Your Least Favourite Mahler Symphony?

[makropulos]

I'd agree. Bernstein brings it off by playing it for all it's worth. The only Mahler movement that fails for me is the one before it, Nachtmusik 2. Always glad to reach thst finale!

Yes! Bernstein does indeed - I've a tape of a stupendous live performance he did in New York at the same time as the "live" versions put out on DG - even more electrifying than the more polished versions edited together from several performances and rehearsal patches, but of course with the occasional rough moment and not in such good sound. But the thing is that it thrills me every time I listen to it. His 60s record for Columbia/Sony is pretty terrific too.

[3rd Viennese School]

Okay then, I'll have no.8.

Or not have it, of course!

[Nick Armstrong]

Very interesting. I can see why you both (pilamenon and S-A) think that, but I've never found it overblown - I think it can be quite fun in the right hands (and I think perhaps it needs to be - otherwise the overblown risk is certainly there). It's maybe hard to bring it off. The most successful performances I've heard of it have gone at it hammer and tongs (so to speak) - and above all at quite a quick tempo. So I've tended to think of it as a good movement that's hard to bring off, rather than a less good one that occasionally works.

Re: the last movement of No 7 - Mak, I totally agree with you. For my money, Abbado judges it perfectly in his 1990s Chicago performance (and doubtless too in the subsequent Berlin and Lucerne recordings, which I don't know as well) where it seems a fabulous, clangorous culmination, full of humour and joie-de-vivre. I actually have a private theory about the 7th, which is that it is Mahler writing a tongue-in-cheek parody of a Mahler symphony (and of No 5 in particular - very similar last movements, that of No 7 being pushed to extremes). Difficult to explain, but it's what I hear when I listen to it. It's the one symphony I thought Tennstedt could never bring off - heard him a couple of times, it always seemed to sprawl and sag and almost fall apart.

[Barbirollians]

Mahler 8 - all too long and boring.

[verismissimo]

And loud. :)

[salymap]

I prefer 1 to 5 at the moment because I know them so well they cut through my noises [tinnitus].

[Ventilhorn]

I find that I can only take Mahler symphonies when I am in the right mood. (except Nos 8 and Das Lied, which I absolutely cannot abide, as I stated in a previous post)

At other times I feel almost as if I have drunk one of those over-sweet liqueurs and I feel an urgent need to cleanse my musical palette with a large draft of Bruckner to dilute the mawkish sentimentality of some of Mahler's writing.

That is not to say that he was not a great orchestrator and he certainly always had the ability to bring a lump to ones throat, but in general, I prefer the more straightforward orchestration of Bruckner or the uncomplicated simplicity of Mozart for relaxed listening. I don't really want to be disturbed by musical angst in the way that Mahler's almost autobiographical music sometimes does.

However, a great forerunner who did much to shape the form of musical composition in the 20th century.

VH

[Barbirollians]

I love Das Lied though !

[Ariosto]

My least favourite is number 12 in C flat minor.

[Flosshilde]

Mahler 8 - all too long and boring.

As the Berlin Phil performance started this afternoon I did think that I really didn't want to listen to it. I think the problem is that a recording Or broadcast just doesn't do it justice - it has to be heard live. But I wouldn't call it too long, or boring. Perhaps it's because the two parts are so different. But Part 2 is wonderful - that long climb from the ravine to the heavens.

(I don't really know if I'm saying that 8 is my least favourite or not. Although saying that any of one them is my 'least favourite' isn't the same as saying that I don't like it - they are all pretty wonderful)

[Petrushka]

Perhaps it's because the two parts are so different.

But not as different as you might think. Many of the themes of Part 1 are heard again in various transformations in Part 2. The Accende lumen sensibus theme, most notably, runs through the entire work like a thread - you hear it again and again - and makes it all hang together. On the other hand, the central part of the second movement can sag in the wrong hands. It needs to be kept on the move if the listener's concentration isn't to sag as well.

[barber olly]

I prefer 1 to 5 at the moment because I know them so well they cut through my noises [tinnitus].

I also have a familiarity with 1 to 5, and for years have been trying to reach beyond them but find 6-9 more difficult to like and love. Hopefully I will get there in time.

[marvin]

Any Mahler symphony that has a soprano or choral accompaniment but that applies to all composers.

[EdgeleyRob]

I like all of them