explicit foreshadowing (both textural and tonal) Mahler is the imperative of S-theme resolution so urgently dra-
of the song-finale. Second, from a rotational perspective, this matized as here. Below, I discuss the opening movement, the
C2 “composes over” the expected TR → S block of the “re- ecstatic conclusion of which emerges from the last-minute re-
peated” exposition; it supplants precisely the sections whose demption of its failed recapitulation. In the next section, I ex-
purpose is to modulate away from G. We might imagine amine the immense Finale, where such major-mode deliverance
Mahler’s game, then, to be the trading of a local goal for a global is proffered but then pitilessly withheld.
one. At the very moment we ought to be moving toward modu- As critics often point out, the sonata of 6/I is a model of di-
lation and expositional closure, he switches narrative frame- dactic clarity. Example 8 shows its exposition to be among
works, subordinating the sonata process to unveil a more Mahler’s tidiest: crisply partitioned P-, TR-, and S-zones pass
important long-distance objective: the transcendent telos, in in succession (each of them a tightly-knit ternary or binary
that Utopian country beyond the borders of the sonata itself. form), culminating in a single PAC at m. 115. Across this span,
Thus, the expositional short-circuit serves a programmatic pur- the music runs the expressive gamut, with the eerily vacant
pose: to remind us of the sonata’s contingency (it is but a “play transition-chorale (m. 61) serving as a link between the sinister
within a play,” to use Bekker’s wonderful phrase91) and to an- opening march and the immodestly effusive S (m. 77)—the no-
nounce that the higher goal, and thus “true” closure, is not to be torious “Alma” theme whose pseudo-programmatic freight is
found in this terrestrial sphere at all. worth a moment’s consideration.
The development further sharpens the divide between the As is well known, Alma Mahler claimed this impetuous S to
here-and-now and the hereafter by shuttling between macabre, be her musical likeness, allegedly written into the Sixth as part
“nightmare” episodes and transformations of the Uridee. But the of a broader domestic/autobiographic portrait.95 Although crit-
recapitulation directs our attention back to the sonata at hand, ics and scholars have largely taken Alma at face value, the le-
largely through its strikingly un-Mahlerian fidelity to the expo- gitimacy of this nuptial subtext is open to debate. On the one
sition (see Example 7). True, the Uridee makes a few cameo ap- hand, it is uncorroborated by the composer himself (a serious
pearances in P (mm. 240–42) and TR (mm. 253–56), as does the concern, given Alma’s credibility gap) and has always sat rather
development’s “nightmare” topos (m. 298). But Mahler leaves perplexingly alongside the theme’s generally poor reception and
the schematic layout intact and brings back much of the exposi- tendency toward the grotesque.96 But on the other, it is surely
tion—including all of the music involved in its closure processes provocative that in the midst of a marital crisis,97 Mahler would
(the two EEC attainments and all of S)—virtually unchanged, write a movement so preoccupied with the question of how to
reaffirming the sonata’s classical ethos and effecting a recapitula- reconcile its seemingly incompatible (and suggestively gen-
tory success so thorough that even the initial, defective EEC gets dered) P and S themes. Naturally, we should be cautious not to
a tonic reprise (compare mm. 58 and 283).92 As in 3/I, the brief reduce the work to a literal transcription of specific domestic
coda serves merely to reaffirm the ascendant tonic key. conflicts or power relations. But a more attentive account of its
narrative might at least furnish a better standpoint for evaluat-
ing Alma’s assertion of a secret domestic program.98
failure and redemption in 6/i
Tellingly, the movement’s “reconciliation” narrative unfolds
as a series of character modifications to the “Alma” theme, many
The Sixth Symphony (1904) announces its traditionalist
of them drastic enough to suggest existential crisis and the
agenda in an entirely different manner from the Fourth. Where
search for a viable incarnation. The reconciliation begins in the
the latter wears its classicism on its sleeve, the former buries it,
development, when P subsumes S into its own macabre march
without irony, in deep-structural processes under a steely mod-
topos, imposing a provisional unity but reducing the latter to a
ernist surface. Gone are the mannerisms and stylistic artifacts of
lumpish D-minor caricature in the low winds and strings.
a simpler, carefree past; in their place is a series of “trampling”
marches very much of the industrial present.93 In keeping with
its implacably tragic character, the Sixth is driven subcutane- 95 Alma Mahler (1968, 70).
ously by a “desperate and petrified formalism,”94 suggesting not 9 6 The theme’s critics have included even Mahler’s close associates Bruno
Walter and Guido Adler, both of whom found it mawkish and overwrought
(de La Grange [1999, 822] and Floros [1993, 168]). Adorno, echoing Bek-
91 Bekker (1969, 148). ker, conceded these faults but believed the “much-reviled” theme to be mo-
9 2 And ironically, of course, the exposition’s “failed” G-major EEC (m. 91) tivated by a deeper structural concern—that of extreme contrast to P (1992,
needs simply to be replayed at pitch in the recapitulation to be successful 96 and 128); see also Bekker (1969, 215) and Redlich (1963, 253).
(m. 393). 97 Feder (2004, 122–23).
93 Adorno (1992, 34). 98 For a more comprehensive investigation of the Sixth Symphony’s putative
94 De La Grange (1999, 821). “domestic” program, see Monahan (2011).

