Order of movements in Mahler 6

[Bryn]

Mahler's final thoughts on the 6th

Which were (with unequivocal backing evidence, please)?

As far a I have been able to discover, he continued to equivocate over the order of movements. He was also in the habit of touching up and remoulding his (and others') scores long after the works they provided the recipe for were first performed in public. Also, as that very fine Mahler conductor Sir Roger Norrington reminds us as part of his excuse for re-inserting Blumine in the the 1st Symphony (while sticking with the revised orchestration of the rest), Mahler did say to Mengelberg: "Yes, go on changing the music, - even when I am dead!".

[Mahlerei]

I tend to prefer Scherzo/Andante but really it's up to conductors to make a good case for their chosen order. Ditto the hammer blows. I do prefer the repeats as well, but these are variables on which the conductor must build a convincing, coherent performance.

[Parry1912]

Which were (with unequivocal backing evidence, please)?

What is this? An exam question?

Seriously, I feel that this has been well covered in IRR's letter's pages recently.

As far a I have been able to discover, he continued to equivocate over the order of movements

Can we have unequivocal backing evidence, please(!)

Mahler did say to Mengelberg: "Yes, go on changing the music, - even when I am dead!".

Did he mean that any subsequent performer of his music had carte blanche to make any alterations of any kind that they felt like. I doubt it.

Personally if someone prefers to listen in the order scherzo-andante then I think that they are welcome to. This was Mahler's original intention so I do not believe that too much damage is done to the work. However, if they then try to convince me that this is 'correct' and that putting the andante first is 'wrong' then I think they are on shaky ground.

Again, just my opinion

[ahinton]

No disrespect intended - I haven't heard any of your music as far as I'm aware - but Mahler was a genius. I think that makes it difficult for the rest of us (and I too compose) to say that he was wrong. Besides great composers often revise works in the light of rehearsal/performance (Bruckner, VW, Sibelius, Prokofiev all come to mind) but we don't insist on only listening to their original thoughts as a matter of course.

I was not, of course, pretending to genius of the order of Mahler here - merely pointing out that even geniuses can make a mistake and, since Mahler first had one thought about the order of the middle movements of the Sixth and then had another, one of them must have seemed "wrong"! I'm not suggesting that Mahler's first thoughts strike me as convincing merely because they happened to be his first thoughts - just stating that, for me, his first thoughts in this instance happen to work for me.

But, surely, if you are happy to disregard Mahler's final thoughts on the 6th then why not change the order of the movements in any of the symphonies.

I'm not "happy" about this nor do I "disregard" Mahler's second thoughts (I won't go so far as to call them his "final" ones as I didn't know him at the end of his life and, in any case, who knows? he might have reverted to his original ones later in life had he lived longer); indeed, the very fact that Mahler did allow so fundamental a revised idea to develop is of considerable interest in itself, particularly given the sheer greatness of the work concerned.

Anyway, just my view.

And just mine!

Mahler was not the type of composer to include repeats as a matter of course so they should always be observed IMHO.

That is indeed true, but then performance traditions change; who in recent times has observed the five minute interval that he originally prescribed between the first and second movements of his Second Symphony?

[Bryn]

Let's get this right. It was you, P1912, who asserted that Mahler's final thoughts on the 6th were scherzo - andante. After Mahler's death, Alma insisted that the order should be scherzo - andante. Assuming that her insistence was based on her knowledge of Mahler's own 'final' thoughts on the subject, his continued equivocation after the andante-sherzo performance would appear to have been the case. I prefer scherzo - andante and the observation of the first movement repeat. I am also in favour of the reinstatement of the third hammer blow. That said, his failure to observe the first movement repeat and acceptance of andante-scherzo in no way puts me off the Mackerras directed performance issued on a BBC Music Magazine cover disc. Nor do I mess around with the movement ordering chosen by him.

[Parry1912]

Let's get this right. It was you, P1912, who asserted that Mahler's final thoughts on the 6th were scherzo - andante

If I did, Bryn, it wasn't intentional. As far as I'm aware andante-scherzo was his final thought.

Next: Should those conductors who perform scherzo-andante use the first orchestration? And, why do so many conductors take the allegro energico so slowly?

