Gustav Mahler was a hipster. I don't mean that pejoratively, not necessarily. The prophetic late-Romantic composer was not exactly the kind you want to laugh at for trying so hard to look like The Fresh Prince or Ulysses S. Grant. Granted (ha!), he did look pretty alt, with his spectacles and blown back maestro hair. But he's a deeper hipster, built of a blend of Brooklyn pomo irony, literary skepticism and romantic passion, sampling everything, hearkening backwards, predicting what's to come, and under-appreciated in his time. (He was also kinda underpaid.)
Being such a dynamic conductor, Mahler was also, like a true Greenpoint scenester, in love with panache and performance. And just as importantly, he was defined by his moment -- a terribly transitional moment in which a person awake and aware and alert to what's going on around him (that's what hip once meant) can be sure of nothing, so sometimes he tries to go with everything. That's where Mahler was, in fin de siecle Austria, as Romanticism and all of its sentimentalities and promises slowly gave way to Modernism and all of its brokenness. In other words, it's a good time to get our Mahler on.
This week, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, are rounding out their exhausting, expansive performances of each of Mahler's larger-than-life orchestral works at Carnegie Hall, under the direction of two of Mahler's biggest proponents (and awesome conductors) Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez. Tomorrow is the 8th -- the "symphony of a thousand" as it's known for the huge personnel it needs on stage -- Saturday the unfinished 10th, and Sunday, the epic, game-changing 9th. Mesh caps are probably not allowed, but beards will not be out of place.
Listen to his symphonies and hear how he scatters genres -- Romantic, folk, klezmer, high and low -- across them like pieces in a game of blocks. No, no -- like shapes in a cubist painting. Nein, nein, like phrases in some epic masterpiece novel, full of comic drawings and footnotes, parody and genre-twisting: fun and difficult, grating and cool, indulgent and excessive.
Mahler could be in love with the sound of every one of these witty, delicately crafted yet psuedo nonchalant phrases -- or he might be poking fun at them. (He was likely the first musician, in his middle symphonies, to push for "more cowbell" -- along with mandolins, hammers and even a whip.) And yet, even here, amidst all the play, it's easy to think he's hiding what is really just, like, superficiality. Then again, maybe, just maybe, the virtuosity required by these super-layered symphonies is actually hiding this: Mahler's as enamored with his themes as he is bored with them. Maybe he's confused about how he feels and stuff.
One really funny and annoying thing about hipsterism is the way it's premised on individualism and coolness but ends up devolving into homogeneity. But step back for a moment and the beauty of the hipster performance takes shape: its a mish-mash of what's cool from the past and the future, proof that the person in question is hunting for something to grasp in a slippery world. It could be superficial, but it could also be a sign of ambivalence, a scouring through genres (jobs, people, stories, sounds) for something always better, aware much of the time of how futile that search may be, and how necessary.
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