BaL 7.01.23 - Mahler: Symphony no. 6 in A minor

[oliver sudden]

Should anyone be in the position to alert me to the whereabouts of a 1965 Hallé/JB I might be able to hear, I would be exceedingly grateful!

A point Richard Osborne made in an Interpretations on Record in the 1980s - if you learned the work from Barbirolli or Bernstein you tend to find the first movement either too fast or too slow in other performances.

I am definitely an exception to this rule: my first Mahler 6 was Karajan, which palled fairly soon, then I tried a few other options of which Szell was one, and had more or less come to the conclusion that Mahler 6 was not for me. Then the EMI Barbirolli came on the radio. I was at first horrified by the tempo, then absolutely transfixed for the next hour and a bit and there was no looking back…even though the middle movements must surely have been in the EMI-swapped order, which in Barbirolli’s version I find quite impossible nowadays. (Listening to the live NPO was the first time I found myself at the end of the first movement thinking ‘oh god please not the Scherzo now, I can’t bear any more stomping on A’ and sure enough the arrival of the Andante was a blessed relief.)

[silvestrione]

Should anyone be in the position to alert me to the whereabouts of a 1965 Hallé/JB I might be able to hear, I would be exceedingly grateful!


I am definitely an exception to this rule: my first Mahler 6 was Karajan, which palled fairly soon, then I tried a few other options of which Szell was one, and had more or less come to the conclusion that Mahler 6 was not for me. Then the EMI Barbirolli came on the radio. I was at first horrified by the tempo, then absolutely transfixed for the next hour and a bit and there was no looking back…even though the middle movements must surely have been in the EMI-swapped order, which in Barbirolli’s version I find quite impossible nowadays. (Listening to the live NPO was the first time I found myself at the end of the first movement thinking ‘oh god please not the Scherzo now, I can’t bear any more stomping on A’ and sure enough the arrival of the Andante was a blessed relief.)

Yes! Or, no! rather...that is just what I can't take in Mahler 6, the obsessive quality. Not to mention the noise,length and melodrama of the last movement.
The most bearable for me is the recent BPO Rattle, its investigative quality.

[richardfinegold]

Should anyone be in the position to alert me to the whereabouts of a 1965 Hallé/JB I might be able to hear, I would be exceedingly grateful!


I am definitely an exception to this rule: my first Mahler 6 was Karajan, which palled fairly soon, then I tried a few other options of which Szell was one, and had more or less come to the conclusion that Mahler 6 was not for me. Then the EMI Barbirolli came on the radio. I was at first horrified by the tempo, then absolutely transfixed for the next hour and a bit and there was no looking back…even though the middle movements must surely have been in the EMI-swapped order, which in Barbirolli’s version I find quite impossible nowadays. (Listening to the live NPO was the first time I found myself at the end of the first movement thinking ‘oh god please not the Scherzo now, I can’t bear any more stomping on A’ and sure enough the arrival of the Andante was a blessed relief.)

well, to each his own. I also first learned the 6th from the Karajan recording, which blew me away then and has continued to do so. I was fortunate to enough to obtain a live recording made from around the time of the recording a few years ago which has even more frisson. The playing in the slow movement has to be heard to be believed in the Karajan, as the coda feels like the orchestra is about to lift off into space. The scherzo, placed second, has the perfect sense of wryly commenting on I, and the slow, nightmarish quality of the intro to IV is superb, and even better in the live version. I've already stated my piece about the JB recording (apparently with the NPO-I must have conflated his BPO Ninth and came up with a BPO Sixth in my earlier post--like Nick I long ago tossed the disc so I have to rely on Google). Lets just agree that the JB and HvK recordings are polar opposites . One seems like like a world weary trudge, as if the cataclysm has occurred and being remembered from the perspective of an aged survivor; the other like a Universe hurtling out of control due to uncontrollable destructive energy.

[Petrushka]

well, to each his own. I also first learned the 6th from the Karajan recording, which blew me away then and has continued to do so. I was fortunate to enough to obtain a live recording made from around the time of the recording a few years ago which has even more frisson. The playing in the slow movement has to be heard to be believed in the Karajan, as the coda feels like the orchestra is about to lift off into space. The scherzo, placed second, has the perfect sense of wryly commenting on I, and the slow, nightmarish quality of the intro to IV is superb, and even better in the live version. I've already stated my piece about the JB recording (apparently with the NPO-I must have conflated his BPO Ninth and came up with a BPO Sixth in my earlier post--like Nick I long ago tossed the disc so I have to rely on Google). Lets just agree that the JB and HvK recordings are polar opposites . One seems like like a world weary trudge, as if the cataclysm has occurred and being remembered from the perspective of an aged survivor; the other like a Universe hurtling out of control due to uncontrollable destructive energy.

