Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[ibanezmonster]

Mel Gibson: Mahler gives you wings . . . .

Certainly truer than Red Bull.

[kishnevi]

The Cleveland Orchestra has been doing a "residency" in Miami for the last couple of years--that is, they come three or four times during the concert season to give full weekend's worth of concerts in downtown Miami. 
They've announced  next years concerts, which will begin with a weekend in November with the featured work being Mahler's Third   The chorus are local, the soloist's name I recognized when I read it in this morning's paper, but can not for the life of me remember right now.  Franz Welser-Most will conduct.  (How is he in Mahler?)
This means I will drag myself into downtown Miami for the first time in years. 

I'm assuming that they will also be giving the work in Cleveland either before or after the concerts in Miami, so Cleveland area folks might want to take notice.

[Opus106]

This disc recently came to me from my grandfather's collection. But I've never heard Mahler's Fourth Symphony (!) and am wondering if it's a good place to begin.

The Fourth has some of the least 'neurotic' Mahler of the lot along with the First, perhaps even less, but it doesn't have an overly long last movement; in that sense, it's not "true" Mahler, I suppose. But it has it's share of really good moments. Yes, give it a try, I'd say.

[eyeresist]

The Fourth has some of the least 'neurotic' Mahler of the lot along with the First, perhaps even less, but it doesn't have an overly long last movement; in that sense, it's not "true" Mahler, I suppose. But it has it's share of really good moments. Yes, give it a try, I'd say.

I would certainly dispute this. The joyous pastorale is an important aspect of Mahler. See the Wunderhorn and Wayfarer songs, symphonies 1 and 4 (as mentioned), and individual movements from all the non-vocal symphonies excepting 6.

[Opus106]

I would certainly dispute this. The joyous pastorale is an important aspect of Mahler. See the Wunderhorn and Wayfarer songs, symphonies 1 and 4 (as mentioned), and individual movements from all the non-vocal symphonies excepting 6.

I didn't say it wasn't an aspect of his music, but only emphasising that it's just that -- a component of a whole (also comprising the "neurosis"), which, to me, defines Mahler. But in these symphonies, the crazy and depressed side of his doesn't show up as much, if at all, compared to the others.

I wouldn't really be listening to Mahler as much if (what I'd like to call) his inner Bohemian hadn't contrasted so much with struggling artist in these works.

[eyeresist]

Although it's the aspect newcomers notice most, I don't think neurosis is the defining characteristic of Mahler, or even the prime characteristic, though undoubtedly his emotional sensitivity and openness to the darker aspects of life is the reason his work is so powerful. But most of his symphonies end happily, after all.

I do worry that emphasising der schmerz over all will scare off people who find the uniformly dour and angst-ridden tiresome (I'm thinking of Karl in particular here ).

(But I do like a good helping of dourness and angst myself - provided there's a good tune attached.)

[jlaurson]

Although it's the aspect newcomers notice most, I don't think neurosis is the defining characteristic of Mahler, or even the prime characteristic
I do worry that emphasising der schmerz over all will scare off people who find the uniformly dour and angst-ridden tiresome (I'm thinking of Karl in particular here ).

Very much agreed with! That's the Mahler that's left after he's been filtered through his own cliche. There's a reason for it, but it's a pitfall, too. Much the same with Nietzsche, esp. in translations, which invariably (Kaufmann-translations excepted) sound more Nietzschean in English than in the original.

[eyeresist]

Very much agreed with! That's the Mahler that's left after he's been filtered through his own cliche. There's a reason for it, but it's a pitfall, too. Much the same with Nietzsche, esp. in translations, which invariably (Kaufmann-translations excepted) sounds more Nietzschean in English than in the original.

"When thou goest to woman, take thy whip." That always gives me a chuckle


Opus106, I do recommend familiarising yourself, if you haven't already, with Mahler's orchestral songs (Das Knaben Wunderhorn, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ('Songs of a Wayfarer'), Kindertotenlieder, and the Five Ruckert Songs). I came to them fairly recently but I think they have really rounded out my understanding of Mahler.

[Brian]

I think there's been a misunderstanding! I'm not a newcomer to Mahler; I'm a newcomer to Mahler's Fourth. And I have the Karajan/DG/Mathis recording now and was wondering, is that a good introduction to the symphony?

[kishnevi]

Opus106, I do recommend familiarising yourself, if you haven't already, with Mahler's orchestral songs (Das Knaben Wunderhorn, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ('Songs of a Wayfarer'), Kindertotenlieder, and the Five Ruckert Songs). I came to them fairly recently but I think they have really rounded out my understanding of Mahler.

Hmm, I've always felt the Wayfarer songs to be the epitome of schmerz--but most of the darker Wunderhorn songs are not really sentimental,  just dark and sometimes macabre.  Kindertotenlieder, which you would think would be another epitome of schmerz, is really the transcending of sentimentality and very life affirming.  Nothing neurotic there.  And the Ruckert Lieder are simply transcendental. 

