Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[Heck148]

Glad I never bothered with that recording!

you're missing a great one!!

[Pat B]

I had a slight panic when listening to samples of this for second time...

[asin]B00004TQUC[/asin]

...when I heard a quite loud cough from the audience. I'm instinctively a bit wary of live recordings.

However, I'm listening to the whole 1st movement at the moment via streaming, and I get the impression I stumbled across the loudest cough in the whole thing. Overall the audience seems pretty quiet.

For those that know it, any comments on how this compares to live recordings generally?

I finally got back to this. I heard very little audience noise, even between movements. There is no applause at the end. I'm curious where the cough was (though don't expect you to remember after a month).

[Madiel]

I finally got back to this. I heard very little audience noise, even between movements. There is no applause at the end. I'm curious where the cough was (though don't expect you to remember after a month).

Nope, don't remember, other than from what I said it must have been in one of the excerpts that iTunes uses as a preview. I haven't yet listened to that recording which was part of my massive Presto order, it might well be another month until I get to it because I decided it was going to be the last of the 4 Mahler discs.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Mahler was 18 years old, when he composed Das Klagende Lied, a work as ambitious and vast in proportions as we'd expect from Mahler, who is already showing his hand here, musically. There are moments in it, where you just expect the first symphony or Des Knaben Wunderhorn  songs to emerge. It is also no wonder he did not get anyone to put on the whole three-movement work with its outsized demands on presenters and performers. It calls for big orchestra, chorus, soloists, boy soloists, and off-stage orchestra, which isn't just expensive to put on, but also – as the ORF RSO performance under Cornelius Meister showed to a considerable degree – difficult to keep all in order.

It was miked, and I suspect a recording to come forth on Capriccio before long. If they manage to capture the long line and atmosphere of the concert and the proper entries of offstageorchestra and chorus of the dress rehearsal, it might be good. Quicker than Chailly... but then again, still not in the same league.

Krenek, Mahler Rarity, Knock-Out Trebles And Velvet Suits

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2016/12/04/krenek-mahler-rarity-knock-out-trebles-and-velvet-suits/#5c7746fb62f5

[kishnevi]

Finishing up a first listen of this set
[asin]B01EZBKYFU[/asin]
I would recommend this as an all around set. Everything is done well, and some is more than that, but most importantly, nothing is done less than that. Even level of quality with no misses and a couple of home runs.
The Third and Seventh are top tier performances, the Eighth and Ninth nearly so, the rest perhaps not top tier but certainly nothing to complain about.

Among "21st Century" cycles, this is bettered only by MTT/San Francisco, and given the current pricing of the latter, this set is the better buy. The cycle led by Markus Stenz, which I went through not long ago, is good, but has no clearly superior performances.  Zinman and Gergiev have hits and misses, especially Gergiev.

So Thumbs Up on this set.

[Mirror Image]

Thanks for your feedback about the Nott, Jeffrey. I ought to give it a spin at some point.

[Mahlerian]

Mahler's Sixth Symphony: The Andante Theme

Melodic Analysis of its Three Appearances

[Karl Henning]

I am floored.

I don't think I have listened at all to the Third Symphony before last night.  And (he adds, rather sheepishly) I still have not heard most of it.  One or two souls on GMG know of my presently urgent(-ish) project of getting mp3s of a sizeable chunk of my music library loaded onto portable media so that I have music in the car (no CD player in the 2017 Honda Civic);  so some of the work is, converting .wav and .wma files to .mp3, and some of it is (at last) creating soft copy of (say) 100 CDs.  Chief among those, has been the 37-CD Haydn Symphonies cube (DRD/Stuttgart) . . . but I have also at last seen to the Mahler symphonies in the Lenny Symphony Edition.  These latter (in a couple of cases) required some extra sound-file management, since the movements were split over two CDs, so that the movements appear in correct order as sound files.

One such was the Third Symphony, whose final (sixth) movement is the first track of a CD otherwise occupied by the Randall Thompson e minor Symphony.  On almost a whim, while I continued with "production," I slipped this CD into the player to listen to the conclusion of the Mahler Third.

