Mahler's innovations in instrumentation required the use of nonmusical instruments in a collage technique, characterized by sounds in free, non-metric patterns that are set against the remaining instruments. 'Nachtmusik I' of the Seventh Symphony employs a cowbell as a nonprogrammatic layer of the texture. Although this style resembles that of Ives, Mahler had no Ivesian connection. However, he undoubtedly borrowed this style from selected textures in Beethoven's Leonore Overture and Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, but he did not use direct quotations.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Fredrick Tarrant