Mahler 6 Halle/Elder

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You, possibly

What has your chosen quotation got to do with "Musical Theory which might say that one key should or shouldn't follow another"?

(You do know the Mahler Sixth, I'm presuming?)

[Flosshilde]

So, if it isn't theory that determines that "A minor following the A major is the final arbiter", then what does - your own prejudice (or taste)? & is it that that makes you believe that you know better than the composer?

[Alison]

There are compelling arguments on both sides and it all adds to the inexhaustible fascination of this great work.

For me its S/A, and it's not even close, not because I know better than the composer but because I know what I like.

[Petrushka]

There are compelling arguments on both sides and it all adds to the inexhaustible fascination of this great work.

For me its S/A, and it's not even close, not because I know better than the composer but because I know what I like.

I can happily listen to S/A or A/S but find that when listening to A/S the symphony seems somehow shorter. On CD I play whatever the conductor has decided and never re-programme. I am actually more interested in the third hammer blow which to me is a necessity. Quite why the majority of conductors omit it remains a mystery. Full marks to Sir Mark for re-instating it.

Alison, forget, if you can, who is conducting the performance broadcast on Monday and I think you'll agree that it's a highly impressive rendition. The Halle play their collective socks off and if this appears on the Halle label I shall be adding it to my already huge collection.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... it isn't theory that determines that "A minor following the A major is the final arbiter"

No. Music Theory describes and explains things like why D major has a key signature with two sharps and why those sharps have to be F# and C#. It isn't some vague set of rules that are just waiting for some genius composer to come along and liberate D major by saying "Aha! My D major is going to have an Ab, a D# and an Fx in its key signature!"

then what does - your own prejudice (or taste)? & is it that that makes you believe that you know better than the composer?

This is why I asked (sincerely) if you knew the Symphony, Floss - otherwise I find it difficult to follow why you should have such a problem with A minor following A major; it isn't a Theoretical point, but one originating in the composition. It's not that I know better than the composer - it's that the composer knows better than the composer. Or, if you prefer - the composition knows better than the man's second/third thoughts.

In paying more credence to the composer's letters than to the Musical score, aren't you subscribing to the sort of "personality cult" that you accused me of demonstrating with regard to another composer whose name begins with M?

[ahinton]

In paying more credence to the composer's letters than to the Musical score, aren't you subscribing to the sort of "personality cult" that you accused me of demonstrating with regard to another composer whose name begins with M?

Mon Dieu! - we're not going to introduce Medtner wars into this, are we?(!)...

[richardfinegold]

Mon Dieu! - we're not going to introduce Medtner wars into this, are we?(!)...

Medtner

[ahinton]

Medtner

Well, he is "another composer whose name begins with M"...

[Flosshilde]

This is why I asked (sincerely) if you knew the Symphony, Floss

I've heard/listened to it several times - whether that counts as 'knowing it' I couldn't say. One performance that stood out, for me, was by students at the RCS conducted by Ticciati a few years ago. Whether that was because it was live, or in a very small hall, or becuase of the 'freshness' of the performers, or Ticciati's conducting, or the order of the two movements (I can't remember what the order was - I have the programme somewhere but not to hand), I couldn't say, but I found it more 'satisfying' than the only recording I had at that time, the BBC MM CD conducted by Mackerras. I now also have Bernstein's recording with the New York Phil, but I don't think I've actually listened to it yet.

[Stanley Stewart]

Encouraging to hear three compelling R3 broadcasts of Mahler symphonies since the start of the 2015/16 season: No 10 (performing version by Deryck Cooke) on 29 Sept, BBC Scottish SO/ Donald Runnicles; No 6, Halle/ Mark Elder, 12 Oct and No 5, A on 3 on the following day, a vivid lyrical performance by the BPO/Andris Nelsons.

My preferences for the collected symphonies of Mahler is the 12CD Decca boxset, RCgbw, Amsterdam and RSO, Berlin/Riccardo Chailly. This set also has the advantage of pithy liner notes by Donald Mitchell, mercifully free of nit- picking so that, like the play, the performance is the thing!

