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

[Ein Heldenleben]

And orchestration: no woodwind in the first time only bars (in my Dover edition, the five bars before figure 14).
In fact, there must be a mistake in that score, in that the woodwind surely don't play the first quaver in the first of the repeated bars if the repeat is done (figure 1 in the score).

Yes you’re right. In my 1906 Kahnt score the woodwind play that solitary quaver. I reckon it would be difficult to check against a recording as they would be blatted out by the eight horns playing a unison FF chord !

[jayne lee wilson]

Is that live one a private recording?

This is live on the St. Laurent Studio label, was available at norpete.com but that site seems to have gone wrong now. I never heard this so rfg can comment further, but to judge by timings (22'22/22'39) Karajan certainly takes the repeat here, so are the accusers above so sure that the DG repeat (timings very similar) is pasted in, or is this just hearsay? As Osborne records, Karajan had an almost supernatural inner metronome. I'll listen to the DG one (which I bought on its LP release and on CD) later anyway.... I'd be very surprised if Karajan would consider such a thing.

I'm certainly with David Matthews (and Alistair Hinton) on scherzo-2nd; and restoring the 3rd hammer blow - of course one should. Of the many 6ths I've heard, I've not known many conductors to omit the repeat in (i). The best recordings preceding HvK - NYPO/Bernstein, Haitink and Solti, all took it; as did Horenstein in Stockholm. Kondrashin omitted it, but I could forgive him due to the blazing intensity of his Leningrad Phil recording. (I find the SWR one less compelling).

(Barbirolli also omits it with the Philharmonia of course, but given his uniquely idiosyncratic tempi, one can see why! And it certainly works for him.....but a perhaps unique controversy about the movement order on that recording: originally scherzo-andante, this was changed to andante - scherzo..... for the 1996 reissue. Apparently on the basis that the conductor more often chose this approach live....a reissue best forgotten, then).

[silvestrione]

Ah yes, a live Karajan can be found on Youtube, I see....

[RichardB]

The 6th is my least favourite Mahler symphony, although this still means I like it more than most music that isn't Mahler. My feeling is that whatever a conductor does with movement order and hammers (1st movement repeat being sacrosanct of course) they just need to make a convincing case for their choice in performance. If Mahler couldn't really decide definitively one way or the other, why should anyone else?

David Matthews says "I am convinced that Mahler was wrong". Is that some kind of joke?

[jayne lee wilson]

The 6th is my least favourite Mahler symphony, although this still means I like it more than most music that isn't Mahler. My feeling is that whatever a conductor does with movement order and hammers (1st movement repeat being sacrosanct of course) they just need to make a convincing case for their choice in performance. If Mahler couldn't really decide definitively one way or the other, why should anyone else?

David Matthews says "I am convinced that Mahler was wrong". Is that some kind of joke?

No - his argument is very carefully put; at length and in great detail. Alistair Hinton feels much the same, but I don't wish to speak for him. It is an argument I find very convincing myself; and after many hearings either way, I feel this instinctively too. Yes, I first got to know the work in this order, so I accept some degree of familiarisation is influential here. But for me (and many others far more knowledgable musically) Scherzo-Andante it is.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ah yes, a live Karajan can be found on Youtube, I see....

And very dodgy it looks, seeming unlicensed, and without the 1st movement repeat.... what on earth is its provenance?
And why is Luzern/Abbado listed there?

[ahinton]

Never mind the third hammer blow or the order of the middle movements, what about the first movement exposition repeat?

https://www.good-music-guide.com/com...?topic=30910.0

I would not say "never mind" the third hammer blow or order of middle movements because all three of these are issues meriting discussion. The one that you raise effectively has two parts to it, one being whether it is acceptable to cut-and-paste the repeat in the recording and the other whether that repeat is even necessary in performance.

Personally, I agree with David Matthews about the order of the middle movements despite it requiring considerable courage to write that Mahler was wrong to decide to alter this.

This could be a very long thread!...

[ahinton]

My feeling is that whatever a conductor does with movement order...they just need to make a convincing case for their choice in performance. If Mahler couldn't really decide definitively one way or the other, why should anyone else?

But Mahler DID decide; whether "definitively" or not has to remain open to question, not least because in the final four years of his tragically short life, he never conducted it once.

David Matthews says "I am convinced that Mahler was wrong". Is that some kind of joke?

Is it likely that anyone whose involvement in the music of Mahler over almost 60 years is as extensive as is David Matthews' would crack a joke about this? For that matter, who is to say and on what grounds that Mahler was "right" to change that order? I am not even 0.1% of the composer that Mahler was but composers can not only make misjudgements but also change their minds; what, for example, prompted Elliott Carter to revise his 1945-46 Piano Sonata in the early 1980s?

[RichardB]

No - his argument is very carefully put; at length and in great detail

I know, I've read it. As I said, I don't think there's any need to come down decisively on one side or the other. I just find it more than faintly ridiculous that a composer of David Matthews' microscopic stature can go on record as thinking that he knows better than Mahler what's good for Mahler's music! Of course, one's mileage may vary with regard to DM. Anyway my feeling is that the movement order thing is argued out.

If I had to choose one recording, which I'm happy not to have to, it would be Abbado's Chicago one. Or Gielen. Or Fischer (I). And I must listen to Petrenko.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have just two versions of the work: VPO/Maazel, who puts the Scherzo first, and Boulez, who doesn’t. As both seem to work rather well, I’m not at all worried about finding a “correct” solution, though perhaps I should be. But as Pulci says, it’s easy enough to programme the CD player.

[Joseph K]

I have just two versions of the work: VPO/Maazel, who puts the Scherzo first, and Boulez, who doesn’t. As both seem to work rather well, I’m not at all worried about finding a “correct” solution, though perhaps I should be. But as Pulci says, it’s easy enough to programme the CD player.

Which Boulez? I only know of two - Vienna Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Berlin - and both have the Scherzo first.

[Bryn]

Which Boulez? I only know of two - Vienna Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Berlin - and both have the Scherzo first.

As also with the live BBCSO recording:

[Braunschlag]

Currentzis for me, and that’s from someone who doesn’t even like the piece.

[Petrushka]

It didn't take long for the question of the 'movement order' to crop up.

The answer to the problem is very simple: we have to accept that the 6th exists in two versions and it is up to the conductor to decide which one he/she chooses. Listeners on CD may programme as they wish but in listening to a recording I always play it as the conductor decides.

Members who've been here for some time may remember that Roehre, once of this parish, came up with a very interesting, and even simpler, solution, that is to omit the Scherzo entirely on the basis that to do so solves all problems relating to the movement order at a stroke.

[richardfinegold]

Is that live one a private recording?

I’ve written about it before on the Forum. It is available from Norpete.com in Vermont. I believe they may have added another live version from a different concert