Many long-standing GMG-ers already know that many years passed before I 'warmed' to the Mahler Symphonies, and even then it was a gradual process.  One experience which helped a great deal was, Jimmy leading the BSO in an incandescent performance of the Ninth.  At any rate, the spotty history of my reconciliation to the Mahler Symphonies resulted in a near-oversight of the fact that the last of the lot for me to get around to hearing, is the Third.

My ears now are much "bigger" (in the Zappa sense), so it is impossible to say such a thing with certainty;  but I wonder, if I had heard Lenny's account of the last movement of the Third, here with the NY Phil, early on, maybe I should have become a Mahler devotee much sooner.  The sixth movement is so exquisite and lush . . . I am floored.

I'm listening again, this afternoon.  Wow.

Just:  Wow.

[Mahlerian]

I am floored.

I don't think I have listened at all to the Third Symphony before last night.  And (he adds, rather sheepishly) I still have not heard most of it.  One or two souls on GMG know of my presently urgent(-ish) project of getting mp3s of a sizeable chunk of my music library loaded onto portable media so that I have music in the car (no CD player in the 2017 Honda Civic);  so some of the work is, converting .wav and .wma files to .mp3, and some of it is (at last) creating soft copy of (say) 100 CDs.  Chief among those, has been the 37-CD Haydn Symphonies cube (DRD/Stuttgart) . . . but I have also at last seen to the Mahler symphonies in the Lenny Symphony Edition.  These latter (in a couple of cases) required some extra sound-file management, since the movements were split over two CDs, so that the movements appear in correct order as sound files.

One such was the Third Symphony, whose final (sixth) movement is the first track of a CD otherwise occupied by the Randall Thompson e minor Symphony.  On almost a whim, while I continued with "production," I slipped this CD into the player to listen to the conclusion of the Mahler Third.

Many long-standing GMG-ers already know that many years passed before I 'warmed' to the Mahler Symphonies, and even then it was a gradual process.  One experience which helped a great deal was, Jimmy leading the BSO in an incandescent performance of the Ninth.  At any rate, the spotty history of my reconciliation to the Mahler Symphonies resulted in a near-oversight of the fact that the last of the lot for me to get around to hearing, is the Third.

My ears now are much "bigger" (in the Zappa sense), so it is impossible to say such a thing with certainty;  but I wonder, if I had heard Lenny's account of the last movement of the Third, here with the NY Phil, early on, maybe I should have become a Mahler devotee much sooner.  The sixth movement is so exquisite and lush . . . I am floored.

I'm listening again, this afternoon.  Wow.

Just:  Wow.

Sounds like your experience with the Third was akin to Schoenberg's "thunderbolt."  He too was a Mahler skeptic before he was a convert.

Heck, even my own first experiences with Mahler, while not explicitly negative, were far from wholly positive.

[Cato]

I am floored.

...  a near-oversight of the fact that the last of the lot for me to get around to hearing, is the Third.

My ears now are much "bigger" (in the Zappa sense), so it is impossible to say such a thing with certainty;  but I wonder, if I had heard Lenny's account of the last movement of the Third, here with the NY Phil, early on, maybe I should have become a Mahler devotee much sooner.  The sixth movement is so exquisite and lush . . . I am floored.

I'm listening again, this afternoon.  Wow.

Just:  Wow.

It could be that this particular performance is what made everything attractive to your ears! 0:)

Allow me to suggest something (which I have never seen in notes to recordings nor in any other books on Mahler and Bruckner, possibly because the following is just wrong    ), but to my ears the slow movements of the symphonies of Bruckner - in a collective sense - are an influence in Mahler's Third Symphony, especially for the final movement.  I think in particular of the slow movement for Bruckner's Sixth Symphony, with its little funeral march, and of the Seventh, but possibly others  influenced Mahler as well here.

[André]

IIRC the 3rd was my first Mahler symphony recording (Horenstein LSO on Nonesuch). Or maybe it was the 4th with the RCOA under Solti ? In any case, that 3rd was played to death before I reached my 20th anniversary. And I still love it.

