Order of movements in Mahler 6

[Richard Barrett]

... but are the composer's intentions the final arbiter?

In the end it comes down to whatever people prefer. JS Bach's intentions with regard to the size of his vocal ensembles are ignored in the great majority of performances of his "choral" music. Bruckner's intentions were... well let's not go there. Many of the arguments on both sides on this thread seem to be of the underlying form "I prefer it this way, and look! there's some evidence that Mahler would have agreed."

Apart from which, "the composer's intentions" would be a highly slippery concept to base arguments on, even if one considers them paramount, which is IMO a needlessly narrow view of things.

[ahinton]

... but are the composer's intentions the final arbiter? As in my literary examples above, Wordsworth and Henry James were both convinced that their later versions were the ones they wanted : nowadays many people and most scholars prefer the earlier versions.

It's an interesting parallel, but it's impossible to say, really, especially since Mahler died relatively soon after conducting the work in its revised movement order. I must say that I am now becoming more curious than ever as to why Webern, of all people, bucked such of the trend that there was by reverting to Mahler's original order for the middle movements when conducting the work, not least given Webern's and Schönberg's reverence for Mahler along with Berg's "the only Sixth, despite the Pastoral" observation; I'm also curious as to why Sorabji omitted even to mention Mahler's decision to change the movement order and wrote about the work as though it had never been made, despite his copy of the published score bearing the inserted leaf about that alteration.

Doesn't the 'work of art' have an integrity that supersedes any authorial intention?

For that to be the case, it would surely not only have to have a life of its own independent of that of its creator but also be capable of self-creation, methinks!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As you know very well one is not comparing like with like in Bruckner's case . Mahler's intentions were clear - he insisted on the erratum slip in the first edition and the order of the movements was changed in the other editions issued in his lifetime .

Are you suggesting that Bruckner's intentions are not also equally clear?

[Richard Barrett]

Are you suggesting that Bruckner's intentions are not also equally clear?

[ahinton]

In the end it comes down to whatever people prefer. JS Bach's intentions with regard to the size of his vocal ensembles are ignored in the great majority of performances of his "choral" music. Bruckner's intentions were... well let's not go there. Many of the arguments on both sides on this thread seem to be of the underlying form "I prefer it this way, and look! there's some evidence that Mahler would have agreed."

True as this is, there's always the additional factor of speculation as to the size of vocal ensemble that J S Bach might ideally have liked to have for this, that or the other of his Cantatas, Passions et al has he ultimate choice in the matter - or whether Chopin might have preferred his work to be performed on the pianos available to Liszt and Alkan in their final years had he lived as long as they each did, in preference to the Érards and Pleyels with which he was familiar. All speculation and no more, of course and, as you say, individual personal preferences do indeed play in important part in matters such as that under discussion here, although that's not to discourage or undermine serious thought being given to the subject rather than reliance on mere unsupported, unexplained and un-thought-through "I prefer it this way / that way" statements. Whatever anyone might think of David Matthews on the subject, or of Colin Matthews, who takes an opposing viewpoint, each is steeped in Mahler and doubtless gave considerable thought to the matter before publishing what they did.

Since you mention Bruckner, he seems to have been one of the composers most susceptible to the influences and persuasions of others in respect of his symphonies in particular; Rachmaninoff was considerably less so but by no means unconcerned about such things.

Apart from which, "the composer's intentions" would be a highly slippery concept to base arguments on, even if one considers them paramount, which is IMO a needlessly narrow view of things.

It would indeed! Composers all have "intentions" in respect of their work at any given moments but how, when and why those intentions might arise and metamorphose is quite another matter - and a minefield of minefields at that. Performers share that slippery slope with them, too; one has only to compare Arrau playing Schubert in his youth, his middle age and his later years...

[waldo]

... but are the composer's intentions the final arbiter? As in my literary examples above, Wordsworth and Henry James were both convinced that their later versions were the ones they wanted : nowadays many people and most scholars prefer the earlier versions.

Doesn't the 'work of art' have an integrity that supersedes any authorial intention?

Presumably, you recognise at least some form of authorial "intention" here? At the very least, I am guessing you place at least some weight on the fact that the author decided to publish or perform a given piece.........I mean, we wouldn't normally place drafts and not-quite-finished documents in the same field of comparison as those which the author has decided to publish etc. Regardless of the intrinsic quality of such artifacts, it would be quite unusual to place them above or even alongside those works which the author decided to make public etc The author's intention, therefore, helps determine a fundamental threshold for the purposes of evaluation.

Once an author has made such a decision, however - to publish or perform etc - and then goes on to publish more versions, I can see that the question is far more complex.......One of the great examples of this must be the "Early" and the "Late" Wittgenstein - both in direct contradiction to one another. As a result, philosophers more or less think of there being two Wittgensteins - two entirely different philosophers, as if they were father and son. They are usually taught in separate courses; hardly ever together.

