Order of movements in Mahler 6

[Beef Oven!]

Where I have the greatest issue with this, though, is Scherzo into Finale, where the running out of steam of the former seems to me to undermine the opening gestures of the latter to almost the point of undermining them altogether.

This to me is the deal-breaker for the andante before scherzo argument.

Like many, I got to know the symphony with the andante into the finale (Szell, Karajan and Abbado among my initial recordings).

I saw Valery Gergiev & the LSO a few years back do it otherwise and he took it all so fast that I wasn't sure what to think (except that it was a thrilling, wonderful performance).

On the other hand, the scherzo directly following the allegro energico, can give a slight sense of emotional repetition.

[ahinton]

This to me is the deal-breaker for the andante before scherzo argument.

Like many, I got to know the symphony with the andante into the finale (Szell, Karajan and Abbado among my initial recordings).

I saw Valery Gergiev & the LSO a few years back do it otherwise and he took it all so fast that I wasn't sure what to think (except that it was a thrilling, wonderful performance).

On the other hand, the scherzo directly following the allegro energico, can give a slight sense of emotional repetition.

There might be a small risk of that if the conductor doesn't recognise that it could occur but, in all the best Scherzo-second performances that I've heard, I've never felt this; the Scherzo's three-in-a-bar obviously contrasts with everything in the first movement but that movement also embraces more brittle and scary expression than is found even in the darkest passages from that first movement; OK, even the second subject in the Scherzo is in F major just like "Alma's theme" in the first movement, but those two themes are so different from one another that this doesn't set off any sense of emotional repetition for me either.

[aeolium]

This is a very interesting discussion re the different musical impact dependent on the ordering of the middle movements, but the puzzling thing is that if the evidence very strongly points towards Mahler's final decision about the order being Andante-Scherzo (and ahinton admits that the evidence is "almost overwhelming"), what reasonable grounds are there for playing the work with a different order? There are those arguing here for a different order yet who in other circumstances are extremely keen on following the composer's instructions (according to all verifiable historical evidence for those). Surely it isn't good enough to say that Mahler "got it wrong" or that the listener's assessment of the musical impact justifies a different order? Or have I misunderstood the strength of the evidence for the alternative order (Scherzo-Andante)?

[Barbirollians]

Try the New Philharmonia live Barbirolli on Testament - I think it works brilliantly there .

[jayne lee wilson]

I was pretty convinced some years ago by the historically-documented argument for restoring the andante-scherzo order, but having got to know it & love it scherzo-andante I couldn't get used to it! I guess it tells you something about familiarity and the way music works on the mind and the memory... and I've always felt Classical Music performance culture to be over-reverential...Mahler famously said (with a conductor's practicality), after my death if something sounds wrong, change it... yet conductors still leave out the 3rd hammer blow for no good reason (well I guess reverence isn't always bad, but...)

With a bit more time it might be fun to speculate about order reversals elsewhere or even offer your own ... Colin Davis used to conduct Bruckner 7 with the order Scherzo-Adagio, and I feel sure I heard him adduce Furtwangler as a precedent on an R3 broadcast in 1992. There is an Orfeo CD with this order but even John F.Berky can't find any evidence or precedent for it. But he asked me to send him my tape of the Davis/LSO reading for his archive, and sent me a vastly SQ-improved CD of it too!

[ahinton]

This is a very interesting discussion re the different musical impact dependent on the ordering of the middle movements, but the puzzling thing is that if the evidence very strongly points towards Mahler's final decision about the order being Andante-Scherzo (and ahinton admits that the evidence is "almost overwhelming"), what reasonable grounds are there for playing the work with a different order? There are those arguing here for a different order yet who in other circumstances are extremely keen on following the composer's instructions (according to all verifiable historical evidence for those). Surely it isn't good enough to say that Mahler "got it wrong" or that the listener's assessment of the musical impact justifies a different order? Or have I misunderstood the strength of the evidence for the alternative order (Scherzo-Andante)?

