BaL 16.02.13 - Mahler's 6th Symphony in A minor

[Thropplenoggin]

Well Throstles (sorry, I just love birds, especially , Fieldfares, etc...)

The finale is a classical sonata form - slow introduction, exposition (3 themes: jerky march starting on basses; grimly questing theme led by horns; then hopeful theme on horn leading to a soaring straussian melody led by strings (all 3 are related to & shot through with motifs from intro); return of intro., then two developments leading to two hammer blows; intro again, then recap leading to final return of intro & 3rd hammer blow (or substitute!); coda (v.dark, brass only). Part of the joy of it is following it.
Maybe try to map it out and listen again.? Once you start to grasp the sheer density of motivic integration - remembering and relating the ideas to each other - the length should start to justify itself.

My first LP was Solti - muddy sound on vinyl, I listened over and over to see into it - inadvertently, unconsciously, grasping the structures... suddenly, there it was. (Teenagers have quick minds and good memories).

Surprised about your reaction to the andante (not much I can do about it I guess), one of Mahler's very greatest tragic inspirations which says "if only it could be like this"; but knowing - there, in the music - it can't, which the finale's ominous introduction confirms. A main reason for allegro/scherzo/andante/finale order. Emotions as well as tonal relations.

Thanks for the lengthy explication of the final movement, Jane. I'll listen again with the above paragraph before me and see if it makes more sense. As for slow movements, I'll still take the 4th's over the 6th's every time.

Throstles is a new one on me and is not disagreeable as a diminutive!

[BBMmk2]

The Finale though, of this symphony, is well extrordinary, imo. Something mustve have tugged at Mahler while he was writing this?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The point surely is that BAL really requires a reviewer that loves the work . If you want a critique then BAL is not the place for it .
JLW 's criticisms of the reviewer sound with mine - it is as if he finds the work over the top and inidists therefore upon compensatory restrained renderings .
Which to my ears completely misses the point about Mahler 6 - and pretty much his whole oeuvre .

"A shattering emotional journey". "Wonderfully effusive" "exuberant rapture" "fragile introspection" "understated beauty that makes the passionate outburst all the more effective" "nuanced without being bent out of shape - the Music being allowed to speak for itself, rather than being used as the vehicle for something else" "the contradictory nature of the Music: simultaneously yearning and protesting" "An overflowing sense of a love of life evoking a world that you absolutely do not want to lose, rather than one that is lost already" "the intensity of hope in this Music" "life-affirming, passionate and vibrant" "the promise that it might win through against all the odds has to be utterly believable" "struggle renewed, success almost grasped, only to be crushed". "[The Finale] is too long and too noisy - I don't mean that Mahler misjudged it: quite the opposite. It is deliberately so in order to achieve its shattering effect".

Which of those quotations from Saturday's BaL lead you to conclude that the reviewer does not "love" and furthermore "misses the point" not only of this work, but of Mahler's "whole oeuvre"? And was the final choice of Abbado also evidence of someone who finds the work "over the top"?

I disagreed with the choices JJ made, but re-listening carefully, it becomes clear that he believes that the best way the work can make its "shattering" final effect is to realize the many different shades of atmosphere, pacing and colours that Mahler wrote in the score: he felt that too many "classic" recordings take too single-minded an approach. He admitted he would upset many of us with this (you, because he rejected Barbirolli, me because Karajan's approach was oversimplified) but he felt that Mahler's embrace of the world is insufficiently realized in many of these "classics". What he seems to be suggesting is that more recent readings cast their nets wider and get more from the score. I think this is a point of view worthy of respect and consideration, and I might even buy the Fischer!

[Thropplenoggin]

"A shattering emotional journey". "Wonderfully effusive" "exuberant rapture" "fragile introspection" "understated beauty that makes the passionate outburst all the more effective" "nuanced without being bent out of shape - the Music being allowed to speak for itself, rather than being used as the vehicle for something else" "the contradictory nature of the Music: simultaneously yearning and protesting" "An overflowing sense of a love of life evoking a world that you absolutely do not want to lose, rather than one that is lost already" "the intensity of hope in this Music" "life-affirming, passionate and vibrant" "the promise that it might win through against all the odds has to be utterly believable" "struggle renewed, success almost grasped, only to be crushed". "[The Finale] is too long and too noisy - I don't mean that Mahler misjudged it: quite the opposite. It is deliberately so in order to achieve its shattering effect".