[Richard Barrett]

the "Early" and the "Late" Wittgenstein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGksgZKecKE

[vinteuil]

Presumably, you recognise at least some form of authorial "intention" here? At the very least, I am guessing you place at least some weight on the fact that the author decided to publish or perform a given piece.........I mean, we wouldn't normally place drafts and not-quite-finished documents in the same field of comparison as those which the author has decided to publish etc. Regardless of the intrinsic quality of such artifacts, it would be quite unusual to place them above or even alongside those works which the author decided to make public etc The author's intention, therefore, helps determine a fundamental threshold for the purposes of evaluation.

r.

... the great Cornell edition of Wordsworth does precisely that : the 'draft' two-book, five-book, thirteen-book 1799, 1804, 1805, 1819 copies of The Prelude often being preferred to the fourteen-book 'finished' version of 1850.

The recent American Library edition of Henry James has abandoned James's 'final version' ('New York edition') of his works in favour of the 'first printed book' editions of his works, often radically different; the ongoing Oxford edition of his stories moves still earlier back, favouring the editions as they first appeared in magazines...

[waldo]

... the great Cornell edition of Wordsworth does precisely that : the 'draft' two-book, five-book, thirteen-book 1799, 1804, 1805, 1819 copies of The Prelude often being preferred to the fourteen-book 'finished' version of 1850.

The recent American Library edition of Henry James has abandoned James's 'final version' ('New York edition') of his works in favour of the 'first printed book' editions of his works, often radically different; the ongoing Oxford edition of his stories moves still earlier back, favouring the editions as they first appeared in magazines...

In the case of James, we are still talking about versions after publication. In the case of Wordsworth, you are right - Wordsworth didn't publish. I suppose you could call it a "draft", though there are special circumstances attached to its composition that differentiate it from the kind of draft that ends up as a crumpled ball of paper in the bin.

But obviously, there are exceptions - and they are usually notorious. My point is that authorial intention - particularly as this is expressed in acts of publication and performance - is taken to be final and authoritative in 99.99999999% of cases.

[vinteuil]

My point is that authorial intention - particularly as this is expressed in acts of publication and performance - is taken to be final and authoritative....

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

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http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/fallacy.htm

[ahinton]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

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http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/fallacy.htm

Perhaps the best thing about this piece is the first title in the Further Reading section, Morte d'Author, which at least lends momentary amusement to the increasing semantic obsequiosity of what goes before it which might be sufficient for some to wish to abandon authoriality and its possible consequences at all costs.

[ahinton]

My point is that authorial intention - particularly as this is expressed in acts of publication and performance - is taken to be final and authoritative in 99.99999999% of cases.

But surely this is, by definition, of necessity and in reality, confined to a work's "final and authorititave" publication and/or performance at any given time rather than for all time, otherwise no one would ever revise anything after such publication and/or performance for fear of being thought thereby to have undermined its "final and authoritative" status!

[Richard Barrett]

Returning if I may to (the known fact of) Mahler's indecision here... much of what makes the Sixth special in Mahler's oeuvre is the tension between an explicitly "classical" form and a compositional momentum which can hardly be contained by it. Maybe just as interesting a question as which order the central movements should be in is why there are only two of them, not three as in nos. 5, 7 and 10. The intrinsic sense of balance found in the four-movement forms of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is perhaps impossible to maintain when the two outer movements are given such structural, expressive and durational weight as in a work like Mahler's Sixth. This issue was addressed in later symphonies by counterbalancing the outer movements with three inner ones, producing an overall symmetry of a different kind (nos.7 and 10 and the Lied von der Erde), or rearranging the balance of the four-movement form by putting the slow movements on the outside (no.9), or letting the dramatic impetus of the work create an altogether different form whose symphonic underpinnings are less explicit (no.8). In no.6 Mahler's indecision about the order of the central movements could perhaps be seen as the result of trying to find a sense of balance which in the four-movement form couldn't be found. (edit: which makes me think, if there were another slow movement after the (third-placed) Scherzo, what might it have sounded like?)

Another possible reason (conscious or otherwise) for his change of heart occurs to me thinking about the context of his other work: putting the Scherzo first makes the form, at least its first half, perhaps uncomfortably similar to no.5, where a weighty first movement is also followed by another in the same vein but somewhat intensified. I've often felt this to be a problematic feature in no.5, although it depends on the performance of course.

These are imaginative speculations rather than scholarly observations of course. I'm more interested in a stimulating discussion than in being "right"!

[ahinton]

As a result, philosophers more or less think of there being two Wittgensteins

And musicians know better that there were indeed such, of whom one was a pianist...

[Richard Barrett]

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

.
http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/fallacy.htm

Indeed the supposed primacy of the author's intentions, or what they're presumed to be, is a hangover from a way of looking at creativity which depends on a pre-Freud view of human consciousness and motivation. Fascinatingly, of course, Mahler himself stood at the threshold between the pre- and post-psychoanalytic era (that is to say, at the moment where the subconscious was first given a name and its importance realised), and this is reflected in many of his statements about what his art was about and where it came from, as well as (IMO) in the art itself.