I do indeed admit that the evidence for Mahler's decision and his resolve to stick to it for the last five years of his life seems "almost overwhelming" - and it may indeed not be 'good enough to say that Mahler "got it wrong"' (and I do not say that he necessarily did so) - but I do think it important to allow for speculation on this as at least a possibility, to the extent that composers do not always get everything right (and, as a compose myself, I know that this is true!); after all, when Mahler made that decision, he did so because he felt that he'd 'got it wrong' first time around, but why should a composer's mistake always be the one that he/she makes first time around?

To consider this in its various guises, it might be instructive to consider some works by Rachmaninov - specifically the first and fourth piano concertos and the second piano sonata; now I'm not going to say in which of these the composer might or might not have gotten it right first time around, but I do think that the cap fits sufficiently well for this issue to remain open to question on the advance understanding that the answer may not always be the same in each instance. Often, for example, in the case of the manifold revisions of Bruckner symphonies, one hears the cry that the composer's first thoughts were the better ones and, whilst the difference between these examples and Mahler's Sixth Symphony is that Bruckner's revisions were usually recommended by others whereas the decision on the order of middle movemens in Mahler's Sixth Symphony as made by the composer himself, I still think that there is room for doubt and questioning here.

I appear not to be alone in this, since I note that the composer and Mahler authority David Matthews has now contributed to the discussion of Robert Matthew-Walker's article and I think that his thoughts merit quoting here in extenso, as follows:

In my chapter on the Sixth Symphony in The Mahler Companion (OUP, 1999), I argue for the order Scherzo - Andante on musical grounds. Mahler composed the Symphony with the Scherzo second, and he knew what he was doing. The recapitulation of the first movement largely avoids A minor, and ends triumphantly in A major. So when the Scherzo begins in A minor, it is a shock, a chilling example of the A major/minor motto that pervades the Symphony. The E flat major slow movement is, at last, a temporary safe haven, and reaches its climax in A major before returning to E flat. The Finale opens in C minor, the relative minor of E flat major, but soon there is a sudden and quite unexpected return to A major/minor for the reappearance of the motto. The devastating power of this reappearance depends almost entirely on our not having heard A minor since the Scherzo, but it makes very little impact if we have just heard the Scherzo. The C minor of the introduction again makes little sense as a bridge from A minor back again to A minor after a few bars.

Why did Mahler sacrifice this carefully planned tonal scheme? Is it possible that Alma, for once, was right when she said that Mahler was frightened of the terrifying power of what he had composed - so was compelled to diminish it? The same argument can be applied to his removal of the third hammer blow from the Finale. Nevertheless, it is difficult to understand why Mahler should have wanted in any way to weaken the musical argument of what may be his greatest work. But who knows what was going on in his mind during the fateful rehearsals for the premiere.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... if the evidence very strongly points towards Mahler's final decision about the order being Andante-Scherzo, what reasonable grounds are there for playing the work with a different order?

The Music. Not only is the A major/minor juxtaposition between the 1st Movement and the Scherzo lost is the Andante intervenes (and with it the symphonic connection with the "Fate" motif) but the Tonal growth of the work in full is weakened:

1) = A minor, F major, B major, G minor, Recap: A major then immediately A minor ("Fate"), A major.
Scherzo = A minor (immediately after A major, as in the Recap), F major, F minor, A minor, D major, Eb minor, A minor
Andante = Eb major, E minor, E major (the "Alpine" bit) C major, A major, E major, Eb major
4) = C minor, A minor, (repeated) D major, D minor, (repeated), F# minor, F minor, ... C minor, C major, A major, A minor

... notice in particular the Eb min, A min at the end of the Scherzo, and how this is continued into the Andante; notice, too, the Tonal connection between Eb major at the end of the Andante, the Relative major of the key which immediately follows it if the Andante is played third.

