Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[calyptorhynchus]

I prefer to be taken to the abyss on Sunday evenings, set myself up for a cheery work week 

Where I used to work was the Abyss, Mahler 9 was a school outing by comparison.

[LKB]

The Ninth is neither abyssal nor a school outing ( though Putzi is certainly referenced ).

As to what the Ninth actually  is, though, final definitions still elude me despite my deliberating over the course of some forty years.

Perhaps that's merely a hallmark of all great works of art: Transcending the perceptual limits of any one individual. Otoh, it may be that I'm simply incapable of getting my head all the way around the Symphony. I certainly won't discount that possibility, since I'm smart enough to know how dumb l can be. 

[Atriod]

The Ninth is neither abyssal nor a school outing ( though Putzi is certainly referenced ).

As to what the Ninth actually  is, though, final definitions still elude me despite my deliberating over the course of some forty years.

Perhaps that's merely a hallmark of all great works of art: Transcending the perceptual limits of any one individual. Otoh, it may be that I'm simply incapable of getting my head all the way around the Symphony. I certainly won't discount that possibility, since I'm smart enough to know how dumb l can be. 

As you say what we take away is subjective, but I have a hard time hearing it as anything but what I wrote. Mahler writing about his failing heart in the first movement (both literally and figuratively). How sad the final movement is, not just being adagissimo but then changing the tempo to "extremely slowly." I can't remember who said this (Bernstein?) calling the music being suspended, going beyond time/infinity which is not too dissimilar to what I called it, being taken to the abyss.

I easily hear this in performances like Chailly, Kobayashi/Japan Philharmonic (what I posted on another board is like being taken to the event horizon in that last movement in this performance) or Inbal/Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. I have heard some easy, breezy performances that don't seem to get what it's about.

[Herman]

I can't remember who said this (Bernstein?) calling the music being suspended, going beyond time/infinity which is not too dissimilar to what I called it, being taken to the abyss.

I would caution against taking Bernstein's characterisations of Mahler's music too seriously. They're often deeply reductive and yet hard to shake. In one of those 'Bernstein sits down at the piano to explain music' video's he boiled down Tchaikovsky's 4th to "I want it, I want it" as if it were a rock song.

[Atriod]

I would caution against taking Bernstein's characterisations of Mahler's music too seriously. They're often deeply reductive and yet hard to shake. In one of those 'Bernstein sits down at the piano to explain music' video's he boiled down Tchaikovsky's 4th to "I want it, I want it" as if it were a rock song.

Completely ignore what Bernstein said if you have some bone to pick with him and just listen to the music attentively/uninterrupted/not doing anything else, like all great art demands. It's pretty obvious what the general feel of the piece is, the fourth movement is about as literal as Mahler gets. The only real ambiguity I hear is whether he has come to peace with things with the quiet ending or if nothing has been resolved (even the harrowing sixth symphony has a concrete resolution). Either interpretation doesn't detract from my interpretation of the symphony as a whole as taking us to the abyss.