Order of movements in Mahler 6

[Roslynmuse]

Ahinton quoted from that Matthews chapter in post #66 and for me, ahinton nails the reason for scherzo-andante in post #58. ferney too, later on.

[Richard Barrett]

David Matthews has just published

Whichever way he likes it, I prefer it the other way.





edit: having actually read his article, I still do. "I am convinced that Mahler was wrong." What a pompous ass. By all means say "this is the way I find the music more convincing"...

[jayne lee wilson]

Whichever way he likes it, I prefer it the other way.







edit: having actually read his article, I still do. "I am convinced that Mahler was wrong." What a pompous ass. By all means say "this is the way I find the music more convincing"...

A poor choice of words, Richard, given that, in the new article, David Matthews emphasises that he believes (as I certainly do) that Mahler may have changed his mind about the original movement-order, as about the third hammer-blow, for reasons which were, precisely, not about the music itself. And that these pressures - the inner life crashing into the outer world - were overwhelming Mahler's own original musical judgement.

It would be easy to miss Matthews' latest emphasis on the personal and biographical pressures, rather than musical arguments from tonal relations, in all the references-back given in the links and comments above. Besides, he has returned to this subject often, and sifted and weighed the reasoning very carefully. In correspondence with me he mentioned that his brother Colin takes the opposite view, which - self-evidently - he understands and respects.

[Beef Oven!]

Off topic, but am I alone in preferring Colin's music to David Matthew's?

[teamsaint]

Off topic, but am I alone in preferring Colin's music to David Matthew's?

And just out of interest, do you recall Colin Matthews' Berceuse for Dresden , which the Halle ( I think) premiered a few years back.
At the time I thought it was excellent, but can't find a recording anywhere.

[Beef Oven!]

And just out of interest, do you recall Colin Matthews' Berceuse for Dresden , which the Halle ( I think) premiered a few years back.
At the time I thought it was excellent, but can't find a recording anywhere.

Yes, a while back now - there's no recording of it available AFAIK.

[ahinton]

Whichever way he likes it, I prefer it the other way.

edit: having actually read his article, I still do. "I am convinced that Mahler was wrong." What a pompous ass. By all means say "this is the way I find the music more convincing"...

By all means say that you prefer it the other way, as indeed you have done.

The rest is noise (to coin a phrase) - and an entirely gratuitous one at that.

I was unaware that David Matthews was so ignorant of Mahler that he is unqualified to express his thoughts on the matter as he has done.

Mahler was, after all, a very great composer indeed. He was not infallible.

[Nick Armstrong]

Many thanks for the link, Jayne. DM makes a convincing case for what seems somehow musically right.

Agreed 100%; and

Ahinton quoted from that Matthews chapter in post #66 and for me, ahinton nails the reason for scherzo-andante in post #58. ferney too, later on.

agreed 100%.

[Richard Barrett]

these pressures - the inner life crashing into the outer world - were overwhelming Mahler's own original musical judgement

But why is so much discussion of this issue seemingly predicated on the idea that people know so much about Mahler's mind and "judgement"? What does this "inner life crashing into the outer world" actually mean? Why not take Mahler seriously? Why is it so necessary to come down on one side or other of this question? Mahler was clearly undecided about it, and that's the only truth to which we (including David Matthews) have access. I have thought as long and hard about this as many others and my conclusion is that there is no need to decide, except in the context of one performance or another. Conductors and orchestras can make either way convincing as far as I'm concerned.

[Barbirollians]

I should be interested to know before Ratz made up his fibs in 1963 anyone played it in the Scherzo-Andante order or whether there was any academic discussion whether they should ?

I suspect there may be a great deal of this is what I am used to and therefore I like it this way about preferences for the order .

[ahinton]

But why is so much discussion of this issue seemingly predicated on the idea that people know so much about Mahler's mind and "judgement"? What does this "inner life crashing into the outer world" actually mean? Why not take Mahler seriously? Why is it so necessary to come down on one side or other of this question? Mahler was clearly undecided about it, and that's the only truth to which we (including David Matthews) have access. I have thought as long and hard about this as many others and my conclusion is that there is no need to decide, except in the context of one performance or another. Conductors and orchestras can make either way convincing as far as I'm concerned.