The thing about me and my CD collection is that I like to gather in as many differing interpretations of various important works as I reasonably can and, while it's an expensive hobby, it's what collecting is all about.

Mahler 6 is a classic case. It didn't have much of a recorded or performance history when the NYPO Bernstein appeared in the 1960s so the field was pretty well wide open for conductors to find their own interpretation. I have both Karajan and both live and recorded Barbirolli among very many though I would nominate Kubelik's swift, even jaunty, reading as an even more of a polar opposite to JB than Karajan.

While I obviously have my preferences I would never throw away a recording that differed. It's all part of the fascinating recorded history of the work and all of them, and I have most, have a rightful place on my shelves and in my CD player.

[smittims]

I remember hearing Karajan conduct the sixth live on radio, before his studio recording ,and I was struck by the orchestra retuning after the first movement . This was the first time I had heard this done at a concert, and I thought that, and the long time he took to get around to conducting Mahler, showed how carefully he approached this music. I think he only did 4,5, 6&9. .

[Barbirollians]

I don't really get HVK in Mahler at all. What I have heard has left me cold with the exception of his Das Lied von Der Erde but he has excellent singers especially Ludwig . I have not, however, heard his Sixth but found that massively praised live 9 stunningly played but cold and his 5th the same.

[oliver sudden]

This is the live Karajan 6 in question I suppose?

https://youtu.be/IMIi-6q0Hgw?feature=shared

[Barbirollians]

Should anyone be in the position to alert me to the whereabouts of a 1965 Hallé/JB I might be able to hear, I would be exceedingly grateful!


I am definitely an exception to this rule: my first Mahler 6 was Karajan, which palled fairly soon, then I tried a few other options of which Szell was one, and had more or less come to the conclusion that Mahler 6 was not for me. Then the EMI Barbirolli came on the radio. I was at first horrified by the tempo, then absolutely transfixed for the next hour and a bit and there was no looking back…even though the middle movements must surely have been in the EMI-swapped order, which in Barbirolli’s version I find quite impossible nowadays. (Listening to the live NPO was the first time I found myself at the end of the first movement thinking ‘oh god please not the Scherzo now, I can’t bear any more stomping on A’ and sure enough the arrival of the Andante was a blessed relief.)

Ah but neither the Barbirolli or the Bernstein was your first Mahler 6.

[oliver sudden]

I can only conclude that I must have assumed he was making a much more generalised point than he quite clearly was.

[oliver sudden]

Let’s just agree that the JB and HvK recordings are polar opposites . One seems like like a world weary trudge, as if the cataclysm has occurred and being remembered from the perspective of an aged survivor; the other like a Universe hurtling out of control due to uncontrollable destructive energy.

Happy to agree re opposites. I don’t hear any of the JBs as a world-weary trudge, though!

I had the EMI recording running this evening and as soon as the first movement ended my two-year-old twins cried out “more!”.

Which I suppose might have meant they wanted the Scherzo next but that was not what they got.

(Does anyone else have an opinion on the clanging metallic hammer in the Berlin JB recording? Either for or against?)

[vibratoforever]

Shame the Barbirolli Society has been wound up - the 1965 Halle could have been one for them.

They issued the first part of the concert - Debussy Nocturnes.

[smittims]

I like your screen-name! Maybe I should change to 'portamentoforever'.

[oliver sudden]

I am on a long train journey and just listened to the first movement of the NYPO/Bernstein and good lord that’s just too fast, has he not seen the ‘ma non troppo’? And now the Scherzo has started up and goodness me what was he thinking, that’s not the least bit Wuchtig.

I think I am unlikely to make it all the way to the end.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

(Does anyone else have an opinion on the clanging metallic hammer in the Berlin JB recording? Either for or against?)

Mahler was very good at specifying what he didn't want, and the score says that the hammer should not sound metallic.

Case closed, I'd say.

[Maclintick]

Mahler was very good at specifying what he didn't want, and the score says that the hammer should not sound metallic.

I have rarely attended performances of this work, but retain a vivid memory from a 2008 Prom (CSO/Haitink) of Cynthia Yeh, the orchestra's principal percussionist, attacking a large wooden dais with an outsized mallet. The accuracy and ferocity with which this slender lady performed her task was such that she practically levitated, producing a fearsome, doom-laden thud which is surely what the composer intended.