Your favourite movement of Mahler 9

[M forever]

"Look at me, my life is a terrible, terrible tragedy"  at the top of his voice.

That is you as you present yourself here in your constant whining about this and that and the world in general. There is much more depth to Mahler's music than you with your extremely shallow musical perception can even begin to grasp. Many people, however, do see or at least sense and experience these many layers, and you are insulting them with your statements. If you can not relate to the music, that's fine, again, we all have a very limited horizon, there is a lot of music I can't relate and don't really know and understand as a consequence but I don't feel the need to put it down and tell those people who find a lot of depth and enjoyment in it that they are idiots who are fooled by fake music.

That is in effect what you are saying here. You are directly and aggressively insulting me and a lot of other people. I had a lot of patience with you, but this is the last time I will ever reply to a post of yours. You are pitiful. And you make sure everyone can see that.

I despise and loath people who have no intellectual and artistic self-criticism.

[PSmith08]

M and Greg,

Let me explain what I mean:  I find Mahler's habit of taking something folksy or childish or circus-like and blowing it up to grotesque proportions irritating to say the least. I imagine many people find it gives his music a tragic, black irony; I don't - I find it, as I say, irritating and somehow trashy; the result, to me, is the opposite of profound... And I don't think I'm alone if I hear in his music what certainly can't be scientifically proven but does seem to strike a chord with a number of people: not just self-indulgence but self-pity, a tendency to scream a bit too histrionically,  "Look at me, my life is a terrible, terrible tragedy"  at the top of his voice.

M, hopefully you will understand now.

[Does spit take.]

Didn't you just have a good cry over your self-esteem issues? Yeah, I'm pretty sure you did. In fact, I'm positive you did.

[Cleans self up.]

I'll leave your irritation to itself, de gustibus non disputandum and all that. Your latter charge, however, is really so ridiculous as to reveal just how little thought you have given to Mahler's music. I'm not surprised you haven't made a serious stab at understanding Mahler and his music, but you really should attempt to sit down, do some listening, and ponder the meaning and structure of these symphonies. Until then, you'll just blunder around and make facially ridiculous statements like the one I set in bold.

[vandermolen]

That part of the opening movement when it turns into some kind of macarbre funeral march and the end of the last movement.

[MDL]

The first movement, as Alban Berg pointed out, is probably Mahler's greatest achievement. If there's a problem with this symphony, it's that the first movement is so overwhelming, anything that comes after it can seem slightly anticlimactic, even the sublime finale.

[MDL]

My favorite is the first, Andante Comodo. I never understood why did Mahler compose two movements in the style of a Scherzo following each other.

I thought Mahler had copied the design from Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony; a waltz followed by a (sort of) march.

[greg]

I'm not surprised you haven't made a serious stab at understanding Mahler and his music, but you really should attempt to sit down, do some listening, and ponder the meaning and structure of these symphonies. Until then, you'll just blunder around and make facially ridiculous statements like the one I set in bold.

Yeah, stuff that long really needs a few listenings to even begin to grasp.

a tendency to scream a bit too histrionically,  "Look at me, my life is a terrible, terrible tragedy"  at the top of his voice.

which is just a small part of it. Mahler was a complex guy, so his music is quite a bit more complex than that.

I thought Mahler had copied the design from Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony; a waltz followed by a (sort of) march.

hmmm really? Either way, it's a killer design..... save the banging and crashing for the middle, and let the end drift into eternity.....

[not edward]

The first movement, as Alban Berg pointed out, is probably Mahler's greatest achievement. If there's a problem with this symphony, it's that the first movement is so overwhelming, anything that comes after it can seem slightly anticlimactic, even the sublime finale.

