Order of movements in Mahler 6

[ahinton]

ahinton,

I'm of course well aware that many composers have made revisions of their work. That was not my point. What I tried to say was that currently the music of Mahler in all its detail gets a huge degree of cult scrutiny unlike that of any other composer. I'm glad that this particular discussion is not tedious to you, I admire your stamina for it. Tea and Christmas cake beckons, so I'll leave it at that!

I'm not sure that Mahler is so alone in this as you appear to seek to portray as being the case; there's often an ebb and flow of general and also of musicological interest in most composer sof note and you will no doubt be aware of how the fortunes of some of them have waxed and waned over the years - Mahler, for example, being very rarely performed in Britain until some half century or so ago. I'm not into getting hold up in the most nitpicking of research and debate about the smallest of issues when this occurs (as indeed it does from time to time), but the order of the two central movements in one of Mahler's greatest symphonies is hardly a matter for casual dismissal!

Enjoy your tea and Christmas cake - you'd better enjoy the latter now, as it's almost Twelfth Night!

[Alison]

It was good to catch up on the IRR correspondence which had passed me by.

While already in the Scherzo-Andante camp I find myself wholly in sympathy with all the points
made by Dr Mark Berry and simply don't get some of Robert Matthew-Walkers.

What exactly did he mean by saying that Erwin Ratz 'was not a scholar, nor an historian, but an analyst'?

In his turn RM-W makes some good points, especially in the January issue, but his general approach
and powers of deduction seem flawed.

Admittedly his OTT views on the LSO Gergiev cycle give reason to take his views with a pinch of salt.

[jayne lee wilson]

This is unbecoming and indeed rather shallow FF - the number of great conductors and orchestras, writers on music and of course devoted listeners places you, not Mahler, in the minority.

You've also forgotten the detailed and, if you like, obsessive attention given to Bruckner's Symphonies and their various editions over many years - even including a scherzo-andante order choice in the 2nd symphony! I myself have often agonised over "horn or clarinet"? at the end of the andante (horn, please). And what about the 2 versions of VW's London Symphony? Mahler 6 isn't really so isolated in this regard. It took Mahler 50 or 60 years, as he had predicted, for any kind of acceptance into the concert repertoire. You're putting yourself back in the 1950s - I recall a comment of the time "We don't need Mahler here!" from the Times critic, I think.

I don't think any other music could have saved me from the bleak, solitary despair I felt in my teens - that's very personal of course, but it does seem that many, many other people have found a profound value and meaning in his music for themselves.

The letters pages of IRR have been airing this lengthy and to me tedious discussion over the last three issues. As one of the correspondents said, Mahler is overpraised, over played, and over here! Can anybody imagine this sort of devoted nit picking going on over the music of any other composer, at least to this extent? Wonderful moments of numinousness ( ??) of course!

[Tevot]

I prefer the andante placed 2nd in order - and re Alison's post #12 - the Scherzo immediately following the first movement - does indeed (to my ears) sound the same - if not indeed some kind of truncated echo of the symphony's opening. There, for me, isn't a contrast. If, however, the andante is placed 2nd - we have the struggle of the first movement - and then a hard won peace with the andante - although there are dark undercurrents of course - which then come to the fore with the Scherzo placed third - the image of young children at play on a beach - against a back-drop of sinister, impervious, elemental forces / fate - and then the finale in which the inexorable finally catches up. It, for me, is a great work - inviting many interpretations. I saw Haitink conduct it in Beijing some two or three years ago with the CSO - slow , deliberate ,
total focus - scherzo second, no third hammer blow - but by god at that stage it felt like there had been (!). A superb experience. Both versions work when capable hands are at the helm.

Jayne - Mahler was once indeed regarded as "not for export"

http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/December%201949/20/842507/BRUCKNER++MAHLER

But his time did indeed come.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Parry1912]

While already in the Scherzo-Andante camp I find myself wholly in sympathy with all the points
made by Dr Mark Berry and simply don't get some of Robert Matthew-Walkers ... In his turn RM-W makes some good points, especially in the January issue, but his general approach and powers of deduction seem flawed.

As someone in the andante-scherzo camp I feel somewhat differently. To me RM-W is trying to get to the bottom of what the composer intended whereas Mark Berry seems more intent on 'winning the argument' by spouting some pseudo-philosophical claptrap about post-modernism while at the same time assuring us that he knows Mahler's music better than the composer!

