Weak (comparatively at least) 1st movements in otherwise good works

[Keep Going]

Mahler's 8th is technically in 18 movements, divided into 2 parts. What is supposedly the 'first movement' is not really a movement at all, so I don't really understand what is being discussed. 

The 'weakest' points in Mahler's oeuvre are, IMHO, the Finale of 1 (I find it too hollow and superficial), the first movements of 3 ( too long to keep me interested) and 6 (the thematic material doesn't really appeal to me), and probably the Finale of 7 (compared to the other movements, and compared to f.i. the Finale of 5, in which Mahler somehow tried to create the same effect).

I think the first movement of the 3rd is one of his strongest, full of creative themes, superb detail in orchestration and epic emotional scope.

But I tend to agree re: the finale of the 5th, albeit in general I'm not too keen on the finales in many so-called 'darkness-to-light' symphonies, whether it be Tchaikovsky or Mahler or Shostakovich, and perhaps even Brahms or Beethoven. I would consider Bruckner's 8th a definite exception.

[Monsieur Croche]

All right, Mahlerians of the site, I'm ready for your scorn:

Mahler's 8 - Veni Creator Spiritu.

Perhaps the weakest point in all Mahler's production?


OK I said it

And here I was, thinking it is the second half which is terribly blah and boring, as well as thinking the whole thing pretty much a fail and about the only simultaneously crass and seriously pretentious thing Mahler ever wrote :-)

Besides, if the opening movement of a piece is for me really 'lacking' or I'm finding it a no-go or fail, I am not going to know about any of the following movements, since there is no throwing good money after bad, so to speak.

But what am I doing here at all, also more than a little seriously disliking the OP, thinking it is literally one of that type of A Terribly Wrong Question.


Best regards.

[SharpEleventh]

But what am I doing here at all, also more than a little seriously disliking the OP, thinking it is literally one of that type of A Terribly Wrong Question.

Would you mind explaining why you dislike it so much or why it is a terribly wrong question? Just that I can avoid making any crappy threads in the future.

[Marc]

[....]
I think the first movement of the 3rd is one of his strongest, full of creative themes, superb detail in orchestration and epic emotional scope.
[....]

Unfortunately, the emotional scope doesn't seem to work for me, because of its length.
But.... this discussion is actually off-topic, so back to... topic.

[Monsieur Croche]

Would you mind explaining why you dislike it so much or why it is a terribly wrong question? Just that I can avoid making any crappy threads in the future.

Please don't concern yourself that far, lol.  Like all opinions, they are given from a point of view still boiling down to the opiner's personal taste....

When I saw the question, I literally, with a fair amount of rep in memory, could not think of one piece that I could bring to the table as an example of what this OP calls for.  Either I am that indiscriminate, or what you have heard is something other than what I have heard.

I find the question, any question that isolates one movement only from a work, pretty damned irrelevant to anything worth discussing, that is all.  To me, it is like discussing but one act of a three or four-act play, or in isolation, one chapter of an entire book or one part of a mechanism isolated from both context and its function.  Ergo, I think it very much a 'wrong kind of question.'  (I feel nearly the same about any OP that is about 'your favorite slow or fast movement, though if phrased as asking for 'your favorite' that is already on the very safe, empiric, and harmless ground of "a particular bit" you happen to like.)

Others, by evidence of a number of contributions, feel differently.


Always best regards.