Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[Brahmsian]

Grrrrrrr, andante FIRST, godamit.

The nerve!  If I listen to a CD with the Andante as the 2nd movement (RE: The 6th), I just program the track to play 1,3,2,4.
Problem solved! 

[eyeresist]

No, I think you misunderstood - that's the opposite of what I meant. I WANT the andante to be first, which Jansons didn't do.

[Brahmsian]

No, I think you misunderstood - that's the opposite of what I meant. I WANT the andante to be first, which Jansons didn't do.

Oh......you are correct, I misunderstood.   

[jlaurson]

Grrrrrrr, andante FIRST, godamit.

Why ? ? ? ?

I know that's the closest we can get to approximating G.M.'s final wishes/intentions (if one can use so strong a word in this case). But are there compelling musical / dramatic reasons for preferring the Andante ahead of the Scherzo? The only 'reason' I can see (but then again, I'm not looking very hard to justify that order), is the similarity of the Opening movement with the Scherzo... but then it's precisely that opening double blow -- LEFT. RIGHT. Wham. Bam! -- that I find fascinating... before the Andante prepares one for the devastating finale.

[klingsor]

No, I think you misunderstood - that's the opposite of what I meant. I WANT the andante to be first, which Jansons didn't do.

I prefer the Andante before the Scherzo as well. Not just because it was Mahler's final decision. I think the Andante works as a contrast to the Allegro we've just heard (and which in some performances can seem devastating), then we hear the Scherzo, whose opening can recall the relentlessness of the Allegro. It works for me, because the start of the Finale is a  long, slow section. To be honest, both movement orders work for me, but I do prefer Andante-Scherzo.

I have only heard the First Movement of the Jansons, and I liked it quite a lot, nicely audible percussion and celesta, I even heard the cowbells. Unfortunately, the player did not let me pause and start again with the Second Movement, so I'll have to go back from the beginning.

[eyeresist]

I think the main reason people object to the andante first is that they've been listening to it scherzo first for fifty years, so of course any other way sounds wrong. The younger generation will have its own opinion...

[jlaurson]

I think the main reason people object to the andante first is that they've been listening to it scherzo first for fifty years, so of course any other way sounds wrong. The younger generation will have its own opinion...

1.) Most people have not been listening to the Scherzo first for 50 years; more conductors have performed (at all times, I dare say -- esp. if you discount cheating on LPs or CDs where engineers reversed the order)  A-S than S-A.
2.) I *AM* part of the younger generation and I do have my own opinion... and yet it doesn't seem to be the same as yours. (Which is why I asked you for actual reasons in the first place... because rather than a reading a flippant reference to "habits and stupidity" as preferences for S-A on other people's part, I'm genuinely interested in why exactly you [or others] think A-S is to be preferred, musically. I'd like to hear from Fischer Ivan, for example, who performed it differently every performance for a whole tour... and eventually settled on A-S over S-A for his (superb!) recording... But I never got into details with him about that yet So I'm still waiting to hear a compelling, non-biographical argument.)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The first time I heard the Sixth was 35 years ago, when I was 15. 2 LPs, Haitink, Concertgebouw Orchestra. The order was S-A. And in the two decades or so following that, that was the order I heard on recordings and in the concert hall. But the funny thing is - I always had a bit of a problem with S-A, because the movements are so similar. I often wondered why Mahler should want to stay in the same atmosphere as the first movement for quite so long. When I read that the preferred order was A-S, it didn't surprise me. But I still, when I think of the symphony, have that original order imprinted in my brain...

[klingsor]

New release of interest[asin]B003JC4E4Y[/asin]

[Sergeant Rock]

I often wondered why Mahler should want to stay in the same atmosphere as the first movement for quite so long.

But he doesn't. It's a completely different "atmosphere" --the Scherzo being a parody of the first movement, or an ironic restatement. At least that's the way I hear it. Heard that way it works most effectively coming right after the first movement. It is a huge contrast (despite the similarity in tempo).

I can't find it now but I swear I read there has been a recent discovery that proves Mahler changed his mind before he died, reverted to S-A. In any case S-A was the way it was composed and he had good reasons for that order. First thoughts often are best thoughts.

Those who argue that it should be A-S because that's the way Mahler did it, well, Mahler said future conductors could change his music if they thought it could be improved (the way Mahler himself changed Beethoven and Schumann). If he could have heard what Bernstein or Boulez or (choose your favorite conductor here) did with the score, I don't think he would have objected.

Sarge

[jlaurson]

I can't find it now but I swear I read there has been a recent discovery that proves Mahler changed his mind before he died, reverted to S-A. In any case S-A was the way it was composed and he had good reasons for that order. First thoughts often are best thoughts.