[Ferretfancy]

jayne lee wilson

I do understand how the very intense nature of Mahler's music can affect our view of life, and the feeling of solace that it can bring. Although I don't respond to it in the same way, it would be churlish to deny that. What troubles me is the feeling that a huge cult has grown up around Mahler's music, to the extent that for some it eclipses everything else, and that cannot be healthy.
Sometimes you get the feeling that any criticism is a form of sacrilege. I may have painted myself as anti-Mahler when I am really anti-Mahler worship, which is not the same thing.
For the record, I enjoy the song cycles and the first four symphonies, and can take the fifth, after that I begin to find it too exhausting. This is not from want of experience, since I have attended many concerts since the 1950s. As the old Festival Hall programme used to say in quoting Polonius in Hamlet " Take no man's censure, but reserve thy judgement "

[jayne lee wilson]

Much clearer (and deeper!) FF, thanks.

I wonder if it is the very intensity of feeling - the opening up of frightening, nightmarish, even death-haunted emotion - that makes you and others find the later symphonies "exhausting" but finds a deep response in people like myself. Experienced fully, it certainly can be exhausting, but if one finds a catharsis and a resting place at the journey's end, it can give you something precious - a kind of respite hard to find elsewhere, if only for a few hours or days. I've only experienced anything similar in late Bruckner, or at the end of The Ring. And of course, it doesn't always happen, and tends to be rarer as age advances...

Nor is it always enjoyable.
On every one of the 4 occasions I've heard the 3rd live, I've found the hushed tension the final slow movement creates almost unbearable from its opening bars, especially since it takes 15 or 20 minutes for that great wave to finally break. But when it does...

"Nature in its totality rings and resounds..."

As soon as that adagio begins, I'm thinking, "Oh god, oh no, I just can't do this..."

Why this piece has such an effect I've no idea... I'm always a little apprehensive during the earlier movements! But oh yes, I'll be there again one day...

jayne lee wilson

I do understand how the very intense nature of Mahler's music can affect our view of life, and the feeling of solace that it can bring. Although I don't respond to it in the same way, it would be churlish to deny that. What troubles me is the feeling that a huge cult has grown up around Mahler's music, to the extent that for some it eclipses everything else, and that cannot be healthy.
Sometimes you get the feeling that any criticism is a form of sacrilege. I may have painted myself as anti-Mahler when I am really anti-Mahler worship, which is not the same thing.
For the record, I enjoy the song cycles and the first four symphonies, and can take the fifth, after that I begin to find it too exhausting. This is not from want of experience, since I have attended many concerts since the 1950s. As the old Festival Hall programme used to say in quoting Polonius in Hamlet " Take no man's censure, but reserve thy judgement "

[ahinton]

I don't think any other music could have saved me from the bleak, solitary despair I felt in my teens - that's very personal of course, but it does seem that many, many other people have found a profound value and meaning in his music for themselves.

That's both an interesting and a courageous admission to make in a public forum; I can quite easily identify with it. As a matter of fact (and, of course, you may well know this already), the critic and writer Stephen Johnson has said something not dissimilar about what the music of Shostakovich has done for him. That said, what Mahler gives us for the most part is the very opposite of sentimentality; he gives us real, no-holds-barred emotion and this can, of course be quite uncomfortable sometimes...

[ahinton]

I wonder if it is the very intensity of feeling - the opening up of frightening, nightmarish, even death-haunted emotion - that makes you and others find the later symphonies "exhausting" but finds a deep response in people like myself. Experienced fully, it certainly can be exhausting, but if one finds a catharsis and a resting place at the journey's end, it can give you something precious - a kind of respite hard to find elsewhere, if only for a few hours or days. I've only experienced anything similar in late Bruckner, or at the end of The Ring. And of course, it doesn't always happen, and tends to be rarer as age advances...

Nor is it always enjoyable.

On every one of the 4 occasions I've heard the 3rd live, I've found the hushed tension the final slow movement creates almost unbearable from its opening bars, especially since it takes 15 or 20 minutes for that great wave to finally break. But when it does...

"Nature in its totality rings and resounds..."

As soon as that adagio begins, I'm thinking, "Oh god, oh no, I just can't do this..."

Why this piece has such an effect I've no idea... I'm always a little apprehensive during the earlier movements! But oh yes, I'll be there again one day...

I know exactly what it is that you're talking about here!

