“Mahlerei” — As Inspired by Zero Mostel

For a period of three decades, I have made music with the renegade bass trombonist David Taylor. These sessions began with sight-reading Beethoven cello sonatas in my living room. They accelerated with our mutual discovery that certain Schubert songs – especially Doppelganger — potently inflamed Taylor’s instrument. A few years ago, I threw caution to winds and turned the Scherzo of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony — a whirling waltz/scherzo — into a sui generis concertino for bass trombone and chamber ensemble: Mahlerei.

Mahlerei was premiered at the Kennedy Center and praised in the Washington Post. I subsequently invited Daniel Schnyder to revise the accompanying parts. The resulting final version (the video above) was brilliantly realized at last May’s Colorado Mahlerfest, with a conductor (Kenneth Woods) and instrumentalists steeped in Mahler style. 

My initial inspiration was an insane performance in my head of Zero Mostel singing Mahler’s scherzo in Yiddish. What I wound up with, I would say, is more “Jewish” than the original, and also funnier. But it purports to additionally capture the radiance and pathos of its source.  

In a nutshell: I have stitched together the various tunes Mahler distributes among his players and fashioned a relentless trombone excursion. Mahler’s movement tracks an unusual trajectory. A bustling perpetual-motion waltz in C minor somehow yields a celestial D major vision. In Mahlerei, the bass trombone is an irritant whose intrusions are magically subdued by D major angels. I have fashioned the solo part accordingly – including a choreographed exit near the end.

In a New York Sun review of Mahler conducting the New York Philharmonic, W. J. Henderson – one of the great names in American musical journalism – memorably wrote: ”We used to think that Beethoven’s scoring was tolerably simple and that most of it was purely harmonic. . . . But we are rapidly learning that it is quite as contrapuntal as Bach’s and that what we foolishly supposed were mere thirds or sixths in chord formations are in reality individual melodic voices which must be brought out by exploring conductors.” 

And so it is in Mahler’s scherzo. Fashioning my concertino, I became acutely aware that Mahler foregrounds a concatenation of individual voices – including differentiated first and second violin parts that had never before registered in my ear. Using single strings accentuates this barnyard dimension – especially when realized by instrumentalists and a conductor who understand Mahler’s intent.

David Taylor and I are currently preparing a version of Schubert’s Winterreise. You can sample our Schubert here. And for trombonists or conductors interested in Mahlerei, I possess scores and parts at hand. Have at it.

David and I gratefully acknowledge Ken Woods’ exemplary advocacy, and his Colorado Mahlerfest band:

Caroline Eva Chin and Sophia Ann Szokolay, violins

Lauren Spaulding, viola

Parry Karp, cello

Michael Geib, bass

Hannah Porter Occena, flute

Jordan Pyle, oboe

Gleyton Pinto, clarinet

Sarah Fish, bassoon

Lydia Van Dreel, horn

Jack Barry, Matthew Dupree, Adam Vera, percussion

Brian du Fresne, harmonium

Michael Karcher-Young, piano