I used to feel that way about the piece, but after a while I decided that I felt that way because the recordings I was listening to tended to make me put the emphasis on the first movement (WP/Walter '38 and CSO/Boulez, for example). Nowadays I tend to regard finding balance between the outer movements as part of the problem a conductor has to solve for the performance to be entirely satisfactory: for me recordings like CSO/Giulini or CzPO/Ancerl do that perfectly. For me as a listener (and this may well be my own personal eccentricity), there's also a similar problem to be solved in the 5th: I don't find a performance totally convincing if the drama in the first two movements is so intense that it leaves the rest of the work feeling almost tacked on (something that I feel in, for example, the uncut studio Scherchen).

All of which is probably prefatory to me saying that I can't nominate a favourite movement, as I think of this work only as a whole.

[Sergeant Rock]

....the tendency to wallow & dwell endlessly on those emotions...when I hear it I eventually find myself thinking "get over it"

But that's exactly what Mahler does...he gets over things, and rather quickly. He's nothing like, say, Pettersson, who starts depressed and ends up stoically depressed or maybe smiling just a little because he knows he'll be dead soon and the pain will be over after 50 minutes of one-movement anguish. I can't think of a single Mahler movement where the mood doesn't continually change. Only three of his major works end in a negative state: the Sixth, the Ninth and DLVDE (and I use the word negative loosely in the case of the latter two...resignation, acceptance, letting go, work better).

To use the cliché: he gives us the entire world, not just one aspect of it. He never wallows. In fact, he's been criticized because he won't maintain a single mood for the length of a movement. Your criticism, James, seems to me to be coming from someone who neither likes nor has ever actually listened to a Mahler symphony with any kind of openess or understanding. Perhaps you feel no empathy let alone sympathy for the human condition if you think we all just need to "get over it" as quickly as possible. How do you get over the knowledge of our mortality? You either ignore it and celebrate life; rage against it; hope for divine intervention; or accept it. Mahler, depending on the work, has chosen each of those solutions. No wallowing.

To someone in tune with Mahler's world, the symphonies are not one note two long. When I'm listening to them, they seem to end much too soon.

Sarge

[jochanaan]

The first movement, as Alban Berg pointed out, is probably Mahler's greatest achievement. If there's a problem with this symphony, it's that the first movement is so overwhelming, anything that comes after it can seem slightly anticlimactic, even the sublime finale.

I sense that Mahler understood that, on a subconscious level.  That's why he did such an about-face in the following two movements.  One might also see this symphony as following the earlier Classical model of front-loading a symphony with weight and drama in the first movement while keeping subsequent movements lighter--although it's a major stretch to call any of these movements "light."

Operahaven, it does seem strange of you to describe Mahler as "self-indulgent," given your earlier-professed admiration for Wagner, probably the most self-indulgent of all composers!

James, it might be easy to think that Mahler is long-winded; yet as I continue to listen and admire, what I sense is concentration.  As Sarge says, his music if anything ends too soon for us aficionados! And there's so much there...

[greg]

James, it might be easy to think that Mahler is long-winded; yet as I continue to listen and admire, what I sense is concentration.  As Sarge says, his music if anything ends too soon for us aficionados! And there's so much there...

Heck, I'm ALWAYS disappointed when the first movement of the 3rd is over, and it's over 30 minutes long. I just want MORE, MORE, and MOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

But that's exactly what Mahler does...he gets over things, and rather quickly.

Except for, say, the Adagio of the 9th- but that's why I like this specific movement. It's what I need to hear, and it always delivers. Never goes off into different stuff, it's just pure honesty.
It's the meat, or the bread, of my musical listening.

He's nothing like, say, Pettersson, who starts depressed and ends up stoically depressed or maybe smiling just a little because he knows he'll be dead soon and the pain will be over after 50 minutes of one-movement anguish.

Close enough, at least for 6 and 7.
But I have to say, the 8th is just something else...... it's the only piece of music i've ever listened to  , where, every time it feels like i'm in a deep sleep, but am amazed at the music in the same way that i'm amazed at the mysteries of what i may be dreaming.

[DavidRoss]

I couldn't agree more with all of that. And despite his genius, he was thee worst of all in the longwinded dept.

Just wait until you discover Wagner!  And Bruckner!