Prom 29: Friday 5th August at 7.30. p.m. (Mahler 2)

[antongould]

Fascinating Roehre and obviously a major factor in Mahler's comeback!
All I have to puzzle me now is the lack of "amenities" in Sidcup!

[Serial_Apologist]

Two of the reasons explained by my composing music teacher in the early 60s for Mahler's neglect in the Uk were: (1) that Mahler - like Reger, Schmidt and our own Vaughan Williams - was one of those composers whose music did not "travel" well outside its own national boundaries; and (2) the domination of the older generation of English music by Sibelius in the 30s and 40s, and of Schoenberg, whose music "left Mahler far behind", in the 1950s. I could be wrong, but I do seem to recall a mini-explosion of interest in Mahler around '68/'69 following the immediate notoriety of Berio's Sinfonia, with its adaptation of the 3/4 movement from Mahler 2.

It's not of course surprising that many who saw Death in Venice thought the film to be about Mahler - given the entry into the plot of the young composer figure who sits down at the piano, plays from the Adagietto, and then follows up with a wild string of atonal chords, explaining to his mentor with words to the effect that any area of human expression was now accessible to the composer, not just beauty; and the fact that Mahler spent much of his late years in that city. Wasn't the leading protagonist played by Dirk Bogarde supposed to represent Thomas Mann?

S-A

[Bryn]

I'm not so sure about that. I used to go round to a friend's house in the mid-'60s to listen to his father's latest LP acquisitions on his 301, SME, Rogers, Lowther system. I well remember the night he spun Solti's LSO Resurrection. I think the Mahler revival was well under way by the time Berio's Sinfonia was first performed and recorded (incomplete). I am pretty sure the Solti LSO Resurrection considerably outsold the Sinfonia/Visage LP.

[Petrushka]

The apparent neglect of Mahler's music on continental Europe can be blamed fairly and squarely on National Socialism in Germany and Austria from 1933 onwards and the Second World War. It is not surprising that Mahler's Jewish roots made performance of his music well-nigh impossible at this time. In the UK and US the music had never had much of a toe-hold in the first place. While the 1960 centenary brought Mahler's name before a much wider public it is perfectly possible to design a cycle of recordings of the symphonies made in the 1950's indicating that a revival was underway before 1960. However, the Mahler boom really took off with the advent of the stereo LP and shows no sign of abating 50 years on. Mahler's music seemed to chime in with the 'age of anxiety' and the film Death in Venice brought the music to a much wider public and there it stays.
'

[Alf-Prufrock]

I think this is among the greatest of all symphonies, and for me the greatest of the twentieth century.

I have not checked the whole thread but nobody has commented on this statement yet in my perusal, so I will. (I have been away for an operation and convalescence and hope amelioration will arrive in a few weeks.) Surely the Resurrection was written well before 1900 and so could more appropriately be considered the best symphony of the nineteenth century. I don't happen to think this, by the way, putting several ahead of it, including Mahler's own first.

And a whole raft of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky.

[jayne lee wilson]

I recall vividly the cover art of my first Mahler Lp encounters and purchases - the Vermeers gracing the Haitink Symphony cycle, the violent red fog swirling across the Solti First, pierced by a burning yellow sun (included in the Legends reissue); the Klemperer 9th had Klemps' profile covering it almost entirely; the Horenstein Third that wonderful Samuel Palmer pastoral...

One put together ( saving up over years!) a cycle of individual readings, for me it went Solti 1, Klemperer 2, Horenstein 3, Szell 4 (could never get a good copy of it despite several returns to the shop...) then Barbirolli 5, diappointing for having a mere conductor's portrait on it; Solti's 6th had some William Blake IIRC, an idea taken up more extensively and very beautifully, on Kondrashin's extraordinary almost-complete CD box set;
then Solti 7(an opulent blue and black box) & his blockbuster 8th.

I remember too a wonderful surrealistic landscape-montage on one (re?) issue of Ormandy's 10th, I bought it for the picture, not the subfusc sound! And then the large, crude "X" on the Wyn Morris. You could make a book out of Mahler cover art alone!

[BetweenTheStaves]

Been having a discussion with a friend (a non-Mahler enthusiast but a Dudamel acolyte) who was at the performance. His view was that, having seen the TV performance, it did seem slow but in the hall, the 'event' made it appear not so. The cynic in me still says that it was the hype for many people especially if this was the first time that they had heard Mahler 2....the VLE (virginal listening experience) moment..that held sway. Interestingly the leader in the latest Presto newsletter also addresses Dudamel's tempos (tempi?)...not only in this prom but in other works..something that I have commented on before.

So I'm wondering...is this the emergence of a truly fresh interpretation..that we will look back on this moment in years to come and say 'I was there'? Or is it a young man trying to find something 'new' to give himself an edge?