Order of movements in Mahler 6

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As has been said, does it actually matter?

Well, for what it's worth, the reason that it matters to me is that if the Andante comes second, you've got four splendid symphonic movements with a motto recurring in the finale (and at the end of the Seventh Symphony, too) - an A major triad immediately melding into an A minor triad. Fine - Franck and Tchaikovsky also wrote very popular Symphonies in which similar recurrences are also used as part of the symphonic treatment. But when the Scherzo follows the first movement we get a movement that ends in A major immediately followed by another that starts in A minor - in other words, a simple thematic motto becomes part of the Tonal architecture of the whole work, which is (for those of us who like this sort of thing) immensely more satisfying and rewarding. There is no compensatory reward arising from the Andante placed second.

I know that I prefer Scherzo then Andante but, if I go to a live performance and it's the other way around, I just accept that that is the way in which that particular conductor feels that the music should be played.

Yes - I certainly wouldn't walk out of a concert where the 1906 revised ordering is used; it'd be good to have one's prejudices confirmed - and better still to have a performance overturn one's convictions!

[Beef Oven!]

I certainly wouldn't walk out of a concert where the 1906 revised ordering is used; it'd be good to have one's prejudices confirmed - and better still to have a performance overturn one's convictions!

[Tony Halstead]

And where the heck did you get that picture from?

I do love the MARROW on top of the anvil... soon to be 'splatted' all over the horn players.... but, seriously, this pic has been 'photoshopped'!

[Bryn]

That's no marrow. It's a watermelon, man.

[Richard Barrett]

seriously, this pic has been 'photoshopped'!

You think?

[Tony Halstead]

You think?

Hmm.. yes I do 'THINK'... and even if it has not been photoshopped ( National Symphony Orch, Washington, BTW) then what on earth is it doing here on a thread that is devoted to the order of the 2nd and 3rd movements of Mahler's 6th symphony? It's not even remotely 'funny'!

[Bryn]

Hmm.. yes I do 'THINK'... and even if it has not been photoshopped ( National Symphony Orch, Washington, BTW) then what on earth is it doing here on a thread that is devoted to the order of the 2nd and 3rd movements of Mahler's 6th symphony? It's not even remotely 'funny'!

The finale is not that remote from the middle movements.

However, in support of your photoshopping 'revalation', here is the original:

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's not even remotely 'funny'!

[Beef Oven!]

You think?

[jayne lee wilson]

He is clearly giving a personal view, and his personal view is explicitly that he thinks Mahler was "wrong", which along with the entire tenor of his article I (personally) find pompous and indeed somewhat laughable given that Matthews himself has clearly never engaged with the necessity for music to renew itself on the level that Mahler did. I'm sorry I brought David Matthews' own music rather gratuitously into it, but the thought of someone like that telling Mahler he's wrong sort of gets my goat.

As for there being "a serious effect on the conviction and power of each performance" when a conductor changes the order of the movements, I see absolutely no reason why this should be the case, and as for being accused of "macho posturing" all I am suggesting is taking Mahler's own indecision on the matter seriously.

"Matthews has clearly never engaged with the necessity for music to renew itself on the level that Mahler did".

How many of David Matthews' works do you know Richard? At least, passably well enough to make that statement? The musical devil really is in the detail. And how many other composers, apart from Mahler, were able to produce such a high level of creative renewal, at any point in history?

And if "someone like that" is Barrett-disbarred from "telling Mahler he's wrong" (he really doesn't, you know; not in the wilfully misunderstanding sense that you imply; your reading of DM's article - his latest, explicitly subjective ideas on the problem - is simply unsubtle and selfserving.) then neither I (who enjoy David Matthews' music and many other postwar and recent composers besides) or many other mere "music lovers" or "listeners" on this thread (who don't compose), can offer any valid opinion or ideas on the matter at all, being much less qualified, even than the David Matthews of your distorted readings and, I suspect, limited listenings.

"All I am suggesting is taking Mahler's own indecision on the matter seriously"

So you also suggest that David Matthews, returning again and again to the subject, plainly open to all sides of a very vexed and ambivalent argument, publishing his evolving opinions on the matter and explicitly respecting others' differing views, ISN'T taking Mahler's own indecision seriously?

