ΔΗΜΗΤΡΗΣ ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ (1896-1960)

What links Mitropoulos to Mahler is not the mere fact of being one of his most fervent propagandists. Like Mahler, the German-speaking Jew of Bohemian origin, Mitropoulos, the American conductor, pianist and composer of Greek origin has known the abandonment both of home and cultural roots, the posthumous contestation and the tardy recognition. Paradoxically enough, the current of Mitropoulos’ refutation or at least hush-up joined some ardent defenders of Mahler’s music. One of them was Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno. In his vast work there is only one unflattering reference to a Mitropoulos’ recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.[1] As it seems, the first modern philosopher who has been seriously engaged in the problem of musical interpretation and left a lot of remarks on other conductors disregarded the Greek-American one. Yet history is full of surprises. A comparison of the writings on musical interpretation and orchestral conducting of both these men reveals a striking coincidence of opinion which possibly is not irrelevant to their common commitment to the case of New Music. The concurrence concerns the social position of the conductor, the role of the mimic element and of corporeality in the reproduction of music, the function of memory and of musical analysis, the right and the limits of interpreter’s interventions on tempo, phrasing and texture determined to the emergence of musical meaning or, in philosophical terms, the constitutive function of interpretational subjectivity in the establishment of musical objectivity. Important in this respect is to notice that both Mitropoulos and Adorno understand meaning in music in terms of musical association rather than in terms of extra-musical reference. As Adorno observes, “die Würde des musikalischen Textes ist seine Intentionslosigkeit. Er bedeutet das Ideal des Klanges, nicht dessen Bedeutung. Gegenüber dem optischen Phänomen, das ‘ist’, und dem Worttext, der ‘bedeutet’, stellt der Notentext ein Drittes dar”.[2]

The fact of concurrence leads by itself to the next step: to investigate whether the attainments of Mitropoulos in interpretation fulfill the criteria set by Adorno in his theory of music reproduction or, in any case, whether these attainments could be understood in its terms. Given now that the composer who mediates historically Mitropoulos with Adorno is, as we saw, Mahler, we could examine as example an interpretation of the first movement of his Sixth Symphony by Mitropoulos (conducting the WDR Symphonieorchester, Köln). The first thing that draws attention here are Mitropoulos’ deviations from the score as regards the tempo. In the place where the emblematic rhythmical motive which goes through the whole symphony is for the first time presented in the tympani (p. 10),[3] Mitropoulos unexpectedly decelerates, returning to the original tempo four measures later at figure 7. Then, rubatti occur in many places of the second subject: three measures before fig. 9 (p. 13) and four measures before fig. 13 (p. 19). Tempo deviations we notice two measures before fig. 17 (p. 26) and seven measures later (p. 27). Mitropoulos slows down for a span of only four measures in figures 20 (p. 32) and 26 (p. 41), then from the second measure of p. 53 onwards, two measures before 38 (p. 60) and finally from the 3^rd to the 5^th measures of p. 68.

The above mentioned deviations raise directly the issue of their justification. Impossible is the latter as long as the objectivity of an interpretation is understood merely as a straight reproduction of the score, of the notational or mensural,[4] as Adorno says, parameter of music. To the question “what is a musical text?” Adorno answers: “Keine Anweisung zur Aufführung, keine Fixierung der Vorstellung, sondern die notwendig fragmentarische, lückenhafte, der Interpretation bis zur endlichen Konvergenz bedürftige Notation eines Objektiven”.[5] In these terms, interpretation of a musical text means negation of its necessary fragmentariness and deficiency through additional, not notated performative interventions targeting to the manifestation of the objective meaning of music, of its mimic or “neumatic” parameter.[6] Objectivity here means objectivity of meaning, not of notational data. And the realization of this objectivity is unattainable without the active participation of the interpretational subject: “Die Objektivität der Reproduktion setzt die Tiefe der subjektiven Anschauung voraus, sonst ist sie nur der erstarrte Abdruck der Oberfläche”.[7] The depth of the subjective insight is gained through musical analysis which discerns the primary from the secondary, the essential from the inessential and so determines the dialectics of the part and the whole, of the musical detail and the total composition. Analytic rationalism is set here to the service of something irrational or, to put it differently, a moment of rationality is integral to aesthetic irrationality. Thus, interventions of interpretation are justified only when they respond to the prerequisites of the immanent or material logic of each work, of its association of meaning. This association however is never fully apparent. Hidden beneath the notational façade it does not offer to the view but aspects, “Abschatungen”, to use a phenomenological term. Here dwells deficiency, even failure, but also the relativity of all interpretational success. Good interpretation for Adorno is not the one which could restitute the totality of the association of meaning, something logically impossible given that the latter is not but an “idea”, but the one that “wants first and foremost to say something”: “Soviel ist am Relativismus wahr: der Zugang in die Objektivität bleibt zufällig. Die Erfahrung beim Arbeiten mit Musikern, daß es am wichtigsten ist, überhaupt etwas zu sagen. Die monadologische Organisation des Kunstwerks erlaubt es, daß jede Tür ins Zentrum führt, jedes Moment ins Gesetz. Selbst die unbestimmte oder falsche Ausstellung bei der Arbeit, wenn sie in die Disziplin des Werkes eingeht, ist ein Moment der wahren Interpretation”.[8]

