Marion Rous on Mahler’s 5th Symphony
Long before Leonard Bernstein posed the question “Who is Gustav Mahler?” to his audience at a 1960 New York Philharmonic lecture,[1] pianist Marion Rous (1881–1967) went about answering it. Though now forgotten, Rous was during her lifetime a well-known lecturer on musical topics in the early 20th-century U.S., and served as a lecturer for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1933–1961. The talks that she gave, titled “Philharmonic Forecasts,” were music appreciation lectures which previewed the upcoming repertoire programmed by the New York Philharmonic. Much like Bernstein’s later Young People’s Concerts, Rous’ Philharmonic Forecasts were intended to make western art music accessible to a broad audience of musical laypeople. A 1947 lecture on Mahler’s 5th Symphony demonstrates Rous’ desire to educate the listener through active listening methodologies.
Perhaps the most complete record that we have of these lectures by Rous is the body of reference-sheets from her Philharmonic Forecasts, collections of which are housed in both the New York Public Library and the New York Philharmonic archives. Also referred to as “cue-sheets” and “theme-sheets,” these one-page companion guides were distributed to audience members in advance of each of Rous’ preview lectures for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. They included thematic excerpts from the composition being studied accompanied by explanatory captions, quotations, and formal diagrams. The copies housed in the New York Philharmonic archives appear to be Rous’ own, as they have several annotations and corrections in her hand; they were therefore perhaps the final drafts that were sent out to the copyist to be mimeographed in advance of each lecture.
Rous herself provides some helpful insight into these documents, writing that “an advance earful of themes is invaluable — particularly when listening to novelties. This writer distributes mimeographed theme-sheets, especially designed for the program at hand, at every session of the Chautauqua and New York Philharmonic Forecasts.”[2] These reference-sheets were largely typed, with the thematic excerpts being carefully handwritten by Rous and drawn from the Am-Rus edition. Interestingly, starting in 1938 the reference-sheets began to adopt the heading of “What to Listen For,” a possible reference to Aaron Copland’s popular music appreciation course (and later book) “What to Listen for in Music,” offered 1936–37 and repeated the following year.
An examination of these materials can help us sketch the outline of a typical Rous lecture. The reference-sheets (and likely by extension the lectures themselves) often begin with a quotation that is in some way connected to the composition being studied. An example can be found in a reference-sheet for Debussy’s La Mer, which begins with the composer’s famous quote regarding the futility of theoretical analysis: “It is a free art, an open air art, an art boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea!”[3] Rous’ fondness for quotations is evidenced throughout these documents, such as in a 1939 reference-sheet for Beethoven’s 7th Symphony which includes quotations from George Grove and Edwin Evans within the body of the lecture.[4]
The reference-sheets are primarily devoted to the thematic excerpts, carefully handwritten by Rous. Individual themes are numbered in Arabic numerals while movements or sections are numbered with Roman numerals. These excerpts are accompanied by explanatory captions, which often carry with them a strong programmatic element; the sheet for La Mer for instance labels certain themes as representing the sirens, the wind, and the sea.[5] We know from the credit given to both Steinway and Magnavox that in her “Forecasts” Rous utilized both the piano and the phonograph in the playing of these thematic excerpts. Some reference-sheets also include a formal diagram[6] or an orchestration chart,[7] indicating that Rous would also discuss elements of structure and instrumentation.
It would be a leap of faith to assume that these reference-sheets give complete insight into the presentation of the Philharmonic Forecasts If we understand them to be “theme-sheets” specifically rather than “reference-sheets” broadly, they could represent only a single facet of the Forecast lectures, the identification of thematic material. While theme-centric, however, the fact that these sheets contain a good deal of content beyond the thematic excerpts diminishes the likelihood of this hypothesis, though it is still safe to assume that they present an unbalanced and incomplete view of Rous’ actual lectures.