Then again, perhaps not!

[Alison]

Fashions change. It was pretty cool to go andante-scherzo 20-25 years ago but I sense that
the tide is turning and Sir Simon and others will go scherzo-andante before too long !

One argument I have never really got is that to have scherzo first just sounds like a continuation of
(i). It never feels like that to me.

Of course it's a different work entirely - but would you really want the scherzo third in Beethoven's Choral Symphony ?
The two symphonies chart a similar course in my way of thinking.

[Petrushka]

I have always listened to the Mahler 6 in whichever order the conductor chooses to give us and am quite happy to hear it either way. I think we have to accept that we have what is a symphony that exists in two versions. Someone on here or the old BBC boards (possibly Roehre) did put forward the notion of not playing the scherzo at all and having it as a stand alone piece thus solving the problem at a stroke!

Am I alone in thinking that the question of the third hammer blow is more important than the order of the two middle movements? Emotionally and psychologically it surely must be included. With the heavier orchestration surrounding it this is a truly cathartic moment and of huge import in the musical argument. My problem here is that, frustratingly and inexplicably, so few conductors choose to include it either live or on record. Uniquely, Benjamin Zander gives us two versions of the finale plus a fascinating talk on his set. Shame that the performance as a whole is less gripping than the talk.

What we have, then, is not a symphony of two versions but four!

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, the third hammer blow should be included. I've also been amazed how few conductors do, given the reasons Mahler excised it. A classic case of over-reverential attitudes.

Most here - wonderful exposition, AH - seem to favour scherzo-andante; I do myself, but I've always wondered whether it's because I got to know it that way, buying the few available discs in the early to mid-1970s. Robert Matthew-Walker has restated his case for andante-scherzo most eloquently in the January 2012 edition of IRR, so I've made up my mind to try it again, but with a recording that follows that order, rather than reversing the choice in another.

I have an awful feeling though, that it still won't feel, or sound, right...

I have always listened to the Mahler 6 in whichever order the conductor chooses to give us and am quite happy to hear it either way. I think we have to accept that we have what is a symphony that exists in two versions. Someone on here or the old BBC boards (possibly Roehre) did put forward the notion of not playing the scherzo at all and having it as a stand alone piece thus solving the problem at a stroke!

Am I alone in thinking that the question of the third hammer blow is more important than the order of the two middle movements? Emotionally and psychologically it surely must be included. With the heavier orchestration surrounding it this is a truly cathartic moment and of huge import in the musical argument. My problem here is that, frustratingly and inexplicably, so few conductors choose to include it either live or on record. Uniquely, Benjamin Zander gives us two versions of the finale plus a fascinating talk on his set. Shame that the performance as a whole is less gripping than the talk.

What we have, then, is not a symphony of two versions but four!

[Bryn]

Fashions change. It was pretty cool to go andante-scherzo 20-25 years ago but I sense that
the tide is turning and Sir Simon and others will go scherzo-andante before too long !

One argument I have never really got is that to have scherzo first just sounds like a continuation of
(i). It never feels like that to me.

Of course it's a different work entirely - but would you really want the scherzo third in Beethoven's Choral Symphony ?
The two symphonies chart a similar course in my way of thinking.

Just to act as devil's advocate, do bear in mind that Ratz is now yesterday's news. The most recent critical edition of the score opts for andante-scherzo.

[Alison]

Just to act as devil's advocate, do bear in mind that Ratz is now yesterday's news. The most recent critical edition of the score opts for andante-scherzo.

..... making it more attractive to go against the orthodox position.

[Ferretfancy]

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!

[Flosshilde]

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!

See my comments on the VPO New Year concert

[ahinton]

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!

Er, well yes, I could, given the appropriate circumstances and sufficient evidence in the form of remarks / correspondence or whatever from Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, Shostakovich or any number of other major symphonists; look at the almost complete overhaul to which Sibelius subjected his Fifth Symphony - and it was hardly as though he were a symphonic novice at the time!...

Composers, like the rest of us, can have doubts and changes of heart and can also make mistakes; to err is human, after all. If, however, the continuing Mahler discussion is tedious to you, just don't bother to read it! It's certainly not tedious to many others.

[Ferretfancy]

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!