"...It is Chailly's mastery of the symphonies' individual narratives that will long lend these recordings a special value and distinction; each symphony embarks on a journey of exploration, each with a unique destination in mind, whether it is the remorseless momentum of the Sixth ultimately proclaiming death as its goal, or the gradual unfolding in the Fifth of the eventual joy and triumph of its finale. Chailly leads us through the sequences of complex and contrasting movements that succeed the first movements of both symphonies. Among them, in the Fifth, is the famous and exquisite Adagietto, exquisitely performed here, with his customary attention to fine detail. It is fascinating to compare the agonished contrapuntal textures of the Sixth with the vigorous geniality of the fuguing in the last movement of the Fifth. Whether it is Mahler's pessimism or his optimism that is to the fore, however, Chailly's pronounced transparency of textures enables us to hear the totality of Mahler's polyphony..."

A leaning curve worth acquiring!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Floss, #39.

Okay - well the important feature is the juxtaposed chords of A major followed by A minor first heard (at 1min 49" in the Mackerras recording) in bars 54-55 and again the repeat - although not in the Mackerras recording because he ignores the repeat instruction* - and in the Recapitulation. It's an unmissable motif, so pronounced in its identity that Mahler can make unmistakable reference to it not only at the very end of the work (without the major triad) but also (in parody) at the end of the Seventh Symphony.

The First Movement ends in A major and the Scherzo begins in A minor - this is Musical observation, not "Theory". In other words, the salient harmonic motif of the whole work is used as a structural impetus within the Tonal progression between the Movements - if the 1904 published score is followed. This is genuine Symphonic thinking as manifest in the work of Mahler's greatest forebears from Haydn to Bruckner - there is no "supposed" (to use aeolium's vocabulary) greater symphonic strength here; it simply is a more powerful Tonal/Structural device. Placing the Andante in second place weakens the Tonal and Motivic progress - again, this is not Theory - it is observation; where is/are the corresponding strengths of following A major with Eb major? What, in the First Movement (or in what happens later) creates symphonic associations to compensate or surpass this? On the contrary, the Symphonic strength is weakened, and there is more of a feeling of a rhapsodic sequence of moods between the Movements, the success of which can vary between listener and listener and can be described as a matter of individual opinion - in ways that the Tonal structuring of the 1904 publication does not encourage (because the relationship of A major/minor as a motif in the First Movement and as a relationship between First and Second Movements is a fact, regardless of individual opinion).

It's not a question of going against the composer's wishes - the idea comes from the composer in the first place; there's no suggestion importing a different movement in A minor from another work in order to demonstrate how much better the work would have been if only Mahler had thought of following the A major of the First Movement with another in A minor. It's a matter of ensuring the Symphonic Tonal mastery of the 1904 edition is preserved.

* = for God knows what reason: for all Mahler's ditherings about the order of the middle two Movements, he never reconsidered repeating the Exposition - the only Symphony after the First that requires the feature.

[aeolium]

What concerns me though is that, however strong those arguments about the greater power of the tonal progression in the original S-A order, no-one would have known that better than Mahler himself, and few would have been more familiar than he with the Austro-German symphonic tradition. Yet, knowing this, he still made the decision to change the order of the movements and, as far as we know, did not resile from it despite the ridicule he endured in the Viennese press. If a supremely great composer makes a decision of that kind, one has to be wary of simply dismissing it as a complete aberration. An alternative approach might be to ask what might have been the reasons behind the decision, what might have been the compensations. After all, there are not a few examples in history of where composers have been taken to task for their 'wrong' decisions on harmony: for instance, Sarti's pamphlet criticising Mozart for the introduction to the Dissonance Quartet, a pamphlet which when published in the 1830s prompted attempts to rewrite the introduction to correct Mozart's 'errors'; or the audience at the Skandalkonzert in 1913. These critics, too, might have argued that the composers were departing from traditional harmonic progressions.