These two sizable collections contain among them only a single reference-sheet on a work by Mahler, a 1947 sheet outlining the themes of Mahler’s 5th Symphony (Figure 2). Interestingly, Rous erroneously refers to the symphony as “the first in which Mahler employed neither chorus nor solo voice,”[8] overlooking his Symphony №1 in D Major. Seeing as she follows this observation with a note that “a ‘chorale’ for wind instruments is featured,”[9] Rous appears to suggest that Mahler uses the winds as a replacement for the voice. Also notable is the fact that Rous lists the date of composition as being 1902–1911, taking into account Mahler’s many revisions and considering them as essential to the composition of the work.
While the notes featured on this sheet are fragmentary, it is possible to guess the focus of Rous’ discussion of the individual movements. She appears to have focused on the funerary elements of the first movement, referencing the opening trumpet fanfare and reproducing the Etwas gehaltener theme for violin and cello starting at the anacrusis to bar 35. The only other theme that Rous records from the first movement is the trumpet melody at bar 155, with the transposition written out for the convenience of her audience. She refers to the accented half notes in the bass as being “like tolling bells,”[10] again pointing toward the character of a funeral march.
Rous’ notes on the second movement seem to point toward a discussion of its development of the central sighing motif (anacrucis to bar 7), which Rous refers to as “wailing.” This is perhaps a reference back to the grief-stricken imagery of the first movement. She traces the motif’s development throughout the movement, all the way to the climactic chorale. Perhaps due to the limitations of space as much as anything else, Rous’ discussion of the next two movements is extremely cursory, limited to reproducing the main theme of each. She does, however, make note of the two trios included in the Scherzo, which she terms “charming.”
Rous’ discussion of the Rondo finale focuses primarily on elements of form as well as the cyclic reappearance of themes from previous movements. She dutifully notes the rondo refrain as well as the subject and countersubject of the fugue, referring to the refrain as embodying “pastoral cheerfulness.” Rous also refers to the reappearance of themes from the Adagietto as well as the chorale from the second movement. This chorale she terms a “triumphant ‘Hymn of Life,’” which may be a reference to (or mistitling of) Beethoven’s “An die Freude” from the 9th Symphony. Whether a reference to Beethoven or hymnody more generally, such a connection could be viewed as a support of Rous’ thesis that Mahler uses the wind section as a replacement for the voice.
Until a transcript is located, this reference-sheet only scratches the surface of Rous’ lecture on Mahler’s 5th Symphony. But it provides useful insight into how she approached making Mahler’s music accessible and understandable to a large audience. Through clarifying details of instrumentation, programmaticism, motific development, and form, she elucidated Mahler’s 5th Symphony in what must have been one of the first music appreciation lectures on his work. Perhaps future research will discover how this lecture was received, and how it fits into the larger picture of Mahler’s early U.S. reception.
[1] See Leonard Bernstein, Young People’s Concerts Scripts: Who is Gustav Mahler, Box: 106, Folder: 4. Leonard Bernstein Collection. Library of Congress Music Division, Washington, D.C.
[2] Marion Rous, “Calling All Ears,” Music Clubs Magazine 30, no. 4 (Winter 1951): 8.
[3] Claude Debussy, quoted in Marion Rous, Reference-sheet for Philharmonic Forecasts, originally dated 1939 with handwritten additions of 1936 and 1952, document ID 026–12–25, p. 7, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org. The handwritten dates on this document point to the fact that the reference-sheet was reused from season to season as the composition was reprogrammed.
[4] Marion Rous, Reference-sheet for Philharmonic Forecasts, January 1939, document ID 004–04–02, p. 143, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.
[5] Marion Rous, Reference-sheet for Philharmonic Forecasts, originally dated 1939 with handwritten additions of 1936 and 1952, document ID 026–12–25, p. 7, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.
[6] See as an example Marion Rous, Reference-sheet for Philharmonic Forecasts, January 1939, document ID 004–04–02, p. 143, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.
[7] See as an example Marion Rous, Reference-sheet for Philharmonic Forecasts, January 1940, document ID 004–04–02, p. 140, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.
[8] Marion Rous, Reference-sheet for Philharmonic Forecasts, February 1947, call no. JMF 21–53, p. 45, Performing Arts Research Collections — Music, New York Public Library, New York, NY, https://www.nypl.org/research/research-catalog/bib/b22604216.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
