Prom 22 (30.7.12): Mozart, Mahler & Knussen

[HighlandDougie]

Absolutely agree about the 8th but that doesn't mean that the 7th doesn't have its own, to use the modern cliché, "issues". The final movement can in the wrong hands sound, for want of a better word, banal. Played with conviction, it comes off: played less well, it can have one wondering what Mahler was thinking about in writing such a lot of musical tosh. Happily, modern performances (or at least the various ones I've heard in the last 10 years) have mostly been played to the hilt, the end result proving to me at least that the symphony is as good as any other written by Mahler.

[jayne lee wilson]

Had something of a revelation tonight; the closing fanfare of the 7th's climax is a majorised version of a minor tune (2nd subject?) from the first movt. Brings to mind use of that technique in the closing fanfare of Bruckner's 8th (although there AB's superimposing majorised versions of tunes from more than one movement).

Sure you want to get into this? It's not so straightforward!

As I see it, I think the theme you refer to is the main E minor allegro con fuoco from the first movement, so you'd really have to call it as the first subject, which follows a slow introduction which is based on 3 ideas, the last of which becomes that very allegro. Which does indeed return in the major to crown the finale.

In the first movement, the 2nd subject (as classically conceived) would be that soaring, rather languishing string theme recalling the Alma theme from the 6th, but when it appears it's at least the 5th main idea we've had! But what do we call the galumphing, lazy tune that comes in at the end of the allegro?
The 1st movement is one of Mahler's most fluid, continuously developmental sonata-structures, with some startling modulations and constant new thematic combinations. Underpinning it all of course (the whole symphony really) is that obsessive 3-note dotted rhythm familiar from the very opening of the 6th, which feeds through the piece just as fruitfully as the 3-note figure at the start of Brahms's 2nd does there.

[EdgeleyRob]

Special Delivery for Hornspieler, the Digested Read of Noseda's Mahler 7:

(i) ooh, aah... Yes, Yes!

(ii) Spooky!

(iii) Even spookier!!

(iv) (cod French accent) ah, what a night for Love!

(v) Yes! Yes... er... YES!

Gianni and the lads done well.

[BBMmk2]

Well I still think that thye BBCPO is the best of the house orcherstras! I have yet to listen to this prom, but weill now after JLW's enthusiastic post!

[Petrushka]

Sure you want to get into this? It's not so straightforward!

As I see it, I think the theme you refer to is the main E minor allegro con fuoco from the first movement, so you'd really have to call it as the first subject, which follows a slow introduction which is based on 3 ideas, the last of which becomes that very allegro. Which does indeed return in the major to crown the finale.

In the first movement, the 2nd subject (as classically conceived) would be that soaring, rather languishing string theme recalling the Alma theme from the 6th, but when it appears it's at least the 5th main idea we've had! But what do we call the galumphing, lazy tune that comes in at the end of the allegro?
The 1st movement is one of Mahler's most fluid, continuously developmental sonata-structures, with some startling modulations and constant new thematic combinations. Underpinning it all of course (the whole symphony really) is that obsessive 3-note dotted rhythm familiar from the very opening of the 6th, which feeds through the piece just as fruitfully as the 3-note figure at the start of Brahms's 2nd does there.

Great stuff Jayne! I know exactly what Boilk means as I had a similar revelation regarding just this theme some time ago having known the symphony for years. It seems to make its first appearance as the second theme for the tenor tuba and is there, speeded up, in the allegro. Marvellous transformation at the very end of the symphony blazing out on the horns.

One morning, for no reason at all, I had this theme as it appears in the first movement, going around in my head. Without really thinking about it it suddenly transformed itself into that final horn theme and there was my own revelation.