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 52 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

example 8.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 6 in A Minor, first movement (development omitted)

Finding such subjugation intolerable, S responds by repudiating much morbid digression, that P and S arrive at mutually agree-
the march sphere altogether. In m. 196, the music lapses into a able conditions, in two stages. First, Mahler exiles the hideous
pastoral trance and the “Alma” theme reimagines itself as a gos- S2 (the theme’s least flattering feature) into a turbulent vortex
samer air in the programmatically “escapist” key of Eb major (m. of Eb minor (m. 421)—the “dystopian” antipode of the “Alma”
225).99 For a fleeting moment, S is permitted to dream of “an- theme’s fantasy projection (m. 225; see above). Then comes the
other, better world”—one in which the symphony’s march char- denouement: S1 returns to fulfill its tonal obligations (m. 444),
acter has been neutralized entirely.100 But, as elsewhere in the but thoroughly transformed. Here Mahler trades the original
Sixth, such a retreat into fantasy will be tolerated only briefly. In theme’s roiling, Straussian suppleness for a stiff martial corpo-
m. 251 the development’s final, violent episode breaks loose, reality reminiscent of P (whose secondary motives appear here
setting the music on the path to retransition. in counterpoint102).
As Example 8 shows, the recapitulation retraces the exposi- Beneath the bombast, this is an unsettling victory. The sonata
tion’s main outlines, with two crucial caveats: S returns, abbrevi- has been redeemed; S has attained the tonic major, ensuring a
ated (the grotesque S2, not heard since m. 91, is now excised) victorious outcome. But to accomplish this, it has had to forfeit
and in the wrong key. Racing the ticking clock of the double- its true character. Appeasement has resulted in defeminization
time TR-reprise (m. 336), the ardent S1 returns with just and a strained, lockstep annexation to the march world. Far
enough time to guide the music haplessly into a would-be from being an unqualified “triumph of love over adversity,”103
D-major “ESC” at m. 365.101 Response to this structural failure the whole feverish spectacle has the vague air of duress, “as if
comes swiftly. Without pause, the music plunges into its black- love were an army on the march.”104 This unease is prophetic, as
est variant of the P-theme march (m. 374), launching Mahler’s the A-major victory is notoriously short-lived. Soon, the
first and only extended, Beethovenian, coda. It is here, after Scherzo will reinstate the global tonic A minor.105 Not long
after, the Finale will resuscitate the beleaguered tonic major
only to smash it bitterly to pieces.
  99  Eb major is the key of the pastoral Andante, the only movement in the Sixth
that is not a vehement A-minor march. The key serves a similar function
within 6/I, marking the point of maximum affective/topical distance from 102 Compare the counterpoint at mm. 449 and 467 with the motive at mm. 37,
the opening march topic. Mahler seemed to have believed that such mod- 48, et passim. De La Grange points out the origin of this motive in Liszt’s
ally-mismatched tritone relationships were uniquely potent for symbolizing Piano Concerto No. 1 (1997, 158).
extreme Otherness. See Bauer-Lechner (1980, 131); see also Flothuis  103  Del Mar (1980, 40).
(1992, 240 and 249). 104  Ross (2007, 21).
 100  Jülg (1986, 169).  105 Exactly how soon depends on one’s preferred inner-movement order. The
 101 Or we might hear this D-major failure as deliberate, intended to rectify the A-minor Scherzo may come immediately after the opening Allegro, or the
S-theme’s D-minor disfigurement in m. 178. Eb-major Andante may intervene. See Kaplan (2004).

