Favorite Mahler Symphony?

[Holden]

#4 for me. I just love it's bucolic good cheer, that beautiful adagio and the drama of the last movement as it skirts around the idea of death being a passage to heavenly joys.

After that it's 1, 5 and 2

[amw]

Also have to say No. 6 has stuck in my memory best out of all of them, though I don't have much patience to listen through the whole thing; random marchy bits of the outer movements will pop into my head in time with background noises. (It feels like the piece should go a lot faster than most people conduct it, like... <20' + 12' + 12' + 25'ish or so... but True Mahlerians™ seem to disagree.) I do think it's the best non-adagio finale of any Mahler symphony. However the Andante moderato is... um... boring. Hate to say it

update: on the recordings front, I've found Kubelik/Audite to come closest to what I think No. 6 should be (the andante is a little indulgent, and the hammers are MIA but they're not that important), Kondrashin/USSR to be my favourite No. 5 (I do very much like Bruno Walter, but his Scherzo—maybe my favourite single movement in Mahler along with the adagio of No. 3—is a little breathless), and Solti seems to have the best singers in No. 8 and is pretty inexpensive. (I generally trust Solti in opera, and 8 is close enough to that) For No. 4 I have temporarily settled on Fischer/BFO, and for No. 3 on Salonen/LA, both of which are basically soloist-driven choices and I might change my mind later.

[Sergeant Rock]

Also have to say No. 6 has stuck in my memory best[...] It feels like the piece should go a lot faster than most people conduct it, like... <20' + 12' + 12' + 25'ish or so... but True Mahlerians™ seem to disagree.

Barbirolli's Sixth seems to be an overwhelming favorite...but I have several problems with it, and not just because of the first movement dirge.

update: on the recordings front, I've found Kubelik/Audite to come closest to what I think No. 6 should be (the andante is a little indulgent, and the hammers are MIA but they're not that important)

Most of my favorite Sixths are fairly quick in the first movement (Solti, Szell, Karajan, Bernstein) but none of them come close to Kubelik's sprint   I've never gotten on with it, but I'm glad you've found a performance that meets most of your standards.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

The ones in the 3x table. I split the difference and went with 6, but 3 and 9 would do it fine too.

And look at me, with no clear sense of having listened to 3 . . . .

[amw]

I do like Bernstein quite a bit, actually—at least in the outer movements. Don't know the other three.

Kubelik's finale, even without hammers, is insanely dramatic and leaves almost no room for a noble concluding elegy the likes of what I've come to expect—the trombones are still riding out the immense energy of the movement and play with a kind of passionate (but very much alive) despair, so that when the final explosion arrives it feels like it's cutting off the music mid-stream rather than 'crashing down like an iron curtain after the drama has concluded' as someone described it. It's like... all hope gets snuffed out only with the final bars, rather than (as many people play it) with the third hammer-stroke or even before that when the triumphant bit dissolves back into the introduction. Not all listeners will get much out of that

Today I listened to another well-recommended recording of the finale among Mahlerians (Zander/Boston) and, apart from one very nice moment—the abrupt spaciousness of the final triumphant section, which makes it really seem like it's going to lead into a bittersweet, glass-half-full kind of ending for half a second—it was disappointing and I think that's entirely because it was 32'. Kubelik's 26' gives the finale just the right levels of ferociousness and neuroticism (25' might gloss over too much, actually). And his tempo in the first movement is not actually much faster than Bernstein (Alma theme starts at 2:21 in K, 2:24 in B) but Bernstein broadens a lot for the Alma theme which I think is a mistake (it should be v high energy, one could make a case for playing it faster than the march though that's risky) and for the cowbells, which is probably the right decision—I think it's the finale above all that benefits from being taken faster.

[Sergeant Rock]

Kubelik's 26' gives the finale just the right levels of ferociousness and neuroticism (25' might gloss over too much, actually). And his tempo in the first movement is not actually much faster than Bernstein (Alma theme starts at 2:21 in K, 2:24 in B)

Yes, by the clock it isn't (even when Bernstein DGG takes 2:32 to get to Alma) but there's something about Kubelik's recording (the leaner orchestral weight perhaps?) that makes it seem much faster, even comically so...to me anyway. But I like your description of the Finale. I'll have to give it another go.