Which of those quotations from Saturday's BaL lead you to conclude that the reviewer does not "love" and furthermore "misses the point" not only of this work, but of Mahler's "whole oeuvre"? And was the final choice of Abbado also evidence of someone who finds the work "over the top"?

I disagreed with the choices JJ made, but re-listening carefully, it becomes clear that he believes that the best way the work can make its "shattering" final effect is to realize the many different shades of atmosphere, pacing and colours that Mahler wrote in the score: he felt that too many "classic" recordings take too single-minded an approach. He admitted he would upset many of us with this (you, because he rejected Barbirolli, me because Karajan's approach was oversimplified) but he felt that Mahler's embrace of the world is insufficiently realized in many of these "classics". What he seems to be suggesting is that more recent readings cast their nets wider and get more from the score. I think this is a point of view worthy of respect and consideration, and I might even buy the Fischer!

Très bien dit!

[amateur51]

"A shattering emotional journey". "Wonderfully effusive" "exuberant rapture" "fragile introspection" "understated beauty that makes the passionate outburst all the more effective" "nuanced without being bent out of shape - the Music being allowed to speak for itself, rather than being used as the vehicle for something else" "the contradictory nature of the Music: simultaneously yearning and protesting" "An overflowing sense of a love of life evoking a world that you absolutely do not want to lose, rather than one that is lost already" "the intensity of hope in this Music" "life-affirming, passionate and vibrant" "the promise that it might win through against all the odds has to be utterly believable" "struggle renewed, success almost grasped, only to be crushed". "[The Finale] is too long and too noisy - I don't mean that Mahler misjudged it: quite the opposite. It is deliberately so in order to achieve its shattering effect".

Which of those quotations from Saturday's BaL lead you to conclude that the reviewer does not "love" and furthermore "misses the point" not only of this work, but of Mahler's "whole oeuvre"? And was the final choice of Abbado also evidence of someone who finds the work "over the top"?

I disagreed with the choices JJ made, but re-listening carefully, it becomes clear that he believes that the best way the work can make its "shattering" final effect is to realize the many different shades of atmosphere, pacing and colours that Mahler wrote in the score: he felt that too many "classic" recordings take too single-minded an approach. He admitted he would upset many of us with this (you, because he rejected Barbirolli, me because Karajan's approach was oversimplified) but he felt that Mahler's embrace of the world is insufficiently realized in many of these "classics". What he seems to be suggesting is that more recent readings cast their nets wider and get more from the score. I think this is a point of view worthy of respect and consideration, and I might even buy the Fischer!

I'm very grateful to you for all this hard work you've put in to collecting JJ's thoughts about the symphony, particularly his point about the finale's being too long and too noisy by design

The snag for me is that I'm not sure that I want to listen to this symphony domestically very often - I want the 'live' experience including the larger space in which the music can grow & surprise even those who believe that they know the work well.

It's me age

[silvestrione]

The finale is a classical sonata form - slow introduction, exposition (3 themes: jerky march starting on basses; grimly questing theme led by horns; then hopeful theme on horn leading to a soaring straussian melody led by strings (all 3 are related to & shot through with motifs from intro); return of intro., then two developments leading to two hammer blows; intro again, then recap leading to final return of intro & 3rd hammer blow (or substitute!); coda (v.dark, brass only). Part of the joy of it is following it.
.

Well, Jayne, you certainly have had a very different experience of classical sonata form to mine! Exposition, development, recapitulation, coda, is usually enough. Terseness, argument, of the essence...

But thanks for your very helpful breakdown: I will have another listen with it in mind.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The snag for me is that I'm not sure that I want to listen to this symphony domestically very often - I want the 'live' experience including the larger space in which the music can grow & surprise even those who believe that they know the work well.

This is a very good point - it's one of those works that demands total commitment and should leave the listener drained and even battered. Popping it on between The One Show and Death in Paradise isn't going to work. Staggering numbly out of the Concert Hall is its spiritual home.

It's me age

With which comes wisdom.

[amateur51]

This is a very good point - it's one of those works that demands total commitment and should leave the listener drained and even battered. Popping it on between The One Show and Death in Paradise isn't going to work. Staggering numbly out of the Concert Hall is its spiritual home.


