Plural Voices
The Wunderhorn songs, and the symphonies that draw on them, are discussed in relation to the idea of Humor as understood in romantic literature (especially Jean Paul) as an inverted form of the sublime and also to the idea of the carnivalesque as understood by Bakhtin. Both are related to the idea of irony in Mahler's music and explored through considering the tone with which his music speaks—in both the Wunderhorn songs and the symphonies. The chapter also explores the extent to which Mahler's music is constituted from borrowed voices, understood both as allusions to other historical styles as well as more direct echoes of the music of other composers. Incidences of quotation are rare in Mahler and are much less important than his weaving together of plural stylistic idioms.
Keywords: carnivalesque, humor, Jean Paul, Bakhtin, irony, borrowed voices, allusion, quotation
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