Worrying Mahler Trends

[Cato]

The genius is not infallible, even when considering his own work.  So second-guessing even by the creator can bring about mistakes in the coherent nature of an opus.   

On the Sixth therefore: yes, original concept please!   0:)


Wile E. Coyote on being a "Super Genius": "Even a genius can have an off day."     

I am happy to have Deryck Cooke's completion of the Tenth.

[karlhenning]

The genius is not infallible, even when considering his own work.  So second-guessing even by the creator can bring about mistakes in the coherent nature of an opus.   

Tying in nicely (again) with Art is working on something until you like it, and then leaving it that way. 

[Que]

As someone said earlier, too much Mahler goin' on.

I like your nickname!
Nicht schleppend (not dragging) is what in the context of "worrying Mahler trends" every modern Mahler coductor should take to heart.

Q

[Opus106]

Art is working on something until you like it, and then leaving it that way. 

Who said that? (Google doesn't help.)

After Mr. Henning replies, it will be back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank you.

[Superhorn]

  Another disturbing trend is that of applying HIP to Mahler, which almost inevitably brings results that are questionable at best. Roger Norrington has been recording the symphonies live with his Stuttgart Radio symphony for Hanssler. And without string vibrato. I have heard the 4th symphony only on the radio recently, and it sounded weird.
But as David Hurwits pointed out recently at classicalstoday.com, there are stories about Mahler rehearsing his symphonies with the New York Philharmonic a century ago and asking for more and more vibrato ! So much for Norrington's"authenticity !  And I've heard that Philippe Herreweghe is plannning to do the Mahler symphonies,complete with gut strings and all ! The results might be interesting, but will they be"authentic"?

[karlhenning]

  Another disturbing trend is that of applying HIP to Mahler, which almost inevitably brings results that are questionable at best. Roger Norrington has been recording the symphonies live with his Stuttgart Radio symphony for Hanssler. And without string vibrato.

Weird, forsooth!

[Cato]

Who said that? (Google doesn't help.)

After Mr. Henning replies, it will be back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank you.

Check this curious outpost of civilization:

http://henningmusick.blogspot.com/



And you will find your answer, along with another Cato comment!   0:)

[Marc]

And when he did, and he did for Beethoven as well, he shows a lack of respect for composers far superior to him.  And the result of Mahler's tampering is well... crap.  He was not fit to lick the boots of composers like Beethoven and Schumann, yet he had the audacity to think that he could improve their music!

Like Schumann's tampering with works of Bach?
Or Mendelssohn (Matthäus-Passion)?
Or Mozart's tampering with Händel's Messiah?
Or Bach's tampering with works of Vivaldi?
(etc.)

Now, let's lick some boots!
(Or not.)

Main question in this, I think: what were the reasons of Mahler's (and all other) tampering?
I read once that Mahler used more woodwind and brassed instruments in Beethoven symphonies, not because he thought that Beethoven's work had to be improved, but because of the fact that the size of the orchestra had increased in Mahler's days, especially in favour of the string sections.
So the wind instruments weren't that audible anymore.
So he doubled their parts. (And he used a lot more wind instruments in his own music, too.)

Not such a bad decision, because not only the orchestras, but also the newly built concert halls were - in general - larger in size, compared to Beethoven's times.

Apart from that: Mahler was both a conductor and a composer, and very much interested in compositions of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann (etc) and how to recreate them for a modern audience. (Like Stokowski a.o. did in the 20th century.)
Also, in Mahler's days, lots of works (beforehand not that well-known) of the old masters were published for the first time.
I think he felt challenged to 'romp' with their compositions, maybe also to improve his own composition skills. Who knows??

[Marc]

As someone said earlier, too much Mahler goin' on.

I feel this way, too. Even though I like his music very very much.
But in general: there seems to be too much on the market. And because of that people start searching for anything else.
Well, let them have their fun with it!
Instead I will buy my 128th version of Bach's Matthäus-Passion!

I like the Blumine movement. I only have one version with it, by James Judd, but I'm happy to have it. I prefer Scherzo-Andante, but I'm not going to reprogram a disc or make a CD-R over it. I don't care much about "completed" M10s one way or the other.

Again: me, too. I think the Blumine part is beautiful. If there's one movement of Mahler's First that I'm not that crazy about, it would be the Finale. Too long, and too much of a Signboard finale.
Let's add something then, to the worrying Mahler Mania: a four-part version of the first, with Blumine and without the Finale. Let the 'hero' have his rest after Frère Jacques, and let's not wake him until .... (rather thunderous) .... the Totenfeier of the Second!

[Jay F]

I like your nickname!
Nicht schleppend (not dragging) is what in the context of "worrying Mahler trends" every modern Mahler conductor should take to heart.

Q

Thank you.

I would have liked a little more schleppend, however, in the very modern Gergiev M7, Movement 2.

[Jay F]

He was not fit to lick the boots of composers like Beethoven and Schumann, yet he had the audacity to think that he could improve their music!

