Prom 62: Mahler - Symphony No. 6, BRSO, Rattle

[bluestateprommer]

Friday 6 September 2024
20:00
Royal Albert Hall

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor (second version; inner movements - Andante / Scherzo)

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/erbd2m

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-62/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0022c6v

[LMcD]

Friday 6 September 2024
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor (second version; inner movements - Andante / Scherzo)

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/erbd2m

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-62/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0022c6v

'gargantuan and grippingly intense' - gee golly gosh!

[oliver sudden]

(second version; inner movements - Andante / Scherzo)

Not really the second version though, is it?

Scherzo-Andante was still pre-release. Version 0.9 if you will.

[jonfan]

This is magnificent. No words adequate!

[edashtav]

Mahler's 6th Symphony has been called, with the composer's acceptance, from its first performance: The Tragic. Is it the first successful tragic Symphony? The mien of Schubert's Tragic Symphony#4 is positive, clouded by sadness only in two of its movements. Did Tchaikovsky write the 19th century's final tragic Symphony when he penned his Pathétique in 1893? The Russian name points more to passionate or emotional and there's hope and resilience in the first three of its four movements. There's not much hope in the extended first movement of Mahler's 6th. It's important,I feel, that the work's gentler movement is placed 2nd, so creating a final unbroken disturbing arch of bitterness (m.#3) plunging directly into the destructive, unrelieved, fatalistic finale.

Sir Simon and his new orchestra afforded plenty of variety across the first movement. I felt deeply the struggles of the the Faustian composer facing fate.
Mahler was financially comfortable when writing it as,vpossibly, the fifth symphony had shown and he was blessed, to outward appearance, with a loving and fruitful wife. He had built, if not a love-shack by a Lake, certainly a composing hut. But he was unconfident of his future.

The Bavarians under the post-Berlin, more relaxed Sir Simon projected the warm slow movement as if they were on holiday in England one month before the outbreak of the Second World War: the War that couldn't happen, could it? 'Tis bliss to be alive in that dawn... and then, and then, the music becomes more chromatic, clouds gather in a masterfully composed recapitulation and coda. Sanity prevails?

The Scherzo's four square Military tread anounces perhaps the coming of Shostakovich in distant St.Petersburg. The minuet and gentile dancing struggle and perish as minute by minute, hope is downtrodden and fear rules all. Tremendous characterisation from top to bottom of the orchestra. All turn sardonic and bitter.

AARON COPLAND wrote,"It was because Mahler worked primarily with a maze of separate strands independent of all chordal underpinning that his instrumentation possesses that sharply etched and clarified sonority that may be heard again and again in the music of later composers. Mahler’s was the first orchestra to play ‘without pedal,’ to borrow a phrase from piano technique. The use of the orchestra as many-voiced body in this particular way was typical of the age of Bach and Handel. Thus, as far as orchestral practice is concerned, Mahler bridges the gap between the composers of the early 18th century and the Neoclassicists of our own time.”
I selected that passage because I was thinking of Havergal Brian's 6th Symphony Sinfonia Tragica of 40 years later where everything comes bass supported and, as a result, the work's language is so much more tonal and traditional than Mahler's almost atonal wanderings.

The half hour finale was as good as the last Prom performance that I heard: Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouw Orchestra perhaps two decades ago.

The structure was so well etched as the composer tried to pick himself up and to clutch his composing threads after each hammer blow. What loneliness and desolation. Thirty years later DSCH was forced to plough a similar furrow.
For me, the finest and most chilling music-making of this great season of Proms.
(Why have I failed to mention Josef Suk's Asrael Symphony as a Tragic Symphony contemporaneous with Mahler's?
Because I view the Suk as Angst ridden.)

[Historian]

I thought this was a very fine performance, however I am going to leave further comment on Sir Simon's interpretation to those who know the symphony better.

Very spoilt by being able to listen to and watch several fine foreign (and home) orchestras this season. The Bavarians were there in numbers, their players filling the stage comprehensively. Much incidental drama during the performance. When will the end wind player on the front row get her chance? Ah, she gets to play flute when 3rd and 4th are on piccolo and she also doubles piccolo on occasion. What about the 4th Trombone separated from the others by the Tuba? Now I see, he changes seats with the tuba player during the last movement to complete the brass line-up. Four cymbals players at one time? Wonderful. And, of course, the two blows of fate. The man with the wooden maul (mallet?, technically not a hammer as it's wooden?) really went for it, the wooden block lifting its four feet clear of the floor. Apologies to those already familiar with live performances but there was so much to watch as well as hear.

Again, wonderful energy, ensemble and dynamic range - similar to the Berlin Philharmonic I was fortunate enough to see twice this year. All this and the Czech PO's two splendid concerts. This was my last concert of the Proms this year and I feel well-rewarded.

[Nachtigall]

Some brief reactions to listening to the radio transmission: the first movement, taken quite swiftly, had me thinking that compared to the LSO the Bavarians seemed to lack heft. The slow movement (irritatingly, to me, placed second) was beautifully played, with some exceptionally warm string playing. The Scherzo was appropriately vigorous and sardonic. But the Finale was what sealed the overall success of the performance: wild and ferocious where it needed to be, delving into turgid depths of despair or scaling delirious lyrical heights. I always wish for the nightmarish expressionistic insights of a Tennstedt or Bernstein in this movement, but Rattle and his orchestra certainly approached this level of intensity. In fact, I thought that they appeared to have saved themselves for this fiery, no-holds-barred conclusion. The brass were particularly brilliant.

