Mahler 6 Halle/Elder

[Petrushka]

Wow! This was as magnificent a performance of Mahler 6 as any I've heard and goodness knows I've heard a few.

I know that there are those on here who aren't exactly members of the Mark Elder Appreciation Society but forget that and just listen to this because Elder and the Halle really delivered. Everything seemed to be right: Andante second, scherzo third; all three hammer blows convincingly delivered; first movement tempo absolutely spot on; world class playing from all departments of the orchestra who played like men and women possessed and, last but not least, the whole thrillingly caught in superbly engineered sound.

Magnificent and bravo!

[Flosshilde]

I didn't hear it all, but based on what I heard I'd thoroughly concur. Hopefully it will appear on the Halle's own label.

[Alison]

Wow! Everything seemed to be right: Andante second, scherzo third;

Not a good start Pet! As a founding non member of MEAS I decided to swerve this but will give it a go. No speeches I hope.

[ahinton]

Andante second, scherzo third

...but everything else very good, evidently. I didn't hear it but will try to get to it. I really cannot accept that order of central movements, whoever's performing (although not for wawnt of trying, believe me); it just seems to me to be the worst miscalculation that Mahler ever made, which is especially ironical given that it had been a sudden last-minute decision to change the original. One thing that makes scherzo second work for me is that oh-so-hard-won glorious A major with which the first movement finally draws to its conclusion, only to be shattered by being brought right back down again as the scherzo opens; another is that the scherzo collapses exhausted in the self-same A minor as though there was nowhere else to go and no more to be said, but then the sublime adagio opens in the remote key of E flat major, leads the listener into another world of whose existence there's been no previous suspicion and remains there for the duration. The final clincher is that, having begun and ended that movement in that key, the finale suddenly drops down a minor third to a harmony whose pedal note is C and then again to one whose pedal note is A and, all of a sudden, the listener is wrenched back once again to where it all began, as though there's really no escaping it. Sorry if that sounds fanciful, but...

[Nick Armstrong]

I really cannot accept that order of central movements, whoever's performing (although not for wawnt of trying, believe me)

Ditto - we've just been discussing that on another thread

[Beef Oven!]

One thing that makes scherzo second work for me is that oh-so-hard-won glorious A major with which the first movement finally draws to its conclusion, only to be shattered by being brought right back down again as the scherzo opens.........

Many thanks for articulating that simple but fundamental idea - IMV, you have summed it up perfectly.

At least for me, that is why the scherzo second, is the way to go.

[Hornspieler]

Many thanks for articulating that simple but fundamental idea - IMV, you have summed it up perfectly.

At least for me, that is why the scherzo second, is the way to go.

I quite agree. The calm after the storm.

Like Bruckner's 8th or Walton's 1st, it works for me.

HS

[richardfinegold]

...but everything else very good, evidently. I didn't hear it but will try to get to it. I really cannot accept that order of central movements, whoever's performing (although not for wawnt of trying, believe me); it just seems to me to be the worst miscalculation that Mahler ever made, which is especially ironical given that it had been a sudden last-minute decision to change the original. One thing that makes scherzo second work for me is that oh-so-hard-won glorious A major with which the first movement finally draws to its conclusion, only to be shattered by being brought right back down again as the scherzo opens; another is that the scherzo collapses exhausted in the self-same A minor as though there was nowhere else to go and no more to be said, but then the sublime adagio opens in the remote key of E flat major, leads the listener into another world of whose existence there's been no previous suspicion and remains there for the duration. The final clincher is that, having begun and ended that movement in that key, the finale suddenly drops down a minor third to a harmony whose pedal note is C and then again to one whose pedal note is A and, all of a sudden, the listener is wrenched back once again to where it all began, as though there's really no escaping it. Sorry if that sounds fanciful, but...

Couldn't agree more. On a recording, one can reorder it any way the listener wishes, but when I heard this work live with James Conlon Conducting at the Aspen Festival a few years ago, with Andante-Scherzo, I kept having to stifle the impulse to stand up walk to the Orchestra and hit the imaginary 'reset' button.

[aeolium]

But how can you "not accept it" when Mahler himself conducted two performances with the revised Andante-Scherzo order and from all the available evidence he did not revert to the originally conceived Scherzo-Andante order in the rest of his life? It is one thing to say that you prefer it with the movement order Mahler seems to have rejected, or that it makes more musical sense, or whatever, but "not to accept" a composer's decision about his own work, and a conductor's decision to follow that in all good faith, seems absurd. It is Mahler's symphony, not anyone else's, and surely he should be allowed the last word.

[Lento]

I was interested to read that Derryck Cooke favoured the 1st performance order (i.e. Andante 2nd) saying there is "no clear evidence" that Mahler wished to revert to the original edition order. Andante 3rd normally feels slightly better to me, though. Enjoyed the performance: felt that Elder was savouring the detail at slightly slow tempi at times (just my impression), but what wonderful details, finely played!

[Bryn]

But how can you "not accept it" when Mahler himself conducted two performances with the revised Andante-Scherzo order and from all the available evidence he did not revert to the originally conceived Scherzo-Andante order in the rest of his life? It is one thing to say that you prefer it with the movement order Mahler seems to have rejected, or that it makes more musical sense, or whatever, but "not to accept" a composer's decision about his own work, and a conductor's decision to follow that in all good faith, seems absurd. It is Mahler's symphony, not anyone else's, and surely he should be allowed the last word.

