Why did Mahler say his first 5 symphonies needed to be absorbed before the 6th?

[Dedalus]

I didn't have quite enough room in the title to include that he said you had to absorb his first 5 symphonies before understanding his 6th.  I wonder what he meant by this.

Mahler was my first classical music love, in particular, his 2nd really blew me away and cemented in me the idea that there is a lot of classical music I could enjoy. Soon after, in my very early days of exploring classical music about 3 years ago, I also fell in love with his 6th without being very familiar with his other symphonies yet.

My question is this: if I could understand his 6th enough to love it before I really understood what, say, Mozart had going for him what did Mahler mean by this?

[The new erato]

Because you had to already be partly deaf before being subjected to the hammer blows?

[relm1]

Because he was incrementally changing the rules of form, orchestration, harmony, architecture, etc., and at the time it was considered a very big departure from his contemporaries.  Traversing in order helps the listener get accustomed to his quirks and eccentricities.   He also had alot of things to say about the performance experience like indicating a 5 minute gap between the first movement of Mahler 2 and the rest.  Something quite jarring when observed today.  Even now, I think if you introduce someone to Mahler, starting in order makes sense because they do seem to pick up where the previous one left off in style except for many the 8th which feels like the earlier Wunderhorn symphonies.

Most great symphonists have a way of incorporating everything that's come before in each new symphony and then expanding it further in nuance, clarity of idea, instrumentation, impact, etc.  This is certainly true with Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovitch (to understand the late symphonies you have to hear how he got there), Brahms, Bruckner, Beethoven, etc.  That is one of the characteristics of what makes a great symphonist I think...they can't retread what they've done, rather they're always pushing further and deeper within their individual sound world and artistic creed.

[PerfectWagnerite]

BECAUSE he was being a good salesman.

[Mahlerian]

Because he was incrementally changing the rules of form, orchestration, harmony, architecture, etc., and at the time it was considered a very big departure from his contemporaries.  Traversing in order helps the listener get accustomed to his quirks and eccentricities.   He also had alot of things to say about the performance experience like indicating a 5 minute gap between the first movement of Mahler 2 and the rest.  Something quite jarring when observed today.  Even now, I think if you introduce someone to Mahler, starting in order makes sense because they do seem to pick up where the previous one left off in style except for many the 8th which feels like the earlier Wunderhorn symphonies.

I disagree about the Eighth. In terms of form and structure it is not at all a throwback to his earlier works, although the harmony is simplified for the most part compared to the middle period symphonies.

But yes, Mahler's music was difficult and, despite his much increased popularity, it remains so to this day.  His tendency to avoid literal repetition, especially in his later works, still means that each symphony takes time to really absorb, and the structure of the Sixth is particularly unusual.  Its finale is an extremely complex movement and in a lesser performance its coherence will not be clear to the audience.

[Heck148]

Don't know why he might have said that.
Generally Mahler symphonies can be grouped:
1-4  - the Wunderhorn symphonies, based upon that song cycle many ways....
5,6,7 - "the instrumental" symphonies - no voice solo no chorus
8
DLvdE, 9 - the final works

an interesting link between 4 and 5 however -
the opening trumpet solo of #5 already appears in #4 [mvt I after [17] meas 6-8 - same key, same rhythm for tpts II/III

[relm1]

The reason why I find No. 8 more like the early symphonies is because it is optimistic and doesn't have as much angst as the other late symphonies.  Maybe I'm wrong but to me the ending in C major seems very much like the C major ending of No. 2.  A form of catharsis and ultimate triumph that you don't see often in the late symphonies.  I do feel that Mahler is ultimately an optimistic composer.  The proof of this comes in how No. 10 ends though some don't consider this canon but I do since he finished composing it. 

[Mahlerian]

The reason why I find No. 8 more like the early symphonies is because it is optimistic and doesn't have as much angst as the other late symphonies.  Maybe I'm wrong but to me the ending in C major seems very much like the C major ending of No. 2.  A form of catharsis and ultimate triumph that you don't see often in the late symphonies.  I do feel that Mahler is ultimately an optimistic composer.  The proof of this comes in how No. 10 ends though some don't consider this canon but I do since he finished composing it.

I agree that Mahler was essentially an optimist at heart, even though he saw the world as containing much sorrow and suffering.  I don't see the Fifth or Seventh as pessimistic works, especially the Fifth.  Also, both the Second and the Eighth end in the key of E-flat major, not C.

