The History of the Universe (really!)

Modern science tells us that most of the universe is inhospitable to organic life. And so the advent of life itself as we know it is a political act, a rebellion against the eons-long dominion of non-life. Thoreau in his journals compared the coming of spring to a revolution – the absurdity that flowers should take over the world – flowers! Why do we only notice revolutions in the human world? Every springtime is a revolution, harking back to the first spring of life on earth. The first of random molecules organizing themselves into some semblance of order in the midst of gigantic chaos. Life forms from the dregs of the universe, and yet at some point it organizes itself into a marching band. 

Richard Strauss was disturbed by the march sequences in the first movement of Mahler's 3rd Symphony. He said they reminded him of the workers’ parties parading on May Day. The marches are an eruption of the vulgar into the erudite world of Classical Music. A ragtag army, beating cracked drums and blowing on leaky fifes, storming the citadels of power. Life, far from being natural, is portrayed here as something unnatural, persisting against the odds, against Nature. From a thousand different directions, whimsical toots and whistles coalesce together into an army of the lowly and insignificant. Life turns the tables on the rest of Nature, but only temporarily. The momentum of the march doesn't know when to stop - Mahler has always been criticized on account of his excess. Life pushes itself beyond the planet’s ability to sustain it, leading to mass extinctions and the return of the oppression of non-life. "Balance" does exist in nature but there is nothing tranquil or comforting in the actual way it works. 

Yet, the omnivorous massive first movement of the Third Symphony does not exclude the possibility of reconciliation, even if it only occurs in brief intervals of the struggle of Life against Nature. Near the end of the development section there is an episode of almost unbearable sweetness, a kind of sub-tropical afternoon languor that gives the illusion of eternity. The struggle to survive abates and there is time to dream. But the cellos rumble from down below, and with two subversive flourishes on the woodwinds, we are thrown into chaos again. 

The Third Symphony may be Mahler's most ambitious music, but is also his silliest. He seems well aware of the ridiculousness of trying to write a symphony about the history of the universe. There is something cartoonish about the marches of insect soldiers, like the cosmic aspirations of Disney's Fantasia, or Woody Allen speculating about the Big Bang and male erectile dysfunction to the camera... and because of this self-conscious silliness, Mahler succeeds where so many grand late Romantic symphonies failed. This really is the History of the Universe. (LOL)