With which comes wisdom.

Cheers ferney!

I recall a performance conducted by Rattle with CBSO at the Royal Festival Hall when I reaklised that I was hearing for the first time the repeated rising figure that the double-basses (and cellos?) play in the first movement. Now of course I listen out for it but it was a great thrill at the time.

You're right, that finale in a great performance should leave you utterly drained

[vinteuil]

should leave the listener drained and even battered. ... staggering numbly out of the Concert Hall...

... that, ferney, is one legitimate response.

But I hope you will also allow a different kind of response : I get a lot out of Mahler, but have never felt the need to be emotionally battered by him.

I hope that my cooler - less Bernsteinian - response also has its place, and is not just misattributed to a lack of understanding - or even of feeling!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... that, ferney, is one legitimate response.

But I hope you will also allow a different kind of response : I get a lot out of Mahler, but have never felt the need to be emotionally battered by him.

I hope that my cooler - less Bernsteinian - response also has its place, and is not just misattributed to a lack of understanding - or even of feeling!

Oh, yes; I was referring specifically to the Sixth rather than to Mahler's work as a whole. And this BaL has started to make me think that there are more ways to achieve Mahler's aims than I had previously thought. Bernstein, Karajan and Boulez are all very different and very effective; but the possibilities suggested by the Fischer have edged their way into my subconcious now.

[Sir Velo]

Well I enjoyed that BAL, except for the overuse of superlatives (e.g. "wonderfully effusive"; "wonderfully vibrant playing"; "wonderfully committed" etc) - I counted at least seven "wonderfully"s or "wonderful"s. Never mind. I thought I was going to concur with JJ in his judgement that, for the tragedy to hit home, one has to have at least the prospect of vanquishing the forces of darkness.

Alas. In the final analysis both the Fischer and the Abbado tried to find too much "positivity" (another over-used buzz word) - when the final hammer blow should hit home with the relentlessness of Greek tragedy. Not surprising, I suppose, in Abbado's case that he should shy away from the void, given his own struggles with mortality, but disappointing nevertheless that a reading which captures the overwhelming bouleversement of the final pages wasn't selected as the library choice.

[BBMmk2]

I have finally got round to listening tothe BaL.I found it rather good, despite the rather worrying usage of certain woprds, but the choice the? I think the Berliners/Abbado would have sufficed for DVD although not heard the Budapest/Fischer version.

[jayne lee wilson]

Absolutely with Ams and fhg about the live experience. After leaving during the finale in Schwarz' RLPO performance, I didn't get another chance till 7 years later, with Petrenko. The whole day had an extraordinary aura about it, feeling the fear and doing it anyway, acceptance as much - or more than - defiance; the concert was simply one of the great events of my life. I'm not sure whether I'll play it at home much now, but I'd be straight back for another live one!

I wish the Chicago Symphony/Abbado would get a remastered release - it shows, at its freshest, his brighter, more pastoral and hopeful view, especially appearing around the same time as HvK.
That need for hope in a performance - The NY/Bernstein has its swift, bright hopes crushed; the VPO one sounds like the collapse of civilisations!

Silvestrione - all roads lead back to Haydn, whose endlessly inventive first-movement structures often have slow introductions which feed into the exposition (eg. 85, 103) and can feature just one or several thematic groups. As with the Mahler 6 finale, Beethoven in the Op.130 Quartet brings back the intro. at key points during the 1st movement...
At (not quite) the opposite extreme, despite its teeming invention the DSCH 4 1st movement has a clearly recognisable "sonata" background with statement, development(s) and a strong sense of a recap.
I think the essence of what we now call "sonata form" is - statement/development/return, a travelling away-from and back-to, as distinct from the more static or circular forms like variation, rondo etc.

But then Haydn and later composers will go and complicate it all with sonata-rondo and developing variation...

[BBMmk2]

What's your opinion of the Finale, JLW?

[gradus]

Jayne mentions the RLPO percusionist hitting a white sheet covered wooden block with a long wooden hammer, just the point at which the sense of absurdity inherent in the scene does for me, although some years ago it was an LPO percussionist whacking what looked like a tea chest with an extremely long-handled wooden mallet that made me laugh.
A very singular reaction I readily admit, to this most serious of pieces.