Symphony 4 is at points a parody of sentimentality, but then you have the Ruhevoll movement, which someone I know once said is the greatest movement any composer ever wrote.  But the only Mahler by Karajan I have is the 9th, so I don't know how good an introduction to the Fourth that one really is. 

[eyeresist]

Hmm, I've always felt the Wayfarer songs to be the epitome of schmerz--but most of the darker Wunderhorn songs are not really sentimental,  just dark and sometimes macabre.  Kindertotenlieder, which you would think would be another epitome of schmerz, is really the transcending of sentimentality and very life affirming.  Nothing neurotic there.  And the Ruckert Lieder are simply transcendental.

Schmerz = pain, not "sentimentality".

I dislike accusations of sentimentality, an imprecise term which some use to mean "a strong expression of emotion, of which I disapprove". It's not a serious criticism.

[kishnevi]

Schmerz = pain, not "sentimentality".

I dislike accusations of sentimentality, an imprecise term which some use to mean "a strong expression of emotion, of which I disapprove". It's not a serious criticism.

Well, it's hard enough to agree sometimes on what an English word means in English,  so no wonder that it may be hard to agree on what a German word means in English.

To me, the pain associated with "schmerz" is self inflicted pain--the sort where you twist the knife into yourself, so to speak.  But for me the major meaning is sentimentality, which for me means emotion that is purposely manufactured or manipulated.   Fake emotion, in other words, or at least emotion that doesn't really come from the heart.  It's self indulgent in the worst sense.  This sometimes works out to something approaching the definition that you give for sentimentality, of course, but not always. 

However, if we stick to your definition of 'schmerz', I think my description of the Mahler song cycles are still valid.

[eyeresist]

But for me the major meaning is sentimentality, which for me means emotion that is purposely manufactured or manipulated.   Fake emotion, in other words, or at least emotion that doesn't really come from the heart.  It's self indulgent in the worst sense.

Ultimately this would have to be a matter of opinion, of course. This is a subject which has exercised me recently.  I was reading a book about writing in which the author (obviously of the Hemingway O'Hara school of he-man writing) tried to deal with the topic of sentimentality.

First, he quoted his negative example, something like, "She sat on the bed and wept. It was all over. Would she ever find someone who would love her again? The tears rolled down her cheeks." Now, the bit about the tears is obvious a cliche, and thus banal. But the rest is a legitimate expression of strong emotion through the close third person perspective (admittedly a bit crude, but I think it was better in the original example).

Next, he contributed his example of how to deal unsentimentally with a powerful emotional scene, in this case a man facing the death of his mother in hospital. It went something like, "He looked at the drip hanging by the bed, then looked at his mother, dead on the bed. The nurse wanted to speak to him. She was very tall. He wondered if she had just begun her shift, or was nearing its end. After she had gone to get a coffee, he went outside and looked up at the stars. Cold rain began to fall on his face."

There are several problems with this. First, recital of bare facts can be dramatically effective, but if done without skill it can make the writer seem like an OCD psychopath, which is what I think happens here (there was a great deal more meaningless detail in this example, but I can't recall it all now). The guy's mother just died, so this emphasis on idle thoughts about the nurse is just bathetic (odd thoughts can certainly appear to one in stressful situations, but one is always struck by their oddity, a reaction the writer fails to address here). Also, this stuff about looking at the stars and rain falling on one's face is a cliche no less lamentable than the cheek-rolling tears, I would say.
(He had also previously asserted that writing ideally would describe objective events but never go into the characters' heads, but he broke this rule to give us the irrelevant speculation about the nurse.)

So yeah, that's what I've been thinking about. Sorry to go so far off topic.

[jlaurson]

I think there's been a misunderstanding! I'm not a newcomer to Mahler; I'm a newcomer to Mahler's Fourth. And I have the Karajan/DG/Mathis recording now and was wondering, is that a good introduction to the symphony?

Wouldn't that question make more sense before settling on a recording? Now you'll listen to it anyway, as you should, if you've never heard M4.

And yes, like 90% of all recordings of M4, it's a perfectly fine recording. For that matter, it's better than just "perfectly fine". And M4 is not a work that either stands or falls with an interpretive nuance here or there different that you might like. I'm not particularly keen on very old recordings of the Fourth (early Walter) -- the bad SQ is not just a nuance, it's a nuisance.  And I'm not keen on certain sopranos (Gielen/Whittlesey, Abbado/Fleming) or boy's voices (Bernstein, DG)... but even that shouldn't keep anyone from listening to M4 at last.

Classical WETA:
Mahler, 4th Symphony
Parts 1 - 3
http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1157
http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1170
http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1192

[jlaurson]

Well, it's hard enough to agree sometimes on what an English word means in English,  so no wonder that it may be hard to agree on what a German word means in English.

