Document Type
Article
Publication Title
College Music Symposium
Publication Date
2023
Keywords
songs, gender, feminist analysis, text settings, Alma Mahler, Alexander Zemlinsky
Abstract
The appropriation of musical climax as an act of subversion became a common claim in feminist analysis of music by women composers. The focus on the tension and release in Western classical music has been called out as overtly masculine and even violent. This article investigates claims that perceived differences in Alma Mahler’s musical climax are gendered and subversive. To do so, it identifies where the climaxes fall in Alma Mahler’s published songs, considers the musical climaxes in relation to textual climaxes, and compares these to the climaxes in the contemporaneous work of her composition teacher Alexander Zemlinsky. It argues that normalizing forces of genre, canon, and tradition are evident in Mahler’s Lieder and that divergences from these norms are expressive rather than subversive.
DOI
10.18177/sym.2023.63.sr.11580
Recommended Citation
Scott, Rachel E., "“Shot Into the Air Like a Rocket”: Climax in the Lieder of Alma Mahler" (2023). Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library. 210.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/fpml/210
Comments
This open access article was first published in College Music Symposium 63, no. 1 (2023). https://doi.org/10.18177/sym.2023.63.sr.11580. Available at https://symposium.music.org/index.php/63-1/item/11580-shot-into-the-air-like-a-rocket-climax-in-the-lieder-of-alma-mahler.