Well, that's different to saying, as you did earlier, "whichever way [David Matthews] likes it, I prefer it the other way", which may have been intended as some kind of joke to prelude what you wrote next about what you allege to be his pomposity and asininity; whilst it's good that you can see both sides of the coin subject to performance, the apparent implied belief in Mahler's infallibility seems to me to sit uneasily with the fact that Mahler did think - and not even before rehearsing the work for the first time - that he'd got it wrong, since Mahler himself believed that he could get such things wrong. On what grounds, therefore, might one seek to argue that he got it wrong the first time rather than the second time when he reordered those movements?

I've thought long and hard about it, too - and listened to many performances, as no doubt have you; the fact that we have come to different conclusions aboyut the order of that symphony's middle movements is perhaps understandable given Mahler's own volte-face about it. One doesn't have to be a "pompous ass" to conclude thus...

[Beef Oven!]

I've thought long and hard about it, too - and listened to many performances, as no doubt have you; the fact that we have come to different conclusions aboyut the order of that symphony's middle movements is perhaps understandable given Mahler's own volte-face about it. One doesn't have to be a "pompous ass" to conclude thus...

Mahler's 'volte-face' does not need to mean that the idea of being wrong or being right is applicable here. Why must it be about right or wrong? I have a preference as a listener/audience member, but that's got nothing to do with right or wrong.

For David Mathews to conclude that Mahler was wrong about a piece of music he'd created is, IMV at least pompous. I don't agree with you on this point.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I should be interested to know before Ratz made up his fibs in 1963 anyone played it in the Scherzo-Andante order or whether there was any academic discussion whether they should ?

Why do you call it "fibs"? The Sixth wasn't exactly frequently performed before the '60s, but Webern (who programmed it - IIRC - three times in his career) performed it with the Scherzo before the Andante. Webern knew Mahler quite well, of course, and was in the close circle of Schönberg, who was even closer to Mahler. In turn, Webern taught Ratz - who provided the impoverished composer with food at a time when his Music-making activities were severely curtailed by the Nazis. When you are in regular conversation with people, you tend not to send them letters (as you have to to conductors in foreign countries, for example). Ratz was an active Musician on Mahler's behalf, and was - from all the evidence - a thoroughly honest and reliable chap in the rest of his life and career: quite why he should invent a myth is something his detractors fail to address in their eagerness to paint him as an unmitigated scoundrel*. There is no purpose for such an invention - nothing is gained from it (except a better symphonic structure) and much has been lost to judge from the mud that has been gleefully slung at his reputation.

I suspect there may be a great deal of this is what I am used to and therefore I like it this way about preferences for the order .

Quite - and I appreciate your acknowledging such a possibility. I would only add that I learnt the work with the Andante second - and heard it many times in this state before I heard the 1904 version. I was "hooked" by the "different" (from what I was used to) version immediately.

* - re-reading this, I feel I must clear up what might seem to be a dig at Barbirollians here: it was certainly not intended in any way to be so Rather, I had in mind an article from a popular recording periodical that was quoted in a previous Thread on this same topic which described Ratz in such terms that one might have supposed that he was claiming that he and not Mahler had written the Symphony. That was, as I think the provider of the link to the article also agreed, entirely unjustified in its venomous language.

[Richard Barrett]

Why must it be about right or wrong?

Why indeed. I can't really say that I have a strong personal preference one way or the other, although Matthews' "arguments" did (as I suspected they would! given that all his own compositional decisions are wrong ) push me towards the opposite conclusion from his. I would be interested in a conductor deciding on the order from one performance to the next, and not necessarily sticking to the same one. That would surely be more "Mahlerian" than setting the matter in stone.

[Beef Oven!]

........push me towards the opposite conclusion from his.

More valid than arguing that it's right or wrong, IMV.

I would be interested in a conductor deciding on the order from one performance to the next, and not necessarily sticking to the same one. That would surely be more "Mahlerian" than setting the matter in stone.

I'd be more interested in a conductor not sticking to the usual order of the outer movements.