To me, the pain associated with "schmerz" is self inflicted pain--the sort where you twist the knife into yourself, so to speak.  But for me the major meaning is sentimentality, which for me means emotion that is purposely manufactured or manipulated.   Fake emotion, in other words, or at least emotion that doesn't really come from the heart.  It's self indulgent in the worst sense.  This sometimes works out to something approaching the definition that you give for sentimentality, of course, but not always. 

However, if we stick to your definition of 'schmerz', I think my description of the Mahler song cycles are still valid.

The primary meaning of "Schmerz" is "Pain" -- no two ways about it.

If a German speaker meant to tune the word into covering realms more bathetic, he or she would do so by adding another noun to it, or more, and celebrating a Wortneuschöpfung, which is of course German for 'new-word-creation'.

Schmerz, the English loan-word, does have other connotations, though... some that go more into the direction that eyeresist feels the word ought to have. Why that is is hard to say -- perhaps because it traveled over the ocean while it was still attached to Welt. But those meanings are perfectly valid to consider, because Mahler got the Schmerz-label attached in English, rather than in German... and so it accurately describes others' description of Mahler's music. (Still, that doesn't make Mahler's music so.)

[mszczuj]

But most of his symphonies end happily, after all.

In my definitive (the one when you understand all) Mahler listening some years ago I discovered that all his symphonies end happily.

Final of the 6th is triumphal as the whole movement  even if the very end of it is tragic. But in the nature of spiritual triumph is that it is beyond the time. So it doesn't matter how the story ends. What is important is its high point. In my definitive Mahler listening I thought that revelation of this was the aim of being tragic in the 6th.

[Brian]

Wouldn't that question make more sense before settling on a recording?

It would, but the disc is now in my hands having come from my Alzheimer's-plagued grandmother's collection, which she doesn't know how to play anymore.

Now you'll listen to it anyway, as you should, if you've never heard M4.

And yes, like 90% of all recordings of M4, it's a perfectly fine recording. For that matter, it's better than just "perfectly fine". And M4 is not a work that either stands or falls with an interpretive nuance here or there different that you might like. I'm not particularly keen on very old recordings of the Fourth (early Walter) -- the bad SQ is not just a nuance, it's a nuisance.  And I'm not keen on certain sopranos (Gielen/Whittlesey, Abbado/Fleming) or boy's voices (Bernstein, DG)... but even that shouldn't keep anyone from listening to M4 at last.

Classical WETA:
Mahler, 4th Symphony
Parts 1 - 3
http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1157
http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1170
http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1192

Thanks very much, Jens.

[kishnevi]

Agreed on the 5th and 7th in Chailly. I probably prefer Leipzig/Neumann in the 5th and Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim in the 7th, but it's only by a hair at most.

Meanwhile, I finally heard the semi-legendary Bruno Maderna recording of the 9th. Been a long, long time since any recording of anything has completely floored me like this. Wow.

Listened to it tonight, and it is a good representative of schmerzfree Mahler.  But I think the Zinman/Zurich Tonhalle is better artistically and certainly far superior sonically.  Edward, have you heard that performance?

[eyeresist]

Final of the 6th is triumphal as the whole movement  even if the very end of it is tragic. But in the nature of spiritual triumph is that it is beyond the time. So it doesn't matter how the story ends. What is important is its high point. In my definitive Mahler listening I thought that revelation of this was the aim of being tragic in the 6th.

This argument seems confused to me. The 6 finale is triumphant even though it ends on a downer, because it has triumphant elements? The triumphalism of the finale is generally agreed to be ironic: the music begins ambiguously, and ends morosely, and the triumphalist moments between those two endpoints are always undercut (the famous hammer blows of fate). As for your idea that the ending doesn't matter in comparison with whatever high point is reached during the movement, I simply disagree. I'm with the ancient Greeks on this, who said you can't call a person's life good or bad until you know how they died.

[mszczuj]

This argument seems confused to me. The 6 finale is triumphant even though it ends on a downer, because it has triumphant elements? The triumphalism of the finale is generally agreed to be ironic: the music begins ambiguously, and ends morosely, and the triumphalist moments between those two endpoints are always undercut (the famous hammer blows of fate). As for your idea that the ending doesn't matter in comparison with whatever high point is reached during the movement, I simply disagree. I'm with the ancient Greeks on this, who said you can't call a person's life good or bad until you know how they died.

Symphonies are not stories about one's life. Especially good great symphonies. They are models of the universe revealing how it works and how individual mind works inside universal spirit and how it can work. The aim of Mahler music is usuallyto show the way to the Absolute, to show how in spiritual world is possible to understand that  all can be well even sorrow (life and sorrow and world and dream),  to "ziehen hinan". The exception is the 6th. Is it really?

Should it be readed straightforwardly?

"My Sixth will propound riddles the solution of which may be attempted only by a generation which has absorbed and truly digested my first five symphonies."

"My Sixth seems to be yet another hard nut, one that our critics' feeble little teeth cannot crack."

What did he mean?