Wondering why some cycles remain unfinished?

[Conchis]

[QUOTE=richardfinegold;731201]Klemperer worked with Mahler, correct? And since Klemperer was a significant Conductor, his interpretations of Ms music are of interest. However, I agree with you that K doesn’t strike me as a particularly sensitive Mahlerian[/QUOTE]

Having known the composer personally, and worked with him, I don't think he was as in awe of 'Mahler' as the generations of conductors who came after him. That said, I genuinely don't think Klemperer was in awe of anyone, apart - perhaps - from Mozart.

[jayne lee wilson]

it depends on your definition of "sensitive" of course... a better term in context might be "affectionate", in that Klemperer's Mahler tends toward the objective, structurally and texturally clear, the ebb and flow of the symphonic drama brought out directly from the music and the orchestra, rather than any subjective shaping of phrase, explicit rubato, or emotional intensification of tone. But the detail itself is always extremely clear and well-defined, nothing approximate or fudged. The famously truthful recorded sound in Kingsway Hall faithfully mirrors his accuracy.

So these very qualities led to at least one of the very greatest of Mahler recordings: his 1967 Kingsway Hall 9th with the New Philharmonia, recorded after he'd recovered from serious illness.

"His refusal to languish pays tribute to his physical defiance, the physical power underlined as the sound is full-bodied and firmly-focussed. The sublimity of the finale comes out the more intensely, with overt expressiveness held in check and deep emotion implied rather than made explicit."

Thus the Penguin Guide, with accuracy and authority. Experiencing this 9th, you never once feel anything is underplayed. The music is laid bare before you, with an intensity borne of clarity, dynamics and articulation - above all the longer-term architectural control Klemperer is rightly revered for. For me the same could easily be said of his 2nd and 4th as well. His 9th has the great merit of showing up just how very manipulated (or manipulative) other interpretations can be.

More from me on the Mahler 8th tomorrow....

[jayne lee wilson]

8 is probably considered the 'least' of Mahler's symphonies by conductors, although 7 is certainly the most mystifying.

I suppose for the first generation of conductors who knew it, it was inseparable from its rather vulgar origins as a showpiece to be accompanied by performing elephants, etc, and the unfortunate tagline 'Symphony Of A Thousand.' I'll admit, I don't find the Goethe setting in the second part all that convincing.

A somewhat puzzling comment, as the 1910 Premiere was Mahler's greatest triumph within his lifetime (very movingly evoked in Alma Mahler's account of it) and the work (which I regard as a highly original masterpiece of the kind only the greatest artists can create; unsurprising then, if, like the finale of Beethoven's 9th, it meets with bafflement and rejection in some listeners) went on to receive over thirty performances in the next three years.

Unusually for Mahler, it has a strikingly pure and consistent musical character; a certain elevation of tone as per Oratorio or Bachian Passion. The orchestration is very carefully judged. So the accusations of broad-brush "coarseness" or "vulgarity" laid against it here seem, to me, a misjudgement. But it's late after a long and exhausting day - as I said, more on the 8th later...

[edashtav]

[…]

Unusually for Mahler, it has a strikingly pure and consistent musical character; a certain elevation of tone as per Oratorio or Bachian Passion. The orchestration is very carefully judged. So the accusations of broad-brush "coarseness" or "vulgarity" laid against it here seem, to me, a misjudgement. But it's late after a long and exhausting day - as I said, more on the 8th later...

The critics on this thread are in a minority, Jayne, but wecare not alone. Tony Duggan wrote an extended, thoughtful comparative review on the recordings of Mahler's Eighth on MusicWeb International but felt the need in his opening paragraph to acknowledge the work's detractors:

"Today many people have problems with the Eighth. For some who enjoy everything else Mahler wrote, the Eighth is a "symphony too far". More used to Mahler's other works, some of today's listeners perhaps find its directness puzzling."

[jayne lee wilson]

Whilst I listen to Mahler rarely these days, I love the 8th very much (even if only in recollection). It is a remarkably wide-ranging work, but highly integrated - and inspired - in its consistency of style, themes and structures. With so many wonderful moments!