Taking as a principle the above, we can now examine whether Mitropoulos’ interpretational decisions in the first movement of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony help the elucidation of its objective meaning, whether they are justified in terms of musical consistency, whether they “penetrate into the discipline of the work”. Before this let us make some general observations concerning this particular piece of music. In the first movement of his Sixth Symphony Mahler responds more than anywhere to the normative obligations of the sonata form, he venerates the element of architecture, as Adorno notices.[9] This doesn’t mean though that the intelligibility of the particular is sacrificed in favor of the universal, of the morphological schema; it means that the latter is purposefully reinforced in favor of a dialectics through which both the universal and the particular gain more life and value: “Integral ist die Sechste derart, daß nichts Einzelnes bloß als Einzelnes zählt sondern erst als das, als was es im Ganzen sich enthüllt”.[10] Successful though is this dialectics on condition that within the scheme strong divergences and differentiations of musical content actually occur. Adorno recognizes them in the substitution of the transition to the second subject with a woodwind choral (fig. 7, p. 10); in the “extreme contrast”, as he says, of the first and the second subjects; in the “suspension” character of the slow episode in the development; in the “brutal dazwischenfahrende Stelle in der Coda [...] [die] unmittelbar als Überfall des Abscheulichen gehört wird”[11](fig. 37, p. 59) etc. Hence, criterion for the success of an interpretation of a musical piece like this would be the most lucid presentation of those differences, contrasts, aesthetic negations, provided that the presentation doesn’t undermine the whole, within which they gain their true meaning. In order to avoid this undermining the interpretation must care not only for the clear articulation of each detail but also for the mediation of each detail with the others.

Thus, the reduction of tempo four measures before fig. 7 (p. 10) is justified as an emphasis on a rhythmic motive bearing a major thematic and symbolic significance for the entire work. The rubatti in the performance of the second subject (p. 11, m. 2-4) are on the one hand dictated by its ecstatic expressivity, on the other hand they are realized only where the boisterous movements of semiquavers stop. On the relationship between expression and rubatto Adorno writes: “Die Augenblicke des espressivo sind die in denen das Neumische zum Konflikt mit dem Mensuralen kommt, wo dieser Konflikt zugunsten des Neumischen entschieden wird [...]. Daher has das espressivo immer etwas vom rubatto [...]”.[12] It deserves mentioning that in Adorno the flexibility of tempo gains a constitutive significance for the interpretation: “Meine eigene These geht sehr weit: es werden in thematischer Musik bei sinvoller Darstellung niemals auch nur 2 Schläge einander chronometrisch gleich sein. – Die Identität des Tempos hat ihre Grenze am musikalischen Sinn, d.h. der Bedeutung des Einzelnen”.[13] Just this significance of the particular justifies the ritenutti two measures before fig. 17 (p. 26) and two measures before fig. 38 (p. 60), or the parenthetical retardations in measures 4-8 of page 27, in the four initial measures of fig. 20 (p. 32), in the two initial measures of fig. 26 (p. 41) and elsewhere. In the measures 4-8 of page 27, the retardation ignores the insistent repetition of the familiar rhythmic motive in the percussion. The place is heard as a personal resistance to the collective violence of the military march, to the roaring pace of a brutal world. It also sounds as if the subject of interpretation was defending the right of the expressive moment to be heard and not to be swept away by the implacable flow of marching time. Adorno writes: “Der Marschcharakter, in den fünf Einleitungstakten durch Bässe und kleine Trommel ein für allemal definiert, wird eigentlich das ganze Stück hindurch, eine gehaltene Durchführungsepisode ausgenommen, bewahrt. Monotonie aber ist dadurch vermieden, daß nur zuweilen die Marschschritte als solche markiert sind, vielfach aber verschwiegen werden, so, als bewege die stampfende Masse, die der Satz begleitet, hinter der Szene sich weiter”.[14] Mitropoulos seems to desire the avoiding of monotony once more by contesting the obligating character of the persistent rhythm even in the places where it sounds in the percussion. He achieves at the same time something more: by undermining the positiveness of the military march, which presents Weltlauf as if it where absolute, he unmasks its historic relativity. The interpretational decision of Mitropoulos is thus sanctioned by the general aesthetic program of Mahler: “Mahlers Symphonik plädiert erneut gegen den Weltlauf. Sie ahmt ihn nach, um ihn zu verklagen; die Augenblicke, da sie ihn durchbricht, sind zugleich die des Einspruchs. Nirgends verkleistert sie den Bruch von Subjekt und Objekt; lieber zerbricht sie selber, denn daß sie Versöhnung als gelungene vortäuschte”.[15]

