The suite is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets,
two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, a
set of three kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, and strings.
I. “Legend”: Not fast; with much dignity and character, E minor, 2-2. It
has been said that this movement was suggested to the composer by Thomas
Bailey Aldrich’s Indian legend, “Miantowona”; but MacDowell took no
pains to follow Aldrich’s poem incident by incident, nor to tell any
particular story; “the poem merely suggested to him to write something
of a similar character in music.”
II. “Love Song”: Not fast; tenderly, A major, 6-8. One chief theme,
which is announced immediately by the wood-wind, is developed, with the
use of two subsidiary phrases, one a sort of response from the strings,
the other a more assertive melody, first given out in D minor by
wood-wind instruments.
III. “In War Time”: With rough vigor, almost savagely, D minor, 2-4. The
chief theme is played by two flutes, in unison, unaccompanied. Two
clarinets, in unison and without accompaniment, answer in a subsidiary
theme. This material is worked out elaborately in a form that has the
characteristics of the _rondo_. The rhythm changes frequently towards
the end from 2-4 to 6-8 and back again.
IV. “Dirge”: Dirge-like, mournfully, in G minor, 4-4. The mournful chief
theme is given out by muted violins in unison, which are soon
strengthened by the violas, against repetitions of the tonic note G by
piccolo, flutes, and two muted horns, one on the stage, the other behind
the scenes, with occasional full harmony in groups of wind instruments.
“The intimate relation between this theme and that of the first movement
is not to be overlooked. It is answered by the horn behind the scenes
over full harmony in the lower strings, the passage closing with a
quaint concluding phrase of the oboe.” The development of this theme
fills the short movement.
V. “Village Festival”: Swift and light, in E major, 2-4. Several related
themes are developed. All of them are more or less derived from that of
the first movement. There are lively dance rhythms. “But here also the
composer has been at no pains to suggest any of the specific
concomitants of Indian festivities; he has only written a movement in
which merrymakings of the sort are musically suggested.”
GUSTAV
MAHLER
(Born at Kalischt in Bohemia, on July 7, 1860; died at Vienna on May
18, 1911)
Those who without undue prejudice discuss Mahler the composer, admitting
his faults, discussing them at length, dwelling on undeniable fine
qualities, assert that his artistic life was greater than his own
musical works, which, greatly planned, did not attain fulfillment and
were often imitative. The sincerity of the composer was never doubted;
the failure to secure that for which he strove is therefore the more
pathetic.
He was of an intensely nervous nature. His life as a conductor—and he
was a great conductor—the feverish atmosphere of the opera house, his
going from city to city until his ability was recognized in Vienna and
later at the Metropolitan, the death of a dearly loved child, the fact
that he was a Jew, who had turned Catholic: these, with musical
intrigues and controversies from which he suffered, gave him no mental
or esthetic poise. It was his ambition to continue the work of men he
revered, Beethoven and Wagner. In spite of his indisputable talent he
was not the man to do this. In the nearer approaches to the ideal that
was in his mind he was simply an imitator; not a convincing, not even a
plausible one.
One has found through his symphonies restlessness that at times becomes
hysterical; reminders of Wagner, Berlioz, Strauss; melodies in folk-song
vein, often naïve, at times beautiful, but introduced as at random and
quickly thrown aside; an overemployment of the wood-winds, used too
often as solo instruments; passages for the brass which recall the fact
that as a child Mahler delighted in military bands. Sudden changes from
screaming outbursts to thin and inconsequential instrumentation; trivial
moments when the hearer anticipates the movement of a country dance;
diffuseness, prolixity that becomes boresome; an unwillingness to bring
speech to an end; seldom genuine power or eloquence; yet here and there
measures that linger in the memory.