Mahler 7

[Bryn]

I don't have access to the critical edition at the moment, but the fair copy prepared under Mahler's supervision looks exactly the same as the Dover edition. Of course Gielen had his reasons, and if he were still with us I might consider getting in touch and asking him what they were! But I still don't like it.

Ah well . . . By the way, I have just found the CD, so if, as I think you should, you change your mind . . .

[Bryn]

I don't have access to the critical edition at the moment, but the fair copy prepared under Mahler's supervision looks exactly the same as the Dover edition. Of course Gielen had his reasons, and if he were still with us I might consider getting in touch and asking him what they were! But I still don't like it.

I note that it is said by some that the rhythmic feature under discussion was inspired by the action of rowing a boat. If so, could the tremolo not be an evocation of feathering the oars after a couple of hefty strokes? To me, the passage, in the Gielen performance, evokes heavy effort, followed, soon after, by relaxation. That's not intended as a rationale for measured tremoli, just the impression I get from Gielen's approach. I read that Gielen took over the performance from Tennstedt at short notice. How short was not made clear.

[RichardB]

Apparently (though this is only hearsay and I haven't seen the document in question), the idea of performing the tremoli as distinct 32nd notes comes from a note on Mengelberg's conducting score, which might have originated with Mahler himself. If that's the case then I shall eat my words, although of course Mahler is notorious for having changed his mind about various details in his scores, but my take is that unmeasured tremoli are supported by the facts that (a) the dotted rhythm of the opening (which forms the basis of so much of the material of the first movement) loses much of its character if the strings play the tremoli as measured, (b) the bass drum plays at the same time as the lower strings but is marked "tr" (ie. an unmeasured drum roll) rather than as a tremolo, while the clarinets and bassoons have the same material but without any kind of tremolo or trill, and (c) the bowings marked in the first two bars suggest (to me at least) that if the tremoli were intended to be measured their beginnings would have been marked with a downbow. But I'm not a musicologist so these are idle speculations really. OK, I'll give this Gielen a listen.

edit: I still think those notes at the beginning were wrong, but I'll forgive Gielen for that given that it's certainly the best performance of the fourth movement I've ever heard. Next: back to his SWR recoding to hear how it compares. I don't much like the way the Berliners are recorded but that's typical of recordings made in the the Philharmonie, if that's where it was done, which I assume is the case.

[Barbirollians]

Listened to the Chicago SO/Abbado last night - it is just so " right " - a classic that does not pale no matter how many hearings.

[BBMmk2]

I’ve watched a YouTube film of M7, with as a ballet. Most interesting.