OAE/Rattle Oct 7 2016

[P. G. Tipps]

Just streamed the Rott in a performance led BT Segerstram. I don't see a Mahler or Bruckner connection.

Really?

To my ears the whole piece seems riddled with very familiar-sounding passages from a certain other composer and the 3rd Movement is so 'Mahler' I can almost see him! Of course it was actually a case of Mahler being, rather blatantly, a lot of Rott!

Any Bruckner influence is maybe less obvious and rather more subtle, but at certain points it does exist, imv, and I feel sure Old Anton would have nodded approvingly on hearing/seeing the conclusion of the slow movement, for instance?

[David-G]

Frankly, I'm sick to death of constantly hearing a Mozart piano concerto preceding a Bruckner symphony at so many concerts.

When I saw this programmed at the Proms I thought it was quite an imaginative combination. Is it not? Is this a frequent pairing? Though personally, this is not a combination that appeals to me.

[richardfinegold]

Really?

To my ears the whole piece seems riddled with very familiar-sounding passages from a certain other composer and the 3rd Movement is so 'Mahler' I can almost see him! Of course it was actually a case of Mahler being, rather blatantly, a lot of Rott!

Any Bruckner influence is maybe less obvious and rather more subtle, but at certain points it does exist, imv, and I feel sure Old Anton would have nodded approvingly on hearing/seeing the conclusion of the slow movement, for instance?

I don't view the scherzo from Rott's work as any more "Mahlerian" than say the scherzo from Vaughan Williams 8th (a piece that I am more or less picking at random) sounds like Mahler. All 3 are satirical sounding works in scherzo form, and there the similarities end. Mahler may have been slightly influenced by Rott, but Rott doesn't begin to approach the level of irony that Mahler achieves by turning a well known Nursery Song into Funeral Dirge and then having a klezmer outburst in the middle of it. To imply that Mahler somehow ripped off Rott, stealing the sick man's genius, as some here seem to be implying, is laughable. One could just as easily say that Mahler was ripping off Beethoven with his chorale finale of his next Symphony. Inspired by Beethoven, perhaps, but the outcomes are solar systems apart.
fwiw, having streamed the rest of Rott's deservedly forgotten score, if it reminds me of any late Romantic Composer, there are several passages in the remaining that suggest Bruckner.

[P. G. Tipps]

p. g. tipps

I don't view the scherzo from Rott's work as any more "Mahlerian" than say the scherzo from Vaughan Williams 8th (a piece that I am more or less picking at random) sounds like Mahler. All 3 are satirical sounding works in scherzo form, and there the similarities end. Mahler may have been slightly influenced by Rott, but Rott doesn't begin to approach the level of irony that Mahler achieves by turning a well known Nursery Song into Funeral Dirge and then having a klezmer outburst in the middle of it. To imply that Mahler somehow ripped off Rott, stealing the sick man's genius, as some here seem to be implying, is laughable. One could just as easily say that Mahler was ripping off Beethoven with his chorale finale of his next Symphony. Inspired by Beethoven, perhaps, but the outcomes are solar systems apart.
fwiw, having streamed the rest of Rott's deservedly forgotten score, if it reminds me of any late Romantic Composer, there are several passages in the remaining that suggest Bruckner.

Well, I certainly laughed when I first heard Rott's scherzo. I'm certainly not alone in having noticed the quite startling resemblance to a section in Mahler 2, so it's most unlikely I have somehow imagined it! This is not mere 'influence', all composers are influenced and inspired by others, but almost a direct copy to my ears. Of course it might have been intended as a special tribute to Rott, who had died a few years earlier and apparently was greatly admired by Mahler. Who knows?

I agree that Rott's symphony has largely been forgotten but certainly not that this neglect is in any way deserved. That is an extremely harsh verdict, imv.