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 53

example 9.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 6 in A Minor, fourth movement (coda omitted)

success as failure: the finale of the sixth of S is not just theoretically “available,” but palpably conjured by
the music at several points, amplifying the tragedy of its ulti-
All of the failed sonatas examined so far (1/IV, 2/I, 5/II, and mate nonattainment. Combined with the type of structural
6/I) have shared a single fundamental feature: the mode of S has nonresolution seen above—the would-be ESC is perhaps the
remained unaltered, regardless of its location. In three of these most catastrophic cadence-evasion in all of Mahler—such
(all but 5/II), this has meant that a major-mode S was permit- modal failure makes for a recapitulation well-suited to the dark-
ted to retain its affirmational character—and thus its power of est of all his symphonic movements.107
contrast—within a mostly minor-mode environment, even en Example 9 interprets 6/IV according to the same “embedded-
route to expressive/processive failure. In the A-minor Finale of sonata” schema found in 3/I; three sonata spaces (here, each
the Sixth, Mahler breaks with this pattern. Here only, he will beginning with P) alternate with massive “pre-sonata” zones
recapitulate a major-mode S in the tonic minor, with grave results that are internally diverse, tonally variegated, and only intermit-
for the unfolding narrative. Hepokoski has proposed that such tently “introductory” in character. The first such space (mm.
scenarios might constitute an alternate category of sonata “fail- 1–113) stages the creation of the sonata’s various themes from
ure,” one that is expressive rather than structural in nature. scattered motivic particles, many of which were elemental to 6/I
Because a tonic-major reprise is always a generic option, he rea- as well.108 The outer-movement parallels become even more ap-
sons, a major-mode expositional S carries a kind of modal parent during the exposition proper (m. 114ff.), which suggestively
“promise” that such reprises leave bleakly unfulfilled.106 These
ideas are directly relevant to 6/IV, where a tonic-major resolution 107  For a more detailed analysis, see Monahan (2007).
 108 The octave-leap and minor-third cell are especially crucial. See Sponheuer
106  Hepokoski (2001–02, 151–52). (1978, 302ff.).

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 54 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