Nevertheless, Mitropoulos’ art of interpretation is not limited to the aesthetically justified deviations from the rigidity of tempo. In some cases he is proved more truthful to the wishes of the composer than the objectivist interpreters. The latter, for example, perform the first and the second subject of the exposition practically on the same tempo, ignoring not only the “extreme contrast” of these subjects underlined by Adorno, but also the specifications “ma non troppo” to the Allegro, “schwungvoll” to the second subject and, most of all, the direction “Allmählig wieder zum I. Tempo übergehen” (p. 22, m. 1-2), which makes sense only when the tempo of the first subject is considerably differentiated from the one of the second. Rightly, to my opinion, Mitropoulos does not decelerate abruptly right at the beginning of the slow episode in the development, as does Karajan for example, but he observes strictly Mahler’s direction: “Allmählig etwas gehaltener”. Thus, this segment functions as a transition to the new, main tempo of the episode. Transition itself is one of the realizations of the category of mediation which, as Adorno has repeatedly pointed out, plays a constitutive role in the aesthetic idea of this first Allegro. Finally, aesthetically appropriate is Mitropoulos’ decision to slow significantly the tempo down eight measures before the abrupt outbreak of that “brutal dazwischenfahrende Stelle in der Coda [...] [die] unmittelbar als Überfall des Abscheulichen gehört wird” (...) (fig. 37, p. 59). Moreover Mahler himself, as if he wanted to reinsure the success of the outbreak, records eight measures earlier: “a tempo, aber gemessener» (p. 58, two last measures) and at the point in question “Piu mosso subito (Wie wütend dreinfahren)”.

It looks as if all these observations were intended to prove the perfection of this particular interpretation by Mitropoulos. Such a thing would not only represent a hubris, in the sense that a “perfect” interpretation is not but a regulative idea which interpretation tries to attain never attaining it; it would represent a failure to recognize the plain fact that some of Mitropoulos’ interpretational decisions are more or less pointless, unjustified. In page 53 of the score, for example, Mitropoulos reduces abruptly the tempo of the varied reprise of the choral transition, possibly in order to make better heard the impressive orchestration of the segment. Doing so he overlooks something very important to Mahler: in his works musical characters do not remain the same. As Adorno has insightfully observed, they alter as the heroes of a novel.[16] Mitropoulos decides to make the precipitated choral sound as the choral of the beginning and not to merge it into the continuity of the movement. Denying the modification of the chorale’s character he thus disregards one of the key aesthetic premises in the music of the great composer. Adorno nevertheless lends once more a hand:“Jede Interpretation steht prinzipiel vor unlösbaren Problemen. Es gibt eine absolut richtige Interpretation oder wenigstens eine zählbare Mannigfaltigkeit von solchen, aber sie ist eine Idee: nicht einmal rein zu erkennen, geschweige zu realisieren. Die Interpretation mißt sich an der Höhe ihres Mißlingens”.[17]