***

Change the angle, shift the point of view....
...if Mahler said "if anything sounds wrong, after I've gone, change it" and if he really was both "superstitiously"-influenced (i.e., changing his music under the overwhelming emotional influence of events in his own life, hence my earlier comment about inner and outer worlds) and/or musically undecided about the inner movement order of his own 6th symphony, then: instinctive or considered conviction that scherzo-andante is, musically and emotionally, the most powerful (my own position), or simply "right"; or such conviction about the opposite; or a conductor deciding to play each order differently, every time; all are subjectively valid.

So when Matthews' says that he is "convinced that Mahler was wrong" to change the original, scherzo-andante, order, it is as subjectively valid a view as Richard Barrett's, or any other - and on the published evidence, far more carefully considered than most, from musical, analytical and more speculative, biographical and imaginative viewpoints.
The point of this latest article is to shift the weight of the argument for scherzo-andante away from the damage caused to it by Ratz's false claims; and back through the lies, the documentary evidence, the biographical letters, accounts and speculations, toward the Art: toward a trust in the musical and emotional instincts of performers and listeners.

[Barbirollians]

I suppose the word wrong is a highly charged one . Had Denis Matthews used a softer term like mistaken it might not have raised hackles .

I must admit to preferring the Andante Scherzo order because I find the Scherzo in that place means the Andante is more like a brief consolation and the return of the opening theme from the first movement with a limp comes as a shock that way and I was interested to read in the notes to the live Testament release that Barbirolli reverted to Andante Scherzo after his studio recording the other way .

I see the merits of Scherzo -Andante too though and am not too fussed in which order they are played - for example both Chailly's Proms performance the other year and the live Pappano account worked equally well for me .

[ahinton]

"Matthews has clearly never engaged with the necessity for music to renew itself on the level that Mahler did".

How many of David Matthews' works do you know Richard? At least, passably well enough to make that statement? The musical devil really is in the detail. And how many other composers, apart from Mahler, were able to produce such a high level of creative renewal, at any point in history?

And if "someone like that" is Barrett-disbarred from "telling Mahler he's wrong" (he really doesn't, you know; not in the wilfully misunderstanding sense that you imply; your reading of DM's article - his latest, explicitly subjective ideas on the problem - is simply unsubtle and selfserving.) then neither I (who enjoy David Matthews' music and many other postwar and recent composers besides) or many other mere "music lovers" or "listeners" on this thread (who don't compose), can offer any valid opinion or ideas on the matter at all, being much less qualified, even than the David Matthews of your distorted readings and, I suspect, limited listenings.

"All I am suggesting is taking Mahler's own indecision on the matter seriously"

So you also suggest that David Matthews, returning again and again to the subject, plainly open to all sides of a very vexed and ambivalent argument, publishing his evolving opinions on the matter and explicitly respecting others' differing views, ISN'T taking Mahler's own indecision seriously?

***

Change the angle, shift the point of view....
...if Mahler said "if anything sounds wrong, after I've gone, change it" and if he really was both "superstitiously"-influenced (i.e., changing his music under the overwhelming emotional influence of events in his own life, hence my earlier comment about inner and outer worlds) and/or musically undecided about the inner movement order of his own 6th symphony, then: instinctive or considered conviction that scherzo-andante is, musically and emotionally, the most powerful (my own position), or simply "right"; or such conviction about the opposite; or a conductor deciding to play each order differently, every time; all are subjectively valid.

So when Matthews' says that he is "convinced that Mahler was wrong" to change the original, scherzo-andante, order, it is as subjectively valid a view as Richard Barrett's, or any other - and on the published evidence, far more carefully considered than most, from musical, analytical and more speculative, biographical and imaginative viewpoints.
The point of this latest article is to shift the weight of the argument for scherzo-andante away from the damage caused to it by Ratz's false claims; and back through the lies, the documentary evidence, the biographical letters, accounts and speculations, toward the Art: toward a trust in the musical and emotional instincts of performers and listeners.

Plenty of much-needed, well-considered sense here, for which many thanks.

OK - confession time. Not only do I happen to agree with David Matthews' considered - and yes, CONSIDERED - stance on this (i.e. he didn't just publish the first thing that came into his head, as if on a whim, because he happened to feel like airing somethig to draw attention to himself and his ideas) while at the same time accepting that others might favour either the Andante-Scherzo order or even the "decide which way each time" argument, I actively encouraged him to publish it, so let the Matthews detractors start firing shots at me rather than directing snide remarks about him at arm's length.