retraces the tonal, topical, and schematic outlines of the first success as it is in its modal failure.113 Next, the transformed S2 of
movement’s failed recapitulation (cf. Example 8), as if picking up the second utopian vision (m. 458) returns for the final tran-
a lost thread: here, too, an imperious A-minor P (m. 114) and a scendent presentation of A major (m. 728), drawn out to raptur-
buoyant D-major S (m. 191) are bridged by a chorale-based TR ous lengths but cut down at the threshold of cadential release by
that vacillates between A minor and C (m. 139).109 And once a grotesque corruption of the intended tonic (m. 773).114 In the
again, D major proves an unlucky key for S. This time, failure fifty-measure coda that follows, S2 sings its own enervated
comes in the form of a graphic implosion, prior to any EEC (m. elegy (m. 790ff.), but offers no resistance to the A-minor tonic
228). whose dominion is now complete.
The development’s chain of escalations and collapses seems
to be motivated directly by this expositional failure. Three times, turning point: the seventh symphony and beyond
incarnations of S will return with euphoric deliberation to claim
the major-key closure it was originally denied; I show these For Adorno, the Sixth Symphony’s exercise in ironclad for-
S-incursions with arrows in Example 9. Each one ends ruin- malism marked a turning point in Mahler’s music, a great “cae-
ously.110 The first occurs as an irruptive, fortissimo return of the sura” in his development. In its self-destructive Finale, he
S2 theme truncated in the exposition (m. 288). Reviving its believed, one could witness the end of Mahler’s decades-long
original D-major tonic, this theme drives propulsively toward negotiation with inherited forms; such tumultuous proceedings
closure, but is annihilated by the “hammer-blow” deceptive ca- told a “tale of the end of the symphonic sonata,” and indeed of
dence in m. 336.111 After this point, S renounces the lost EEC “the end of the order that bore the sonata.” Everything com-
and directs its attention instead to the ultimate goal: a tonic- posed afterward, he argued, would break free from such “prees-
major reprise durable enough to ensure sonata success and to tablished” musical spaces.115 In a limited but important sense,
deliver the Sixth from its grim A-minor fate. The tonic-major Adorno is right. So far, I have argued that “traditional” sonata
“utopian visions” that follow (see Example 9) are textbook in- form, reimagined as a paradigmatic tonal/cadential drama, can
stances of Mahlerian “hypothetical music”—projections of what be a powerful tool for addressing Mahlerian plot and expres-
is sought without being the thing itself. Twice, S will crystallize sion. For each of the movements above, the execution of sonata
in an ecstatic (if ominously premature) A major only to dissolve form itself can be understood as the music’s teleological back-
into chaos. The first of these visions (m. 364) arises in the after- bone. But for works after the Sixth, this plot model loses much
math of the hammer blow mentioned above, but quickly unrav- of its explanatory power.
els and implodes (m. 385); the second occurs on the far side of Already in 7/I (E minor; 1905), the structural and the ex-
the central march episode (m. 458), shortly before the hammer pressive begin to uncouple. There, as in most of Mahler’s earlier
falls again (m. 479). minor-mode sonatas, the recapitulatory S is denied tonal reso-
By the end of the development it is clear, to use Almén’s lution. But this transgression does not, as it might once have,
crucial distinction, that this famously “tragic” finale is more than precipitate a broader expressive failure. Example 10 shows the
a mere assemblage of tragic topoi; it can be heard as a true tragic exposition, whose expansive ternary P-theme proceeds to a
narrative, organized around the “defeat of a transgression” by an breathless, hyperexpressive S reminiscent of the Sixth Symphony’s
“order-imposing hierarchy.”112 The “transgressors” in this case “Alma” theme (m. 118).116 After much gesticulation, the latter
are the S-themes bent on major-mode fulfillment, in defiance of
the modal “order” imposed by the A-minor sonata. In the reca-  113 This hearing departs from the more traditional perspective, which is to
pitulation, their defeat by that order will be swift, systematic, posit a “reversed” recapitulation in which the Bb-major S1 at m. 575 counts
and final. With triumphant sadism, the Finale subjects each of as the theme’s principal reprise; see for instance Redlich (1963, 256); Spon-
heuer (1978, 317); Del Mar (1980, 60); Adorno (1992, 93); Jackson (1997,
the movement’s two S-themes to its own graphic failure. First,
199–201); de La Grange (1999, 837); Hefling (2007, 123); Mitchell
as mentioned above, it presses the once-sprightly S1 into the (2007); and Painter (2007, 135). Among major commentators, only Ratz
tonic A minor for a wretched simultaneous recapitulation with (1968, 46) and Floros (1993, 183) make reference to S1 in m. 670—though
TR (m. 668ff.)—a moment that is as harrowing in its structural they note only the presence of “motives” from S though, in fact, the entire
theme is present—albeit with the adjusted headmotive first heard at m.
575. Although m. 575 presents S1 in a texture closer to its original, I find
that in satisfying the genre’s tonal requirements, the later appearance is the
109 In contrast to 6/I, TR is not literally a chorale in this movement. Rather, it more convincing candidate for the “true” recapitulation. (We might also
is based on the C-minor chorale heard at m. 49. (During the introduction note that Mahler’s previous symphony contains a strikingly similar confla-
C is groomed as a provisional tonic, only to be ousted by A minor at the tion of adjacent recapitulatory themes; see Symphony No. 5/II, m. 356,
onset of the exposition. This TR brings these two keys into bar-by-bar shown above in Example 4.)
conflict.) 114 The tonic note sounds in the deep bass, but above it, delayed by a single
 110 Each of these collapses corresponds to a “negative” turn in Ratz’s well- measure, appears a shrilly-orchestrated F-dominant sonority.
known description of the development as “an alternation of positive and 115 Adorno (2002, 609).
negative situations” (1968, 43). 116 Alternately, one could take the return of P in the tonic (m. 99) as the onset
   111 The orchestration at the downbeat of m. 336 includes the striking of a giant of a second subrotation, recalling the double-subrotational expositions of 2/I,
hammer. For a detailed discussion, see de La Grange (1999, 813–14). 3/I, and 4/I, and anticipating those of 8/I, 9/I, and 10/I. In such a hearing we
  112 Almén (2008, 139). might fancifully take the introduction-derived music at m. 80 as a