It always cast a spell on me. I borrowed a brand-new set of the Solti LPs (recorded, remember, in the Musikverein) and was intoxicated by it for weeks; the melodic inspiration, the sheer physical presence and power of the Chicago Symphony, but by the delicacy of texture too.
After those blazing fanfares and invocations of the opening, those strange, spiky, demonic interludes in Veni Creator (based on the very same ideas as those fanfares), seemed to imply the duality of humankind’s nobler aspirations and our weakness before easy temptation. But as ever, it was their sheer sound that fascinated me; just as, before the final chorus, the paradisical delicacy and transparency of the coda-like interlude (piccolo, flute, clarinet, harmonium, celesta, piano, harps and a string quartet) seems to speak back to those doubts and demons, just as Faust himself is redeemed.

The hushed nature-evocation of the Part 2 adagio with its breathless tremolando, mysterious yet catchy pizzicatos; the sudden sweep of enraptured strings (taken up thematically in the final Chorus Mysticus.. ..but so many references-back there - Wunderhorn and the 3rd Symphony, that quintessentially Mahlerian lost innocence…) before the plunging, soaring vocal lines among the mountains; the feathery rhythms of the angels’ scherzo; the soft, ethereal violin lines…(listen to Bernstein, listen to Rattle, in this otherworldly song..)… I was hooked, I was just gone!
The music was soon inside my head and heart, and sometimes still travels around with me.

Later, with more objective familiarity, I came to admire the adumbration of adagio-scherzo-finale of Part Two, the infiltration of all the echt-Mahlerian themes and smaller motifs running through the work like currents of air, streams and tributaries, full of a newly-sublimated naturlaut.

***

It always seems to me mistaken, to view symphonic works (especially those in the longest, greatest, most varied cycles) from a broadly fixed point of classical view, something vaguely concerned with ideals of “unity” “economy” or “purity” (or even so malleable and subjective a quantity as “taste”) as if a composer should never go too far, or somehow stick to familiar stylistic boundaries. Mahler had just written 5, 6 and 7: closely self-referential, abstract yet (in part) autobiographical; no wonder, like Beethoven in his 8th, he felt the need for something very different: an opening out, both epic and dramatic.
Yet - it has a striking stylistic purity, far removed from the ironies and sarcasms, the popular, folk and militaristic references, the sheer demonic violence and turbulence of most of the other symphonies.
You see these creative dynamics in many musical cycles (e.g Max Davies 5th, Sibelius 6 & 7, DSCH 6 and 9)…
DSCH is frequently misunderstood (the 7th especially) as he wrote symphonies of three or four distinct types. How odd to mark down 7 against 5 or 6, say, or 15; their aims and styles are quite different. It’s like comparing a War Film to an Autobiography.

DSCH 4, 5 and 6 were intensely enervating autobiography; falling into the old music-critic trap, some listeners say of the 7th: empty, banal, bombastic, far too triumphal, what was he thinking of? The 8th reassures them (more easily-grasped agony and pain in that one); the 9th - oh thank goodness, DSCH is himself again…

DSCH 7-9 War Trilogy: Intense triumph which knows, but prefers to repress, dark memory and doubt; then - undermining exhaustion & disillusion which tries, beyond in-the-face violence death and destruction, to believe; finally utter sarcasm, despair disillusion, mockery of abuse of power.

***
My aural hypersensitivity to classical vocals keeps me away, much of the time, from such music as Mahler’s 8th..…but, moth to the flame, how I would love to stretch out my wings before it once again…
In the next life perhaps, should I be deemed worthy of redemption.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Cycle collection is indiscriminate, so perhaps conductors shunning the trend a a good thing.

I do confess to be one of the obsessive ones who likes the neatness of complete cycles. But I know I’m being silly.

[Conchis]

Cycle collection is indiscriminate, so perhaps conductors shunning the trend a a good thing.

I do confess to be one of the obsessive ones who likes the neatness of complete cycles. But I know I’m being silly.

I don't think you're being silly. It's just what we've come to expect - single composer, single orchestra, single conductor.

Kubelik threw a spanner in the works with his DG Beethoven cycle, though: different orchestra for each symphony!

[jayne lee wilson]

That approach can work very well - Venzago shared his Bruckner cycle around 5 different orchestras, chosen with much deliberation; sometimes it happens for practical/commissional reasons though, as with the David Matthews series. It certainly piques the interest... I'm sure there are other interesting examples, but this post-dentistry headache is a bit oppressive to my recall (like blindmans-buff with pain instead of a blindfold...) so - while tempted to sling on Veni Creator, I'll go back to that gorgeous Roussel Edition...