The Tenth is certainly canon, because as you said, the whole structure was complete.

[relm1]

I agree that Mahler was essentially an optimist at heart, even though he saw the world as containing much sorrow and suffering.  I don't see the Fifth or Seventh as pessimistic works, especially the Fifth.  Also, both the Second and the Eighth end in the key of E-flat major, not C.

The Tenth is certainly canon, because as you said, the whole structure was complete.

My bad.  Looking at the scores it is clearly E flat major and I was going off of memory but the same point applies.  I agree with you about 10 but Bernstein, Abaddo, von Karajan, and Tilson Thomas do not.  It seems many great cycles do not agree that No. 10 is ultimately optimistic because they stop at the first movement.  That is pseudo Mahler in my opinion.

[Maestro267]

Maybe I'm wrong but to me the ending in C major seems very much like the C major ending of No. 2.

E flat major, not C. But Nos. 2 & 8 do have similar, incredibly overwhelming and magnificent endings.

[Ghost Sonata]

This is a darn interesting question, particularly as the 5th and 6th have historically, Post-WWII, been taken in tandem as two of his most approachable - and best-liked symphonies. I must have been absent the day the answer was taught but I'm all eyes and ears now. 

[jochanaan]

Hmmm... If anything, #6 is the throwback, structurally at least.  It is certainly the most structurally orthodox of his symphonies, being in four movements, beginning and ending in the same key (well, so do #1 and #8 with their less-orthodox structures, but you get what I'm saying).  Instrumentally, though, it is a stride forward even from his earlier brilliant works, building on what he did in the Fifth.

(If one is to believe Alma, though, Mahler revised and revised the Fifth's instrumentation even after publication, only becoming satisfied with it shortly before his death.  Now, Alma's accuracy has been questioned many times, but in this she may well be correct.  For one thing, the orchestra for the Fifth is considerably smaller, not only than the Sixth, but also than the Second and Third; more along the lines of the Seventh, Ninth and DLvdE.  Except for the massive Eighth, Mahler tended toward calling for smaller orchestras in his later years, and that may be reflected in the ultimately smaller orchestra for the Fifth.)

[Mahlerian]

Hmmm... If anything, #6 is the throwback, structurally at least.  It is certainly the most structurally orthodox of his symphonies, being in four movements, beginning and ending in the same key (well, so do #1 and #8 with their less-orthodox structures, but you get what I'm saying).  Instrumentally, though, it is a stride forward even from his earlier brilliant works, building on what he did in the Fifth.

On the macro-structural level, yes, but on the level of the form of the movements themselves, the work is extremely heterodox.  The first movement, for example, is an inversion of the normal patterns of sonata form.  Traditionally, a sonata form movement starts from stability (exposition), moves through a heightening of tension (development), and then back to stability (recapitulation and coda).  The first movement of Mahler's Sixth reverses this dynamic.  It begins with tension, reaches a point of stability in the center, and then moves back into tension which is never resolved.

The scherzo echoes the form of the first movement in terms of harmonic structure, but with some important alterations.  As I mentioned in another thread, the slow movement of the work has no main theme, but rather a constantly developing fantasia on several key motifs.

The finale is, beyond any doubt, the most complex movement Mahler had yet written at that point, and such are the difficulties of its structure that early commentators had a difficult time finding the outlines of sonata form buried therein.  Among other strange features are the chorale that never reappears (because it is transformed into the second theme) and the introductory gesture that seems to herald a recapitulation halfway through the development (which then keeps going anyway).  When the recapitulation is finally reached, it comes in the middle of a phrase, no less.

Harmonically, none of the movements end with V-I cadences, and the level of dissonance is significantly higher than Mahler's earlier works.  This may sound odd to mention in a discussion of form, but for Mahler, form is not merely a distribution of blocks (as it was for Bruckner), but an outgrowth of the materials used.  The fact that perfect cadences are mostly elided throughout the entire work has ramifications for the perception of time and of structure, and likely contributed to contemporary comments that the work was formless.

It is no surprise at all to find that Schoenberg praised the structure of this work in particular as perfect, given how many of the traits of his mature music it reflects (Mahler had heard Verklarte Nacht before starting work on the Sixth) and anticipates (it would be interesting to compare the treatment of motifs and form in Schoenberg's Violin Concerto).

[Karl Henning]

Interesting discussion, all.