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 success and failure in mahler’s sonata recapitulations 55

example 10.  Formal overview of Mahler, Symphony No. 7 in C, first movement (development omitted)

plunges into its nearly atonal closing zone without cadencing the Eighth Symphony’s (1906) unwaveringly affirmative sonata
(m. 134), inducing failure. The recapitulation retraces the expo- would only seem chaotic and corrupt. As Williamson writes,
sition, albeit with irregular transpositions that reduce rather the sonata “fails to provide a systematic tonal antithesis,” in
than increase tonic presence. Its dramatized failure is unmistak- large part due the “overwhelming dominance” of the tonic Eb
able: just shy of climaxing, the major-mediant S lands suddenly major.117 The long-range tonal tensions motivating the earlier
on an active V7 of the major tonic (m. 483), replete with a four- works are neutralized, and the secondary theme is lost entirely
sharp signature, only to collapse into E minor four measures as a narrative focal point. Its extended, rondo-like S-complex
later, lost again to the whirlwind closing zone (m. 487). And yet (mm. 46–107) presents a cluster of ideas that are subsequently
in the coda, with nothing akin to the belated tonal resolution of scattered, seemingly at random, across the movement. Not only
S in 6/I, Mahler grants the movement’s E-minor tonic a last- is there no tonic-key presentation of the S-complex in the reca-
minute modal reprieve (m. 543), and a triumphant E-major pitulation, there is no presentation at all (which is only some-
conclusion emerges in the face of what, in comparison to his what odd, considering that two of the three S-themes appear in
earlier sonatas, seems an unacceptable number of loose ends. the tonic before the exposition is even over).118 From these and
This disengagement from the classical tonal plot progresses other anomalies—the exposition’s culmination in a massive ac-
across Mahler’s last three sonata-form movements. By the stan- tive V7 of the tonic, the prominent recapitulatory transposition
dards of the present study, the tonal/thematic organization of of P1 to the dominant, and so on—the sense is no longer that
the sonata is strategically malfunctioning (as in 5/II, with its
 kind of premature, “imposter” secondary theme in the dominant, given the
MC-like break at m. 76 and the motivic anticipation of the later TR theme
at m. 70. This interpretation, which posits two contenders for S-theme 117  Williamson (1983, 30).
status, would give a satisfying backstory to the later conflicts between these 118 S1 is initially exposed in both subtonic and subdominant (mm. 46 and 66);
ideas (mm. 226–40 and 338–68) and for the dramatic revelation of the in the recapitulation it passes through tonic for only two measures (mm.
earlier theme’s “true” identity during the development, where Mahler deftly 525–26). Themes S2 (m. 56) and S3 (m. 80) both appear in the tonic in the
“untransforms” the m. 80 theme into its original introductory version; exposition: the former at m. 156, and the latter (replete with a tonic IAC)
compare mm. 174ff. and 3ff. at m. 89.

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 56 music theory spectrum 33 (2011)

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