[edashtav]

That approach can work very well - Venzago shared his Bruckner cycle around 5 different orchestras, chosen with much deliberation; sometimes it happens for practical/commissional reasons though, as with the David Matthews series. It certainly piques the interest... I'm sure there are other interesting examples, but this post-dentistry headache is a bit oppressive to my recall (like blindmans-buff with pain instead of a blindfold...) so - while tempted to sling on Veni Creator, I'll go back to that gorgeous Roussel Edition...

I think you've convinced me to buy the Roussel set, Jayne, thank you ... all my Roussel discs are LPs stored in our 4' 6" high, back-breaking dungeon.

[Barbirollians]

it depends on your definition of "sensitive" of course... a better term in context might be "affectionate", in that Klemperer's Mahler tends toward the objective, structurally and texturally clear, the ebb and flow of the symphonic drama brought out directly from the music and the orchestra, rather than any subjective shaping of phrase, explicit rubato, or emotional intensification of tone. But the detail itself is always extremely clear and well-defined, nothing approximate or fudged. The famously truthful recorded sound in Kingsway Hall faithfully mirrors his accuracy.

So these very qualities led to at least one of the very greatest of Mahler recordings: his 1967 Kingsway Hall 9th with the New Philharmonia, recorded after he'd recovered from serious illness.

"His refusal to languish pays tribute to his physical defiance, the physical power underlined as the sound is full-bodied and firmly-focussed. The sublimity of the finale comes out the more intensely, with overt expressiveness held in check and deep emotion implied rather than made explicit."

Thus the Penguin Guide, with accuracy and authority. Experiencing this 9th, you never once feel anything is underplayed. The music is laid bare before you, with an intensity borne of clarity, dynamics and articulation - above all the longer-term architectural control Klemperer is rightly revered for. For me the same could easily be said of his 2nd and 4th as well. His 9th has the great merit of showing up just how very manipulated (or manipulative) other interpretations can be.

More from me on the Mahler 8th tomorrow....

I am rather ambivalent as noted above about Klemperer conducting Mahler . I agree entirely about that extraordinary Mahler 9 albeit it some ways to me it actually sounds like OK letting his guard down . I think Schwarzkoof is the main reason I do not have warm memories of his Mahler 4 .

I also much prefer the live Resurrection he did with Heather Harper and Janet Baker to the studio account which strikes me as cold and which the contralto is wobbly and not in Baker or Ferrier's league.

[jayne lee wilson]

Even before the Solti Mahler 8, the Philharmonia/Kingsway Klemperer 2 and 9 were among the first Mahler LPs I ever had, so I'm a little starry-eyed about them still. I always did prefer a less phrasally or emotionally manipulative approach in Mahler anyway (I soon came to regret buying a luxurious CD-boxset of the later Bernstein in which I found the 9th all but unlistenable - I'm not sure I ever got to the end of it), but these LP sets were early and precious acquisitions...

[visualnickmos]

I also much prefer the live Resurrection he did with Heather Harper and Janet Baker to the studio account which strikes me as cold and which the contralto is wobbly and not in Baker or Ferrier's league.

I generally like Klemperer, but the Mahler 'Resurrections' he recorded, that you mention, I find pale into insignificance when placed with Haitink and the Concertgebouw. The very first notes of dear old Otto seem weak and feeble; does not bode well.

[jayne lee wilson]

I generally like Klemperer, but the Mahler 'Resurrections' he recorded, that you mention, I find pale into insignificance when placed with Haitink and the Concertgebouw. The very first notes of dear old Otto seem weak and feeble; does not bode well.

The Toshiba-EMI remaster of the famous 1961/2 EMI 2nd certainly brings out the best in it (nothing weak or feeble there...)... they had a wonderful team of engineers/producers then...and Yoshio Okazaki made the most of it....

[visualnickmos]

The Toshiba-EMI remaster of the famous 1961/2 EMI 2nd certainly brings out the best in it (nothing weak or feeble there...)... they had a wonderful team of engineers/producers then...and Yoshio Okazaki made the most of it....

I hear exactly what you're saying, but the 'shocking' opening of Maestro Klemperer, just doesn't seem to cut the mustard. As I say, I do admire OK; Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Beethoven, the list goes on.... indeed, his Mahler 9th is tremendous, his Bruckner 4 and 6 are cracking performances.