Fhg's comments about Ratz and Webern are good to have, both in terms of Ratz being an apparently honourable fellow who, for whatever reason, seems to have decided to drop his moral scruples in this instance by pretending, without a shred of evidence directly from Mahler himself, that Mahler might have changed his mind back again. It is indeed interesting, though, that Webern conducted the work with Scherzo second; one might wonder not only why he did so but also whether he might have been party to, or overheard, some discussion of it during Mahler's lifetime or to anything that he might have heard Schönberg (who, as he note, was closer still to Mahler) saying about it. All speculation, of course, but there must have been some reason why Webern chose to backtrack on Mahler's change of heart, particularly at a time when to do so would appear to have gone against the flow of conventional wisdom.

Yes, use of the term "wrong" rather than "mistaken" (as Barbirollians suggests) might indeed sound a tad harsh, but they mean more or less the same thing. However, one fundamental factor that seems to be ignored in this discussion is that Mahler's decision to change the order of those movements arose because he thought that he'd got it wrong - or had at least been "mistaken" - when writing it and having it published with Scherzo second and, had this not happened, no one would be questioning whether Mahler got anything "wrong" or was "mistaken" about this. It therefore follows that Mahler was capable of getting something like this "wrong" or being "mistaken" in his judgement of it, thereby going a long distance towards vindicating David Matthews' statement.

As to the entirely unnecessary and unfounded statement that "Matthews himself has clearly never engaged with the necessity for music to renew itself on the level that Mahler did", there can, I think, be no more roundly effective retort than the question "how many other composers, apart from Mahler, were able to produce such a high level of creative renewal, at any point in history?" - and to have done so much of it on so exalted a level by the time he had reached the age of 50 is all the more remarkable again.

Since we're talking symphonic writing here, I, too, might well wonder how familiar Richard Barrett is with David Matthews' eight (so far) symphonies, not only in the specific terms of "creative renewal" (isn't Renewal a major piece by his brother, anyway?) but also in those of deep personal involvement in matters of symphonic architecture over a period spanning well over half a century (Matthews had written at least two and a half symphonies, long since discarded, long before the one that is now known as his Symphony No. 1), to say nothing of his part in the history of Mahler's Tenth Symphony. Whilst I do not, on the other hand, doubt for one moment that Richard Barrett knows Mahler's symphonies intimately well and cares deeply for them, it has never - at least as far as I am aware - been part of his chosen path as a composer to spend decades addressing symphonic construction and architecture from the inside, so to speak. Likewise, Matthews' arguments in favour of Scherzo-Andante rest firmly (at least in part) upon matters of tonal relationships and their emotional effects and, whilst again I am sure that Richard Barrett has a wealth of experience of such issues in other composers' work, it is not especially obvious that he has sought to "engage with the necessity" of addressing them in his own. I therefore suggest that this might be seen as putting Matthews at something of an advantage in arriving at the conclusions that he expresses in this piece.

Before David Matthews published this, I exchanged thoughts about the matter with him and I, too (albeit without any of the Mahlerian or symphonic experience that he has), had long ago come to the conclusion that Scherzo second is vastly more powerful than Andante second, again largely for reasons of tonal relationships and their effect, not because I thought about the question of whether Mahler was "right" or "wrong" at any point since beginning work on this symphony and his death a few years later. I will not bore anyone here with them, however, especially as I have no wish to risk inciting yet more possible acrimony in the company of this most remarkable of symphonies.

[ahinton]

Denis Matthews

DAVID Matthews! Denis Matthews was one of the teachers of John Ogdon. I wonder what John would have thought about all this? It's a pity that he's not around to tell us...

[Richard Barrett]

I was interested to read in the notes to the live Testament release that Barbirolli reverted to Andante Scherzo after his studio recording the other way.

That is interesting indeed.

I wonder how many people, on hearing a recording they didn't previously know, would actually be able to tell if someone had mischievously changed the recorded order of the middle movements.

(Maybe this piece could be considered an early example of the "mobile form" which became fashionable in the 1960s.)

[Barbirollians]

That is interesting indeed.

I wonder how many people, on hearing a recording they didn't previously know, would actually be able to tell if someone had mischievously changed the recorded order of the middle movements.

(Maybe this piece could be considered an early example of the "mobile form" which became fashionable in the 1960s.)

I went back to the notes for that release - which were written by a very vehement critic of Ratz and the Scherzo-Andante ordering - Robert Matthew-Walker . He asserts that in fact it was EMI who issued the recording in Scherzo Andante order and that Barbirolli was disappointed they did so. He says that both Barbirolli and Horenstein were unconvinced by Ratz . The live 1967 Proms account by the NPO and Barbirolli is indeed in the Andante -Scherzo order .