Perhaps there is... and that's what Jansons was referring to? I was surprised that he'd refer to 'new evidence' (for S-A) that was in fact "old evidence" that has since been unmasked as academic fraud (by the former president of the Gustav Mahler Society. He, too, was convinced that Mahler's original idea -- S-A -- was superior, so he concocted evidence that Mahler changed his mind late in his life.  When that came out to be fraud/false, even HLdLG had to climb down from his very prominent pro S-A stance to merely saying: "I think it makes more sense that way..."

It would be ironic if he was to be correct, after all... (though I do think that the guy is correct about the preferred order of the movements, of course.

Here's a bit from one of the WETA pieces on the Sixth:

Barbirolli and Bernstein's view of this symphony were very likely influenced by the greatest Mahlerian since Mengelberg and Walter, and by far the most exciting next to Bernstein: Dimitri Mitropoulos. Mitropoulos gave the first American performances of the Sixth (Andante/Scherzo) in 1947. A recording from 1955 (also Andante/Scherzo) with the New York forces is floating around (notably in the New York Philharmonic $200-plus luxury box set) and is said to be played better—but the live-recording with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln from 1959 (at time when "live" meant live!) is riveting, raw, individualistic (still shy of eccentric); truly an edge-of-the-seat reading. (Issued on the Mitropoulos set as part of EMI's prematurely aborted "Greatest Conductors of the 20th Century" edition, it is still available... while I'm not sure if I trust the sound on the Urania issue (not having heard it but given bad experience with the label), that's one currently in print.) That the orchestra struggles in several passages can be troubling—or alternatively seen as furthering that pushed-to-the-brink feeling. The order of the movements here is Scherzo/Andante and that's how it has been published in all its outings on CD... Mitropoulos curiously having changed the movement-order four years prior to the International Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft's critical edition suggesting the Scherzo be placed first. (Most likely Erwin Ratz, founder and editor of the IGMG, and the irrationally ardent supporter of the Scherzo-Andante order mentioned above, had convinced him to do so before a performance in Vienna in 1957.) The sound is admittedly rather limited for most of the first movement but it gets better from thereon... and the rest of the modest quality is adjusted for by the ears. Not a 'first' recommendation but a dedicated Mahler listener or any fan of the Sixth won't pass it up. This recording, unlike some other old and low-fi recordings I have criticized, is one where you definitely can hear and enjoy the interpretive choices.

[Brahmsian]

I prefer Scherzo-Andante for two reasons:

*The serenity and break from the insanity is sorely needed (for me) just before that final, mammoth hammer-blows movement begins, and the Andante prepares us for this apocalyptic movement.

*The Scherzo is almost/not quite, a continuation of the 1st movement.  One could argue that it could be played without a break in between the first and second movement, am I right?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

But he doesn't. It's a completely different "atmosphere" --the Scherzo being a parody of the first movement, or an ironic restatement. At least that's the way I hear it. Heard that way it works most effectively coming right after the first movement. It is a huge contrast (despite the similarity in tempo).

I find the the main themes of both movements very similar. Of course, the one marches and the other stumbles and stutters, but still, that stamping is identical. Yes, there is glorious lyrical contrast in the first movement, but the irony is already in action, too, in that mocking sound you can hear in those descending trills, reinforced by the xylophone. So I have always felt the Scherzo as more of an extension of some elements in the first movement than 'something completely different'.


Saw this later. But I concur:

*The Scherzo is almost/not quite, a continuation of the 1st movement.  One could argue that it could be played without a break in between the first and second movement, am I right?

[eyeresist]

... I asked you for actual reasons in the first place... because rather than a reading a flippant reference to "habits and stupidity" as preferences for S-A on other people's part, I'm genuinely interested in why exactly you [or others] think A-S is to be preferred, musically. ... So I'm still waiting to hear a compelling, non-biographical argument.)

My opinion on the music aligns with Klingsor and Herrenberg. The first time I heard the symphony, not knowing anything of the disputed movement order, it just sounded wrong to me. Following the first movement with the scherzo seemed to me a case of "over-egging the pudding", as people who know how pudding is made might say. So, when I eventually discovered the controversy, it all made sense to me.

[klingsor]

That Jansons M6 link is dead now 

[jlaurson]

That Jansons M6 link is dead now 

I think that was a temporary downage of the website. Works again.

[klingsor]

HOW TO MARK TODAY: 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF MAHLER'S DEATH
http://entartetemusik.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-mark-today.html

[Sergeant Rock]

HOW TO MARK TODAY: 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF MAHLER'S DEATH
http://entartetemusik.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-mark-today.html

Thanks for the link.

Sarge

[Brian]

A musician named Lev Parikian says, on Twitter:

"Celebrate Mahler Day by having repeated, extended and noisy orgasms, followed by long periods of gloomy introspection and death."

[klingsor]

When Mahler took Manhattan

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/opinion/18Davis.html