Well, I like Mahler's music more than that of either Beethoven or Schumann. Much, much more. I probably don't like Schumann at all, as I have failed to play anything I have by him a second time (well, except for the Piano Trios, though I doubt I'd be able to recognize one of them if it started to play). I have spent hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars looking for just the right versions of Beethoven this and Beethoven that, and I have yet to find definitive versions of anything except a single-CD of the Piano Sonatas by Paul Lewis. After 20 years, I still don't have favorite versions of even his symphonies.

Whereas I can listen to favorites of Mahler's nine-plus symphonies endlessly, and many of my less-favorite versions, too. And each has something to tell me.

Do I yammer on about Beethoven licking Mahler's boots? Hell, no. What a silly thing for composers to do, especially ones who didn't live in the same temporal neighborhoods. De gustibus, y'all. 

[DavidW]

The even larger point is that in his time, tampering with scores was not regarded with the puristic horror that it evokes today.

That's because composers were not treated with the respect that they now have earned.  They were seen as entertainers and servants and not as artists.

[DavidW]

The genius is not infallible, even when considering his own work. 

Disagree, there's no right or wrong with music, and one can't label a composer as fallible or not.  How would you define what is correct and what is incorrect?  To categorize one work as correct and another as incorrect doesn't make sense.  And before you pounce on that, I never said that the third hammer blow choice was incorrect, I said it was disrespectful.

[DavidW]

  Another disturbing trend is that of applying HIP to Mahler, which almost inevitably brings results that are questionable at best. Roger Norrington has been recording the symphonies live with his Stuttgart Radio symphony for Hanssler. And without string vibrato. I have heard the 4th symphony only on the radio recently, and it sounded weird.
But as David Hurwits pointed out recently at classicalstoday.com, there are stories about Mahler rehearsing his symphonies with the New York Philharmonic a century ago and asking for more and more vibrato ! So much for Norrington's"authenticity !  And I've heard that Philippe Herreweghe is plannning to do the Mahler symphonies,complete with gut strings and all ! The results might be interesting, but will they be"authentic"?

Stuttgart is not a HIP ensemble, and this is NOT a case of applying HIP to Mahler, it's of Norrington making a choice regarding vibrato.  I know you've decided that Norrington must be one of "them" since he's done decidedly HIP recordings, but he's also done not so HIP recordings, it's just not as simple of an issue as you make it out to be.  If you have a statement of Norrington saying that he produced "authentic" recordings, then I can see why you'd be pissed and start throwing that label around.

[DavidW]

Well, I like Mahler's music more than that of either Beethoven or Schumann.

Fine, but they still are greater than Mahler.

Do I yammer on about Beethoven licking Mahler's boots? Hell, no. What a silly thing for composers to do, especially ones who didn't live in the same temporal neighborhoods.

It's a commonly used expression. Sheesh some people! 

[greg]

You know what they could do in the future to make Mahler recordings stand out?
They could make custom symphonies by combining movements from different symphonies...

[Symphonien]

But he also said (sorry I don't have a direct quote though) that he wanted his music to stand without needing programs to give them context.  And all good music should be able to stand without a narrative.  If it can't succeed on the abstract level, it doesn't matter what the program is anyway.

But then what do hammer blows really convey at an abstract level at all? They're just dull thuds that often can't be heard over the timpani and tam-tam anyway. (The visual impact of them in a performance, and what that signifies is extra-musical.) So at a purely abstract level, what makes two hammer blows musically more convincing than three?

[eyeresist]

That's because composers were not treated with the respect that they now have earned.  They were seen as entertainers and servants and not as artists.

On the contrary, Mahler had less of today's veneration for the score because he was a practical musician, as opposed to later composers (and critics) who deign to transmit their holy writ from remote ivory towers. In the trenches, you fiddle with the score to make the performance as effective as possible, all things considered. Also, in Mahler's day, music was still a living thing, not a carefully curated museum exhibit.

[karlhenning]

Disagree, there's no right or wrong with music, and one can't label a composer as fallible or not.  How would you define what is correct and what is incorrect?

I may be taking this in a sphere you did not intend (but I think it does relate to Cato's point).  I agree that definition is problematic here;  but what do Beethoven's painstaking work-throughs in his sketches mean, if not that he was aiming for (let's say) 'greater musical correctitude'?

To categorize one work as correct and another as incorrect doesn't make sense.

All right.  But . . . if we take a Beethoven symphony, and re-order the interior movements, have we made the piece somehow 'less correct'?  The fact that Mahler was 'searching for certainty' regarding the order of the movements in his own symphony, for instance . . . this is a difference in method worth reflecting on, and a certain reading of the adjective correct is probably involved.

[karlhenning]

On the contrary, Mahler had less of today's veneration for the score because he was a practical musician, as opposed to later composers (and critics) who deign to transmit their holy writ from remote ivory towers. In the trenches, you fiddle with the score to make the performance as effective as possible, all things considered. Also, in Mahler's day, music was still a living thing, not a carefully curated museum exhibit.

There has got to be a degree of respect for the composer, which does not exaggerate into considering them 'transmitters of holy writ' (and we note that ridicule is not argument).  There must also be some point at which fiddling becomes artistic interference;  recall that Berlioz had to argue for honoring Beethoven's documents, as Parisian conductors were routinely 'correcting' Beethoven's harmony at the time.