For ferociousness, if not neuroticism (his is actually rather classically restrained in the psychological department), try Solti too. And his is one of the few recordings with three hammerblows. It takes him just a second more than Kubelik to get to Alma...and his first movement Coda is spectacular, the fraction of a second hesitation before he launches it takes my breath away. The Finale at 27:28 is just about right, I think.

Sarge

[Jo498]

Is Kubelik/audite much different from Kubelik/DG? I have the latter and I am not really in the market for another Mahler 6 but I'd still be interested if the DG also fits the impression above.

[Scion7]

Any particular reason you chose that [the "completed" (aka bastardized) versions by Cook/Wheeler/Carpenter] for the poll rather than just the Adagio completed by ol' Gustav?

[Sergeant Rock]

Any particular reason you chose that [the "completed" (aka bastardized) versions by Cook/Wheeler/Carpenter] for the poll rather than just the Adagio completed by ol' Gustav?

It's been nineteen months since kyjo, the op, was last active in the forum. I doubt you'll get an answer from him.

Sarge

[Scion7]

It's been nineteen months since kyjo, the op, was last active in the forum. I doubt you'll get an answer from him.

Sarge

Verily, verily, I will hound his shade to the ends of the earth until he doth respond.  Curse his spleen!   

[springrite]

Any particular reason you chose that [the "completed" (aka bastardized) versions by Cook/Wheeler/Carpenter] for the poll rather than just the Adagio completed by ol' Gustav?

Maybe he meant the Barshai version which is much much better than the Cooke.

(OK, it's still not real Mahler)

[Wanderer]

Any particular reason you chose that [the "completed" (aka bastardized) versions by Cook/Wheeler/Carpenter] for the poll rather than just the Adagio completed by ol' Gustav?

Actually, Cooke's "performing version" as conducted by Chailly is pretty awesome. Ditto for Barshai's (a slightly lesser degree of awesomeness there). I don't like Wheeler's or Carpenter's versions. I don't agree with the naysayers or buy the "authenticity" card; there's more Mahler in a performing version of the Tenth than there is Mozart in the Requiem. It's time the Tenth be included in the canon I say.

[Sergeant Rock]

I don't agree with the naysayers or buy the "authenticity" card; there's more Mahler in a performing version of the Tenth than there is Mozart in the Requiem. It's time the Tenth be included in the canon I say.

Hear, hear!


Sarge

[Cato]

Hear, hear!


Sarge

Amen!   0:)  I followed Cooke's efforts from the beginning to his final version in the 1970's, and have found the results more than satisfactory.

[jochanaan]

...there's more Mahler in a performing version of the Tenth than there is Mozart in the Requiem...

True.  The difference is that Mozart left only bits and pieces of what became the next movements of his Requiem, while Mahler left a full draft of the Tenth in "short score." We only miss the master's hand in orchestration--and that is no small thing; Mahler was one of the greatest orchestrators in all music.

[amw]

For ferociousness, if not neuroticism (his is actually rather classically restrained in the psychological department), try Solti too.

I do have to say Solti has the best sound of any M6 recording I've heard—every tiny detail of the orchestration is audible. So that's a plus. The Andante is slow and kind of wallowy, not what I'd describe as 'restrained', lol. But otherwise you're right, it has a good sense of drive and impending doom without... over-accentuating the negative? Or something like that

[Sergeant Rock]

The Andante is slow and kind of wallowy, not what I'd describe as 'restrained', lol.

I was thinking restrained compared to, for example, Karajan (17:10) or Sinopoli (19:53!). Since you are less than enamored with the Andante, try Szell, who gets it over with quickly (13:28).

Sarge

[Jo498]

I have not compared interpretations but I think the andante from the 6th is my favorite (instrumental) slow Mahler movement, except for the 9th.