Featured Book: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Mr. Ross writes in Chapter 1, "The Golden Age": "The setting for the premiere of [Mahler's] Sixth was the steel town of Essen, in the Ruhr. Nearby was the armaments firm of Krupp, whose cannons had rained ruin on French armies in the war of 1870-71 and whose long-distance weaponry would play a critical role in the Great War to come. … Indeed, the Sixth opens with something like the sound of an army advancing — staccato As in the cellos and basses, military-style taps of a drum, a vigorous A-minor theme strutting in front of a wall of eight horns. A little later, the timpani set forth a marching rhythm of the kind that you can still hear played in Alpine militia parades in Austria and neighboring countries: Left! Left! Left-right-left! The first movement follows the well-worn procedures of sonata form, complete with a repeat of the exposition section. The first theme is modeled on that of Schubert's youthful, severe A-Minor Sonata, D. 784. The second theme is an unrestrained Romantic effusion, a love song in homage to [Mahler's wife] Alma. It is so unlike the first that it inhabits a different world. …" (p. 21).