As we're 'on' Mahler...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

S/A please!!! Rather pleased (and pleasantly surprised) this thread hasn’t taken off.

Well - that might be the Thread's Gavrilo Princip, but I think/hope that we've spent our ammo in past "discussions" and have no enthusiasm for further hostilities.

[Barbirollians]

A/S for me.

[kea]

Previous Forumista discussion and campanology here:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?14106-Mahler-6-Halle-Elder

It might make for cleaner air if, having expressed our views as warmly as we were wont then, we avoid simply repeating those views now. Unless, of course, anyone has radically altered their opinion since. I haven't so I'll not say any more.


It's might be a bit of an exaggeration to describe the case as involving an "original" and "revised" editions of the text: "merely" (merely???!!!) what the order of the two middle movements should be, and how many hammer blows there should be in the Finale. There are excellent recordings of the various options to keep us all happy.

I think there are also some changes in orchestration?? At least between the 1904 first published version and the 1910 final version. They are noticeable when following along with a 1904 score, e.g. the Erwin Ratz edition of 1965, and noticing e.g. glockenspiels where no glockenspiel is marked, etc. Seems to have mostly affected the percussion parts, beyond simply changing the number of hammer blows (in 1910 I think he also strengthened the second hammer blow by adding extra percussion?). I think dynamics were also changed a fair bit though, e.g. on the final chord in 1904 the trumpets hold at ff for an entire bar and only then dimin., whereas in 1910 the ff is changed to a sfp, dimin. to pp within a bar, and the second bar of the chord marked with whatever is german for "morendo".

It seems like when most conductors do the "original version" they just reverse the order of the middle movements and restore the third hammer blow, but otherwise play from the "revised version" percussion parts and dynamic markings.

[visualnickmos]

I think there are also some changes in orchestration?? At least between the 1904 first published version and the 1910 final version. They are noticeable when following along with a 1904 score, e.g. the Erwin Ratz edition of 1965, and noticing e.g. glockenspiels where no glockenspiel is marked, etc. Seems to have mostly affected the percussion parts, beyond simply changing the number of hammer blows (in 1910 I think he also strengthened the second hammer blow by adding extra percussion?). I think dynamics were also changed a fair bit though, e.g. on the final chord in 1904 the trumpets hold at ff for an entire bar and only then dimin., whereas in 1910 the ff is changed to a sfp, dimin. to pp within a bar, and the second bar of the chord marked with whatever is german for "morendo".

It seems like when most conductors do the "original version" they just reverse the order of the middle movements and restore the third hammer blow, but otherwise play from the "revised version" percussion parts and dynamic markings.

I really do hope Mahler is not morphing into Bruckner!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"Scherzo followed by Andante" as the order of the middle two movements as in Mahler's idea for the first publication of 1904, or "Andante followed by Scherzo" as in his altered mind a couple of years later.

"OP" = "Opening Post" of a Thread.

And I thought it was a reference to Serial Apologist?