[ahinton]

What concerns me though is that, however strong those arguments about the greater power of the tonal progression in the original S-A order, no-one would have known that better than Mahler himself, and few would have been more familiar than he with the Austro-German symphonic tradition. Yet, knowing this, he still made the decision to change the order of the movements and, as far as we know, did not resile from it despite the ridicule he endured in the Viennese press. If a supremely great composer makes a decision of that kind, one has to be wary of simply dismissing it as a complete aberration. An alternative approach might be to ask what might have been the reasons behind the decision, what might have been the compensations. After all, there are not a few examples in history of where composers have been taken to task for their 'wrong' decisions on harmony: for instance, Sarti's pamphlet criticising Mozart for the introduction to the Dissonance Quartet, a pamphlet which when published in the 1830s prompted attempts to rewrite the introduction to correct Mozart's 'errors'; or the audience at the Skandalkonzert in 1913. These critics, too, might have argued that the composers were departing from traditional harmonic progressions.

I cannot and therefore will not speak for any other members here, but I do not "dismiss" Mahler's decision as "a complete aberration" as though I reckon to know best and that Mahler didn't know what he was doing; that would be absurd. That said, whilst we agree his status as a "supremely great composer", even this does not protect Mahler or anyone else from the possible risk of making misjudgements and, for evidence of that, one has only to consider the original order of those movements which Mahler came - albeit only when putting the symphony into rehearsal - to regard as a misjudgement that he felt impelled to correct. As I've stated previously, no composer, however "supremely great", is infallible at all times; to err is, after all, human - just as is "to compose"...

I have endeavoured to put forward, as clearly and honestly as I can, those reasons that occur to me as to why Scherzo second works more successfully than Andante second and I have clarified that these are the fruits of personal opinion, albeit one evidently shared by others. That said, you then quite understandably observe that "an alternative approach might be to ask what might have been the reasons behind the decision, what might have been the compensations" although the problem there is that Mahler himself would really be the only reliable source of answers to this and, for rather obvious reasons, he cannot be asked. I am unaware that there is contemporary documentation that might lead to any clues as to the perceived rationale behind the decision and, in the absence of such, all that one could do is ask the question rather than be able to expect to have it answered definitively or indeed even at all.

The further problem is that all four movements of that symphony are so very strong in and of themselves that one can really only ask oneself which order of them sounds the more convincing. Even I, whose view on this you know, might concede that the Andante could be performed before the Scherzo per se, but to do so in the context of the entire symphony is what seems to me to weaken the work as a whole; in other words, it's what happens in the outer movements that determines which order of the middle ones is the most convincing, for the reasons that I've tried to outline (perhaps not as successfully as I ought to have done).

[Barbirollians]

I have to admit to not being overly bothered by the order of the movements - but I have rather come to enjoy the A-S order in that the Andante to an extent becomes less consoling - when the march with a limp in the Scherzo follows it . Sometimes the March followed by Scherzo can seem very unremitting in a bad performance .

[ahinton]

I have to admit to not being overly bothered by the order of the movements - but I have rather come to enjoy the A-S order in that the Andante to an extent becomes less consoling - when the march with a limp in the Scherzo follows it

Interesting thought, albeit not one that's made its presence felt whenever I've made myself listen to an Andante before Scherzo performance; I do think tht the element of consolation in the Andante does not in any case deserve to be undermined and, if it is, it does the symphony as a whole no favours.[/quote]

Sometimes the March followed by Scherzo can seem very unremitting in a bad performance.

But to some extent that's arguably part of the point - and even Scherzo followed by Finale might have a similar effect, especially given that the prevailing A minor underpinning of the Finale manifests itself in the symphony's longest movement.

I wonder what Mahler would have thought, not so much about his decision to reorder the central movements of his Sixth but about the sheer enthusiasm with which it continues to be debated some 110 years later!...