Put the two middle movements the other way round:

1) = A minor, F major, B major, G minor, Recap: A major then immediately A minor ("Fate"), A major.
Andante = Eb major, E minor, E major (the "Alpine" bit) C major, A major, E major, Eb major
Scherzo = A minor, F major, F minor, A minor, D major, Eb minor, A minor
4) = C minor, A minor, (repeated) D major, D minor, (repeated), F# minor, F minor, ... C minor, C major, A major, A minor

... the Music loses the "Fate" connection between the first two Movements; there isn't the strong Tonal relationship between the end of the "third" Movement and Finale; the Tritone Eb - A - Eb of the middle two movements when the Scherzo comes second just becomes an unbalanced tritone lurch from Eb major to A minor. (I suppose one could hear the end of this "third" Movement "justifies" the opening - but it's a long time awaiting.) You also lose the connecting sonority of the rising sixth (C major to A major) of the Andante that's reflected in the rising sixth (Eb major - c minor) at the end of the Scherzo / beginning of the Finale.

There are those arguing here for a different order yet who in other circumstances are extremely keen on following the composer's instructions (according to all verifiable historical evidence for those). Surely it isn't good enough to say that Mahler "got it wrong" or that the listener's assessment of the musical impact justifies a different order? Or have I misunderstood the strength of the evidence for the alternative order (Scherzo-Andante)?

The composer's instructions at the time he wrote the work and sent it for publication was as it appeared (over 50 years before Mr Ratz's edition) in the first edition published in Leipzig in 1906. Mahler changed his mind after publication, but from the attitude of those closest to the composer (his widow, Schonberg, Berg and Webern amongst them) it does seem that he may have changed his mind again. Webern, for example, who conducted the work on several occasions (one of them heard by the young Karajan) always kept to the Movement order of the original published version.

Ratz overstated the evidence that Mahler changed his mind again, (performers and listeners should be allowed to make their own judgements based on the truth as it is, not as we might prefer it to be) but his analytical insights into the work as a complete Symphonic entity were spot on.

[richardfinegold]

My first two recordings of the piece (Karajan & Horenstein) were Scherzo-Andante, and that is my preferance. The only live performance that I heard was at the Aspen Music Festival a few years ago, conducted by James Conlon, and it was Andante-Scherzo. There was a pre concert by Michael Kennedy about this very topic.
My belief is that GM hadn't made a definitive decision. Who knows what his thoughts would have been if he had been able to live another decade and actually had the chance to hear a few performances of the work? I don't care for the sometime dogmatic pronouncements that there is only one correct way to order the movements when the historical record is so imprecise. And as an earlier poster commented,in the digital age it is easy to reprogram a given recording.

[Alain Maréchal]

And as an earlier poster commented,in the digital age it is easy to reprogram a given recording.

If you do that, you jettison any decisions the conductor may have made, not just about the movement order, but regarding relative tempi and dynamics.

I find the sudden eruption early in the finale to be the more devastating when preceded by the intense atmosphere conjured up in the andante.

[ahinton]

@ fhg:

What you write in #33 fleshes out - in great and eloquently persuasive detail - just what I feel about this issue and the references to Schönberg, Berg and Webern are of especial interest, not least in that Berg famously wrote to Webern of it as "the only sixth, despite the Pastoral". Whilst I have in my own remarks sought to focus attention not only on the evidence but also on whether or not Mahler was wrong to change the movements' order, I am curious as to what evidence there is in the form of observations by those three Second Viennese giants besides the fact that Webern conducted the symphony in Scherzo-Andante order; can you elaborate on this?

[ahinton]

If you do that, you jettison any decisions the conductor may have made, not just about the movement order, but regarding relative tempi and dynamics.

Indeed so - which is precisely why I ended what I wrote in my #18 - namely that "I've actually forced myself against my will to listen with let's-pretend unbiased attitude to the glorious Sixth with the Andante placed second – even, in some cases, by re-ordering a recorded performance played with Scherzo second" with the words "not an especially sensible idea, perhaps".

I find the sudden eruption early in the finale to be the more devastating when preceded by the intense atmosphere conjured up in the andante.

I do, too; that's a very important point.

[aeolium]

But ferney, surely Mahler must have known what he was doing (to echo David Matthews) when he changed the order following rehearsals for the first performance. No-one surely would have been more aware of the implications on the tonal structure of the work than he. The evidence remains thin that he changed his mind again: it mainly comes down to the recollection of Alma Mahler, which has been shown to be unreliable in other historical matters. Those who conducted the work in the years after Mahler's death, including Mengelberg and Oskar Fried, performed it with the revised order (at least until Mengelberg received Alma's telegram in 1919). Mengelberg reportedly discussed the symphony in some detail with Mahler in 1909 yet clearly no reversion to the original order was suggested then.