[Petrushka]

Much clearer (and deeper!) FF, thanks.

I wonder if it is the very intensity of feeling - the opening up of frightening, nightmarish, even death-haunted emotion - that makes you and others find the later symphonies "exhausting" but finds a deep response in people like myself. Experienced fully, it certainly can be exhausting, but if one finds a catharsis and a resting place at the journey's end, it can give you something precious - a kind of respite hard to find elsewhere, if only for a few hours or days. I've only experienced anything similar in late Bruckner, or at the end of The Ring. And of course, it doesn't always happen, and tends to be rarer as age advances...

This is wonderfully well put and I, too, can identify with it. Thanks, Jayne

[Flosshilde]

Papano perhaps doesn't come to mind immediately when thinking of Mahler conductors, but his recording of Mahler's 6th impressed Tim Ashley in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012...ny-no-6-review

[Parry1912]

Papano perhaps doesn't come to mind immediately when thinking of Mahler conductors, but his recording of Mahler's 6th impressed Tim Ashley in the Guardian

I heard it on Spotify and enjoyed it very much even if it didn't replace Karajan in my affections.

Incidentally, the 2nd and 3rd movements are on separate discs so it's not suitable for the CD re-programming that some clever dicks (clearly unfamiliar with the work) have been suggesting in IRR recently.

[3rd Viennese School]

I thought I had settled this argument years ago! Its Mvt 1, Scherzo, Andante, Finale.

As Mr. Hinton points out mvt 1 ends in A major and mvt 2 starts in A minor.

Not only that. This is the same arrangement as Beethoven 7 end of mvt 1 and start of mvt 2.
The A major/ minor motif runs throughout the symphony and it would therefore happen here as well.
Also mvt 2 is supposed to complement mvt 1. The keys to the 2 trios are actually the same as the keys the second subject of mvt 1!

But one thing we are all forgetting. This is the order I first heard it in. In 1995. So when mvt 2 started I thought it was another coda for mvt 1! Because all the minor key material stamps back in again. But then it all changes and you know you are listening to a new mvt! Especially when we get to the glockenspiel bit.

Its also balance time wise. The E flat major slow mvt is right in the middle of the symphony with A minor stuff lasting 30 mins plus either side of it!

Also, if you put the scherzo 3rd then followed by the 30 mins finale in the same key the effect would be lost and it would drag and it would be like listening to a Bruckner symphony!

You readers will notice that in all Mahler symphonies there are no serious slow 2nd mvts! They are saved for the end or the next to last mvt.


So why did Gustav change his mind about the order? Maybe his wife did it and he never noticed…..

[ahinton]

I thought I had settled this argument years ago! Its Mvt 1, Scherzo, Andante, Finale.

As Mr. Hinton points out mvt 1 ends in A major and mvt 2 starts in A minor.

Not only that. This is the same arrangement as Beethoven 7 end of mvt 1 and start of mvt 2.
The A major/ minor motif runs throughout the symphony and it would therefore happen here as well.
Also mvt 2 is supposed to complement mvt 1. The keys to the 2 trios are actually the same as the keys the second subject of mvt 1!

But one thing we are all forgetting. This is the order I first heard it in. In 1995. So when mvt 2 started I thought it was another coda for mvt 1! Because all the minor key material stamps back in again. But then it all changes and you know you are listening to a new mvt! Especially when we get to the glockenspiel bit.

Its also balance time wise. The E flat major slow mvt is right in the middle of the symphony with A minor stuff lasting 30 mins plus either side of it!

Also, if you put the scherzo 3rd then followed by the 30 mins finale in the same key the effect would be lost and it would drag and it would be like listening to a Bruckner symphony!

You readers will notice that in all Mahler symphonies there are no serious slow 2nd mvts! They are saved for the end or the next to last mvt.


So why did Gustav change his mind about the order? Maybe his wife did it and he never noticed…..

She did all sorts of things of which some might well have seemed somewhat suspect, but I doubt that even she could have done something that resulted in Mahler conducting the work with scherzo placed third without his having noticing that he'd done so!...

[Nick Armstrong]

I confess to having always been a paid-up member of the Scherzo Then Andante Society

I remain a faithful member of that society having heard last week, for the first time live, a performance with the Andante second. It didn't work for me, logically or emotionally - the development from first movement to a more whimsical version of a similar 'strutting' march and thence to the idyll of the Andante and then the plunge into the final movement just works so much better, to my mind.