Big questions take time to answer
and in Gustav Mahler's symphonies
most every answer takes 70 - 90 minutes.
There is something inherently ironic
that in Mahler's search for Truth (with a capital T)
he would find the need,
not to sit silently on a mountaintop,
but the need to muster hundreds of musicians under his baton
to play out these philosophical discussions.
"Whence do we come?" he is quoted as asking Bruno Walter, a fellow conductor.
"Whither does our road take us?
Why am I made to feel that I am free while yet I am constrained within my character, as in a prison?"
The answer to Mahler's never-ending questions
often came from nature, from the birds or the Alpenhorns.
His "why?" is often answered by "why not?"
This week three more symphonies (#7, 8 and 9)
three more evenings
we'll continue the search
and ask more questions
and I will enjoy the ride.
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