[Karl Henning]

It could be that this particular performance is what made everything attractive to your ears! 0:)

Could be! Lenny was an important proselytizer on Gustav's behalf.  I used to half-resent that he recorded the Mahler symphonies multiple times, but he never did all six of the Nielsen symphonies.  But at the least, it meant that he really believed in the cycle.

[Cato]

IIRC the 3rd was my first Mahler symphony recording (Horenstein LSO on Nonesuch). Or maybe it was the 4th with the RCOA under Solti ? In any case, that 3rd was played to death before I reached my 20th anniversary. And I still love it.

Hi Andre'!

Yes, Jascha Horenstein was one of the greats!

[asin]B000027HC0[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Allow me to suggest something (which I have never seen in notes to recordings nor in any other books on Mahler and Bruckner, possibly because the following is just wrong    ), but to my ears the slow movements of the symphonies of Bruckner - in a collective sense - are an influence in Mahler's Third Symphony, especially for the final movement.  I think in particular of the slow movement for Bruckner's Sixth Symphony, with its little funeral march, and of the Seventh, but possibly others  influenced Mahler as well here.

Your ears are far better versed in all these symphonies, so I lend you credence gladly. Whence else had he gotten the nerve for a 25-minute Adagio? That was no casual invention.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Your ears are far better versed in all these symphonies, so I lend you credence gladly. Whence else had he gotten the nerve for a 25-minute Adagio? That was no casual invention.

You should listen to Neumann/Czech PO then. The finale clocks in at UNDER 20minutes which is the fastest I have ever heard.

Anyway the finale of the 3rd is in my opinion the greatest single movement in all of music. From the soft opening strings to the glorious brass fanfare Mahler creates such unstoppable momentum. I was fortunate to have listened to it live twice - both times under Haitink with 2 different orchestras and it sounds every bit as good live as it does on recording.

[kishnevi]

Gergiev on LSO Live does that movement in 20'22.  But he still managed to do a very good Third, possibly the best installment in his (admittedly not my favorite) cycle.

[Marc]

You should listen to Neumann/Czech PO then. The finale clocks in at UNDER 20minutes which is the fastest I have ever heard.

Anyway the finale of the 3rd is in my opinion the greatest single movement in all of music. From the soft opening strings to the glorious brass fanfare Mahler creates such unstoppable momentum. I was fortunate to have listened to it live twice - both times under Haitink with 2 different orchestras and it sounds every bit as good live as it does on recording.

Haitink has a special feel for this movement IMO.
One long flow, without any setbacks.

[aukhawk]

Your ears are far better versed in all these symphonies, so I lend you credence gladly. Whence else had he gotten the nerve for a 25-minute Adagio? That was no casual invention.

It turned out so well that he dropped his original plan for a 7th movement ...

Lennie/NYPO can't be beat in this particular symphony, IMHO.

[Mahlerian]

It could be that this particular performance is what made everything attractive to your ears! 0:)

Allow me to suggest something (which I have never seen in notes to recordings nor in any other books on Mahler and Bruckner, possibly because the following is just wrong    ), but to my ears the slow movements of the symphonies of Bruckner - in a collective sense - are an influence in Mahler's Third Symphony, especially for the final movement.  I think in particular of the slow movement for Bruckner's Sixth Symphony, with its little funeral march, and of the Seventh, but possibly others  influenced Mahler as well here.

Mahler's relationship with Bruckner is an interesting subject.  On the one hand he grew to dislike his predecessor's approach to form and development (he criticized most of the Romantic-era composers for similar reasons), while on the other he appreciated the grandeur of Bruckner's themes and conceptions.  For all that he took inspiration from late Beethoven and Wagner, though, Bruckner was his forebear in symphonic writing.  He was co-arranger (or sole arranger, perhaps) of the piano transcription of Bruckner's Third, and he was one of the few who stuck through the disastrous premiere of that work.