[oliver sudden]

There's not much hope in the extended first movement of Mahler's 6th. It's important,I feel, that the work's gentler movement is placed 2nd, so creating a final unbroken disturbing arch of bitterness (m.#3) plunging directly into the destructive, unrelieved, fatalistic finale.

I think it’s worth bearing in mind that for a long time Rattle was one of very few conductors to perform the movements in the only order Mahler ever performed himself, during the period when the Mahler-Gesellschaft’s official ordering was, shall we say, otherwise!

I absolutely agree that the Scherzo sets up the finale perfectly. I beg to differ regarding the proportion of hope in the first movement, though. For me the ending is downright exultant (despite (or because of?) that one shattering dissonance near the end), which for me is one of the reasons the Andante simply has to come next—just going straight back to more stomping on A makes no sense to my ear.

[edashtav]

I think it’s worth bearing in mind that for a long time Rattle was one of very few conductors to perform the movements in the only order Mahler ever performed himself, during the period when the Mahler-Gesellschaft’s official ordering was, shall we say, otherwise!

I absolutely agree that the Scherzo sets up the finale perfectly. I beg to differ regarding the proportion of hope in the first movement, though. For me the ending is downright exultant (despite (or because of?) that one shattering dissonance near the end), which for me is one of the reasons the Andante simply has to come next—just going straight back to more stomping on A makes no sense to my ear.

An interesting and well argued response
I suspect I simplified matters re M#1 the more to justify placing the andante before the angry scherzo. Like you, the andante simply has to come next.

[Petrushka]

I think it’s worth bearing in mind that for a long time Rattle was one of very few conductors to perform the movements in the only order Mahler ever performed himself, during the period when the Mahler-Gesellschaft’s official ordering was, shall we say, otherwise!

I absolutely agree that the Scherzo sets up the finale perfectly. I beg to differ regarding the proportion of hope in the first movement, though. For me the ending is downright exultant (despite (or because of?) that one shattering dissonance near the end), which for me is one of the reasons the Andante simply has to come next—just going straight back to more stomping on A makes no sense to my ear.

The order of the middle movements crops up on the Forum every time the Mahler 6 is a topic. My own view, expressed often, is that I think we have to accept that the symphony exists in two versions (three if the third hammer blow is included) and I'm happy to hear it in either way as the conductor decides. I therefore never rearrange the order on a CD accepting the given order to be integral to the conductor's conception of the work. One novel solution to the problem, put forward by a former Forum member, is to omit the Scherzo altogether and keep it as a stand-alone piece. I rather like this idea (and giving us a fourth version) but can't see anyone actually going for it.

Re the end of the first movement, I'm more with Nachtigal in finding more desperation than triumph at this point.

[Nick Armstrong]

The order of the middle movements crops up on the Forum every time the Mahler 6 is a topic. My own view, expressed often, is that I think we have to accept that the symphony exists in two versions (three if the third hammer blow is included) and I'm happy to hear it in either way as the conductor decides. I therefore never rearrange the order on a CD accepting the given order to be integral to the conductor's conception of the work.
….

Re the end of the first movement, I'm more with Nachtigal in finding more desperation than triumph at this point.

I very much agree with this

As regards the end of movement 1, my view is coloured by the accident of discovering this symphony in my late teens around the same time as I discovered (& was similarly bowled over by) Marcel Carné classic film Les Enfants du Paradis

In the film is an epic scene where the streets are filled with carnival revellers - the hero spots the heroine, his lost amour, in a coach in the distance… he has to fight his way through the dancing, jubilant crowd towards her… finally stretching out his hand towards her likewise outstretched hand… but just as their finger tips are inches apart [in my mind, the sudden discordant chord in the Mahler] the coach moves off and is lost among the crowd. The scene ends with the stomping, dancing crowd obliterating the protagonists. I can’t separate this in my mind from the end of the movement…

[edashtav]

I very much agree with this

As regards the end of movement 1, my view is coloured by the accident of discovering this symphony in my late teens around the same time as I discovered (& was similarly bowled over by) Marcel Carné classic film Les Enfants du Paradis

In the film is an epic scene where the streets are filled with carnival revellers - the hero spots the heroine, his lost amour, in a coach in the distance… he has to fight his way through the dancing, jubilant crowd towards her… finally stretching out his hand towards her likewise outstretched hand… but just as their finger tips are inches apart [in my mind, the sudden discordant chord in the Mahler] the coach moves off and is lost among the crowd. The scene ends with the stomping, dancing crowd obliterating the protagonists. I can’t separate this in my mind from the end of the movement…

A fascinating parallel that challenges me to revisit the end of Mahler's first movement with more concentration. Thank you.

[Darkbloom]

I think the end of the first movement is a bit like those drawings that show different images depending on how you look at it - is it a duck/rabbit, young woman/ old woman? I find both interpretations equally persuasive, although I lean toward the pessimistic. It feels like a dissolution followed by a desperate race to the end that doesn't quite convince, in the way that Mozart's operas often end with that same ambivalence.

[Petrushka]

Re the end of the first movement, I'm more with Nachtigal in finding more desperation than triumph at this point.

I think I meant edashtav not Nachtigall. Apologies to both.