A favourite recorded performance of mine is that on the BBC Music Magazine by the BBCPO conducted by Mackerras. He stuck with Mahler's revised ordering, but omitted the exposition repeat from the 1st movement and restored the third hammer blow in the finale. The reversion to the Scherzo/Andante order imposed on the 1963 Critical Edition by Ratz, has since been superseded. The Revised Critical Edition restores the composers considered choice of Andante/Scherzo.

[ahinton]

But how can you "not accept it" when Mahler himself conducted two performances with the revised Andante-Scherzo order and from all the available evidence he did not revert to the originally conceived Scherzo-Andante order in the rest of his life?

I can "not accept it" quite simply because composers are not infallible - not even composers of the exalted order of Gustav Mahler; indeed, Busoni, Schönberg and Elgar, in their admittedly different ways, might be thought to have gone even further in their regard for the composer's rôle as one more akin to that of the diviner rather than of the supreme controller and inviolable arbiter of all that they produce. Composers are human, after all; Mahler made a decision when writing the symphony to place the scherzo second and not until he put it in rehearsal does he appear to have revered that decision by reversing the order of the symphony's two middle movements.

You are correct in your assumption that there's no apparent evidence that Mahler returned to his original thoughts, but who knows whether he migh have done had he lived longer than the mere five years or so since making that decision? It is, after all, hardly uncommon for composers to revise their works, sometimes long after they were originally completed; look at Elliott Carter, for example, who revised his 1942 Symphony No. 1 in 1954, his 1944 Holiday Overture in 1961 and his 1939 Canonic Suite for four alto saxophones or four clarinets and his 1945-46 Piano Sonata as late as 1981 - and as to Bruckner and Boulez, one might almost be tempted to describe each as not so much composer or diviner but reviser!

It is one thing to say that you prefer it with the movement order Mahler seems to have rejected, or that it makes more musical sense, or whatever, but "not to accept" a composer's decision about his own work, and a conductor's decision to follow that in all good faith, seems absurd. It is Mahler's symphony, not anyone else's, and surely he should be allowed the last word.

I do not say that I cannot accept Mahler's decision per se; indeed, I can do no other than accept it because he made it. What I cannot accept, however, is that it was a correct one in the best interests of the symphony and its public reception; the mere fact that Mahler was an inestimably great composer cannot and does not of itself determine that he was somehow infallible and, after all, Mahler himself must have thought that he'd made a mistake in the symphony's original conception otherwise he'd not have made the decision at rehearsal to implement that fundamental change in the first place!

The reasons why I have the gross temerity to suggest that Mahler's decision did no favours for the fate of the work I have tried to the best of my ability to put in a nutshell above (and may I be forgiven for my shortcomings in this). The Sixth is arrguably the most tautly structured and "classical" of Mahler's symphonies, the only one that begins and ends in a minor key and the first of just three of his ten that begins and ends in the same key (the others being 8 and 10); it is also the only one that begins and ends in a state of pessimism. In many respects, then, it is quite an exceptional case. Might Mahler have almost scared himself into making that decision? In what I wrote previously, I sought to outline the case for the defence of the original order by writing about what feels correct about scherzo second; I might have added that one of the worst aspects of Andante (not Adagio, as I wrote incorrectly above) second is that the sheer shock of the transitions that open the finale is gravely undermined by following the collapse of the scherzo in what's left of A minor, especially as it settles back onto A within a mere page, whereas coming after the close of the Andante its sheer power is, by comparison, enormous.

The score in the original order had already been published by the time Mahler put the symphony into rehearsal, so one must admire the composer's courage in implementing so drastic a decision at that late stage, but even that doesn't make his decision correct!

OK, I accept that my remarks represent a personal viewpoint (albeit one shared by many others), but would it ever have been Bruckner's intention to have his final symphony played in its truncated three-movement version? - and how might he have viewed the seemingly still near-unassailable performance tradition in doing it this way even now we have most of its finale in a form that comes pretty close to his original intentions? Should Mahler 10 performances revert to first movement only? Should Elgar 3 no longer be performed at all? Yes, these three cases are not quite analogous to that of the issue of the order of central movements in Mahler 6, but I do think that they're too pertinent to ignore altogether when considering what might work best for Mahler 6.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But how can you "not accept it" when Mahler himself conducted two performances with the revised Andante-Scherzo order and from all the available evidence he did not revert to the originally conceived Scherzo-Andante order in the rest of his life? It is one thing to say that you prefer it with the movement order Mahler seems to have rejected

Your "seems" are showing. It is worth bearing in mind that the composers with whom Mahler was in daily conversation (as opposed to the conductors who needed consulting with the occasional letter) regarded the Andante as the Third Movement, and, on occasion, performed it only that way.

or that it makes more musical sense, or whatever, but "not to accept" a composer's decision about his own work, and a conductor's decision to follow that in all good faith, seems absurd. It is Mahler's symphony, not anyone else's, and surely he should be allowed the last word.

And for those for whom words are more important than sounds, the Andante should always come second. For those for whom the Musical structure is more important, the A minor following the A major is the final arbiter.

[aeolium]

And for those for whom words are more important than sounds, the Andante should always come second.

You mean like the long list of distinguished conductors, from Mahler onwards, who performed it like that.

For those for whom the Musical structure is more important, the A minor following the A major is the final arbiter.

And perhaps for those who know better than Mahler how to compose his own symphonies.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You mean like the long list of distinguished conductors, from Mahler onwards, who performed it like that.
And perhaps for those who know better than Mahler how to compose his own symphonies.

Did you know that the tip of your nose goes bright red when you stamp your feet that hard?