Of course I don't disagree with ahinton that composers can make mistakes, make revisions that don't improve but weaken (Charles Rosen is scathing about some of the revisions the later Schumann made to earlier works). But I think a composer's final known edition of a work, the one that he finally intended for publication and in which form he had it performed, ought to be respected, even if it appears to some less satisfactory than his first thoughts. Would we reject such an edition, perhaps on the basis of a Schindleresque rumour, if the composer were Beethoven?

As richardfinegold and others have said, nowadays it is perfectly possible to place the order of movements in any digital recording the way you want them, so as far as recordings go the matter is somewhat academic. Incidentally, it's interesting to look at the lists in the wiki page on the symphony of which conductors have performed which order (though by no means complete). Note that Barbirolli performed the work in Andante-Scherzo order but had the order reversed by the record company to comply with Ratz's Critical Edition!

[ahinton]

http://www.posthorn.com/Mahler/Corre..._Order_III.pdf gives about as much information in one place on this subject that I have yet encountered, even though it goes against what I feel makes the best sense. That said, its thoroughly researched evidence and timeline makes no reference to Webern conducting the work S-A or indeed to anything that Schönberg or Berg said or wrote on the subject.

I accept that there appears to be no evidence to support any claim that Mahler changed his mind not once but twice on this but I still maintain that even he could have made a mistake and that I think that, on this occasion, he actually did.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

@ fhg:

What you write in #33 fleshes out - in great and eloquently persuasive detail - just what I feel about this issue and the references to Schönberg, Berg and Webern are of especial interest, not least in that Berg famously wrote to Webern of it as "the only sixth, despite the Pastoral".

Thank you - my post crossed with yours last night and I didn't see David Matthews' comments until this morning. (Had it not been so late, and my post quite long enough as it was, I might also have pointed out how the Finale - with its predominant use of minor keys areas - mirrors and balances the Andante's predominantly major key areas: the "Scherzo followed by Finale" version is rather over-populated by minor keys, which dissipates the hope suggested by the arrival of A major just before the end of the Finale. With this dissipation, the devastating shock of the A minor hammer fall becomes a little more "ordinary", a little less unexpected, less of a catastrophe. Perhaps this is what lies behind Mahler's motives for suggesting/deciding on the reversal of the inner movements? (Mahler the composer's Music moving with grim, implaccable logic into the darkest regions of the psyche that Mahler the listener/performer couldn't face?)

Whilst I have in my own remarks sought to focus attention not only on the evidence but also on whether or not Mahler was wrong to change the movements' order, I am curious as to what evidence there is in the form of observations by those three Second Viennese giants besides the fact that Webern conducted the symphony in Scherzo-Andante order; can you elaborate on this?

I don't know of any offhand - it's as if the Musical logic of the Scherzo - Andante progression was so obvious to them that it didn't occur to them to even consider any other way of presenting or considering the work. (This is usually the point where Roehre points out a letter from Webern written in 1944 cursing his stupidity at always performing the work in this way and planning to mount a performance the alternate way as soon as the War was over. I'll tempt Fate by saying that I bet there's no such letter. So far, I hear only A major.)

[Roehre]

[....That said, its thoroughly researched evidence and timeline makes no reference to Webern conducting the work S-A or indeed to anything that Schönberg or Berg said or wrote on the subject......

Webern conducted 6 on Sunday December 14th 1930 at the Musikverein.
May 23rd 1933 he conducted a live broadcast of 6 on the Austrian RAVAG network, this time playing in the Konzerthaus.
There exists a photograph of Webern rehearsing Mahler 6 for this broadcast.

As Webern was very serious in taking scores literally, the then one published score he used gives the answer, therefore Scherzo-Andante.

I do think Webern conducted 6 two times, but a third time is certainly a possibillity as e.g. Moldenhauer is vague about this.
A performance in the autumn of 1932 were then to be added.