Your Least Favourite Mahler Symphony?

[Guest]

Generally, I like Mahler, especially 1-5, 7, 9 and Das Lied...

The 8th I blow hot and cold over - sometimes I'm in the mood for it, more often I'm not.

But 6, no matter who's conducting or playing, never does it for me. I can't shake the feeling that Mahler set out to write a self-conciously 'tragic' work and the drama (from the trudgy, over-emphatic 'march' at the beginning) to the notorious 'three hammer blows of fate' at the end always strikes me as being too thickly laid on. The effect is a bit like being cornered by some teenager in a Goth outfit, anxious to show you his self-inflicted scars and bend your ear about how grim life is.

In actual fact, of course, the impulse for the symphony came from genuinely tragic events in Mahler's own life - but I think these find far more moving (and restrained) expression in the Kindertotenlieder (and, for that matter, Das Lied).


So, it would be fair to say, I'm no fan of the 6th (is it significant that it seems to be programmed significantly less than GM's other works? It has a reputation for being 'difficult' to interpret), though the slow movement is pleasant.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Number 11

[Mr Pee]

No. 6 is probably my favourite, and can be shatteringly powerful in a good performance.

I won't pick a least favourite. Seems rather a pointless exercise.

[moeranbiogman]

No.3 - everything rather pompous except for the final adagio.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's a difficult question to answer. I've just spent ten minutes, walking aeround the block, trying to work out how to give my answer.

I think it has to be any Mahler, except for the Fourth, which I can listen to at any time. Why? Because there are times when Mahler perfectly matches my mood - now shaKing his fist fatalistically at tragedies he foresaw, whether of his own or "fate's" making; now at peace and harmony with the natural order; now at war with his own inner disorder - but there are other times (like now) when I just can't face his music. A ahame, really, as I should be listening to the Sixth, which is on right now, probably. I nearly wrote "face the music" - because Mahler is a bit like that, wouldn't one say? Perhaps it's because he reflects back complex, contradictory old me only too well: round and round on the karmic wheel of birth-and-death, maybe only reconciled at the very end: by which time, how many have been on the receiving end? I have a theory that Mahler frequently didn't like Mahler very much.

S-A

[barber olly]

1 to 5 I feel I know and love but there's always something more to hear in each, however I feel I've been trying to get to know 6 to 9 for the last 30 years, one day (week, fortnight, month) I'll sit down and take them in! No10 I do not take seriously, other than the Adagio, for the same reasons as Payne's Symphony on a few ideas of Elgar!

[Suffolkcoastal]

All of them, except 6 & 9. If I had to pick the worst one it would be a toss up between 3 & 8.

[Mandryka]

A lot of people (including a fair few conductors) seem to have an aversion to the 8th, I believe. Wonder why that is? Excessive rehearsal time, perhaps?

[Ferretfancy]

The first 4 are OK, after that the neurosis, bombast and breast beating takes over. I think on the whole I prefer the song cycles, but Mahler's world will never be really mine.

[LeMartinPecheur]

No10 I do not take seriously, other than the Adagio, for the same reasons as Payne's Symphony on a few ideas of Elgar!

Do you take the same view of Mozart's Requiem? The reviewer in the recent-ish Mahler 10 BaL pointed out that there's vastly more Mahler in the 10th than there is Mozart in the Requiem.

There is a complete Mahler 'line' all through reconstructions of the 10th. As I understand it, the issues are then orchestration, and a certain (fairly small) amount of infilling of inner parts. At least in the Cooke version - there are other, more speculative and heavily orchestrated completions. Even so, in these there's still vastly less actual composition than in Elgar/Payne 3, though that for me is still a startlingly good work.

[Norfolk Born]

A lot of people (including a fair few conductors) seem to have an aversion to the 8th, I believe. Wonder why that is? Excessive rehearsal time, perhaps?

In my case, it's simply because there's so much going on and I can't get my head round it. My favourite is the 6th.

[Serial_Apologist]

In my case, it's simply because there's so much going on and I can't get my head round it. My favourite is the 6th.

Gustav Mahler: harbinger of the New Complexity.

[Nick Armstrong]

1

[Petrushka]

In actual fact, of course, the impulse for the symphony came from genuinely tragic events in Mahler's own life

Not so. The composition of the 6th predates the 'tragic events' by three years.

By the way, the notion of a least favourite Mahler symphony is absurd in my case.

[Stan Drews]

Oh, Jeez. Please get a life. This is about as pointless as discussing the merits of Mozart's symphonies 1 - 20
(or thereby). Fact is that Mahler affects us all in different ways at different times.