I've always thought that the most Brucknerian movement in Mahler's output is the scherzo of the First symphony.  It has the ostinatos, the rustic Austrian flavor, and the relatively straightforward form of a Bruckner scherzo, though he truncates the repeat of the first section (as was also done in the Schalk version of Bruckner's Fifth, but that hadn't been performed or published yet when Mahler wrote his work).  One can certainly find influence of individual moments in later Mahler works, and the finale of the Third may be a good example.

Still, there was next to no precedent for ending a work with a slow movement.  Bruckner died after the work's completion, and thus his Ninth ending with the third movement adagio could not have been a model (Mahler refused to conduct the work, for reasons we can only guess).  Tchaikovsky's Sixth is the only prominent example that existed.  Mahler was not fond of the work, although he conducted it several times in New York at the request of the Philharmonic society.  Still, if the form and character of the two movements were not so different from each other, one might be tempted to cite the Pathetique as an influence.

Mahler himself found the idea of ending a work with a slow movement so successful that he did it twice more, in the Eighth and in the Ninth (the Tenth also, the fifth movement of which has two slow sections enclosing a faster section).

[PerfectWagnerite]

Mahler's relationship with Bruckner is an interesting subject.  On the one hand he grew to dislike his predecessor's approach to form and development (he criticized most of the Romantic-era composers for similar reasons), while on the other he appreciated the grandeur of Bruckner's themes and conceptions.  For all that he took inspiration from late Beethoven and Wagner, though, Bruckner was his forebear in symphonic writing.  He was co-arranger (or sole arranger, perhaps) of the piano transcription of Bruckner's Third, and he was one of the few who stuck through the disastrous premiere of that work.

I've always thought that the most Brucknerian movement in Mahler's output is the scherzo of the First symphony.  It has the ostinatos, the rustic Austrian flavor, and the relatively straightforward form of a Bruckner scherzo, though he truncates the repeat of the first section (as was also done in the Schalk version of Bruckner's Fifth, but that hadn't been performed or published yet when Mahler wrote his work).  One can certainly find influence of individual moments in later Mahler works, and the finale of the Third may be a good example.

Still, there was next to no precedent for ending a work with a slow movement.  Bruckner died after the work's completion, and thus his Ninth ending with the third movement adagio could not have been a model (Mahler refused to conduct the work, for reasons we can only guess).  Tchaikovsky's Sixth is the only prominent example that existed.  Mahler was not fond of the work, although he conducted it several times in New York at the request of the Philharmonic society.  Still, if the form and character of the two movements were not so different from each other, one might be tempted to cite the Pathetique as an influence.

Mahler himself found the idea of ending a work with a slow movement so successful that he did it twice more, in the Eighth and in the Ninth (the Tenth also, the fifth movement of which has two slow sections enclosing a faster section).

Great points as usual Mahlerian. I also cannot think of another precedent of a completed symphony ending with a slow mvt. The closet I got was Sibelius First but that was a few yrs after M3.

Regarding the great finale these comments describe it perfectly:

http://symphonysalon.blogspot.com/2005/12/mahler-symphony-no3.html

THE SIXTH MOVEMENT follows the fifth with no break. All the previous contrasts seem to be resolved in the peaceful calm of this, Mahler's first great symphonic Adagio. The opening theme quotes from the slow movement of Beethoven's last string quartet (Op. 135) - the resemblance is too great to be accidental. The continuation, however, is more in the spirit of Bruckner - one of the few times that Bruckner's and Mahler's styles are really close. The manuscript bears the following inscription, adapted from Des Knaben Wunderhorn:

Vater, sieh an die Wmienn mein!
Kein Wesen lass verloren sein!

Father, look upon my wounds,
Let no creature be lost!

The movement is based on two themes: a simple and soft D-major chorale melody and a more intense and dramatic minor-mode theme. The two themes and their variations alternate - and their developments include subtle recalls of fragments both from the first movement's tragic episodes and a comforting moment from the fifth. All these conflicting impulses are finally united in the powerful closing section, where the dynamics rise to fortissimo (Mahler warns: "not with raw force but with a saturated, noble tone") as the monumental symphony reaches its glorious and ecstatic conclusion.