gustavmahlerboard.com
General Category => Gustav Mahler and Related Discussions => Topic started by: hrandall on September 14, 2012, 01:30:40 PM
-
Hi everyone!
I've mentioned on the forum before that on most Thursday evenings I visit a friend and we listen to a Mahler CD. (Often with Dave Hurwitz's book in hand, or sometimes a score). When we began doing this about 2 years ago, we just skipped around and listened to whatever struck our fancy. Last night, though, we finished up our first official cycle with Mahler's 10th. It's been an interesting half year or so while we listened to the works in order, with some repeated listenings to the works we were less familiar with. For example, I have a newfound appreciation of the 6th and 7th as a result of several weeks spent listening to each symphony.
Before starting in on another Mahler cycle, I thought we'd take a few weeks and hear some other composers' works, either as a bit of a palate-cleanser or as a way to explore some Mahler-related tangents.
Here is what I'm planning so far:
- Nielsen's 3rd, 4th, and or 5th.
- Bruckner's 9th (this same friend gave me the recent Rattle recording).
- Hans Rott's Symphony 1 (Jarvi or Segerstam)
- Havergal Brian's 1st (Gothic)
My question to you: is there anything you might suggest I add to my list? And for what reason? An interesting relation to Mahler's music? A stark contrast to Mahler's music? The composer was influenced by Mahler, or was an influence on Mahler?
I'm very curious to hear your thoughts.
Cheers,
Herb
-
You are quite lucky to have some one so close that you can listen with.
After I go through heavy doses of Mahler, Wagner or Bruckner and feel the need to cleanse the palate I always go to Mozart opera. I've been doing this for the past few years and it really works for me. Mozarts ability to write as a 'tune-smith' consistently amazes me; when I finish a Mozart work it always seems that he could have just kept on going, turning melodies and drama with the utmost ease. That is something that really gets me. When Mahler ends it is almost always a draining experience on some level. You wish it would go on, but sometimes the break is good. With Mozart it could go on for ever.
I would highly recommend anything by Renee Jacobs on Blu-Ray, CD/SACD.
-
Herb,
To your list I would add Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, a work Mahler conducted often and was certainly influenced by. A remarkable piece when you consider its premiere came only three years after Beethoven's death.
(When overwhelmed by Romantic orchestral bombast, I find comfort in the solo keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach.)
James
-
For Similarities:
Berg's music was much inspired by Mahler. Such as the march in act 1 scene 3 of Wozzeck
Pagliacci by Leoncavallo seems akin to the banal of Mahler in much of the orchestral music and tragi-comedy atmosphere; though the composers might've disliked each other.
The exuberant male vocals in Des Knaben seem very akin to Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflote
For Contrast:
I'd say Bach's mid-late keyboard works
Palestrina's Masses
Lassus' Legrime de San Pietro
p.s. the way I enjoy these differs substancially from how I enjoy Mahler.
-
Shotakovich 4. It's a Russian Mahler symphony on steroids.
-
Shotakovich 4. It's a Russian Mahler cycle on steroids.
I love the opening movement of Shostakovich's 9th, very humorous moments but not at all being 'light music'.
I'll have to listen to the 4th.
-
Symphony - I meant the word 'symphony' and not "cycle". My bad.
-
Herb,
To your list I would add Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, a work Mahler conducted often and was certainly influenced by. A remarkable piece when you consider its premiere came only three years after Beethoven's death.
(When overwhelmed by Romantic orchestral bombast, I find comfort in the solo keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach.)
James
I second that; Berlioz was also a hell of an orchestrator. And don't forget ole' Ludwig, especially his 9th (in the Mahler retouching version with Jarvi?)
Roffe
-
"9th (in the Mahler retouching version with Jarvi?)"
It's Kristjan Jarvi, and I think it's very good. I have it. It's on the Preiser label.
http://www.amazon.com/Symphony-No-9-Beethoven/dp/B002UCTA98/ref=sr_1_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1347687498&sr=1-7&keywords=beethoven+symphony+9+jarvi
-
Shotakovich 4. It's a Russian Mahler symphony on steroids.
My 6 month old screamed bloody murder when I put Shosti 4 on a few months back. I've not listened since.
-
Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful suggestions. I think it will be a fun few weeks of "Mahler night" sans Mahler.
Does anyone want to advocate for some Josek Suk, in the "influenced by Mahler" category? I've listened to a few things on Spotify but haven't yet purchased anything. If someone has a good recommendation for a Suk first purchase, I'd love to hear it.
Cheers,
Herb
-
Shostakovich - all 15 symphonies!
ps - I just got the Barshai Box on Brilliant for like $30 or so. IMO this is incredible so far....a gem. This the "Bertini" boxset of Shostakovich, if you catch my drift.....great sound, stellar playing, very solid and consistent, convincing playing and conducting, and cheap! Buy it!
And when you're finished, you can do the 15 string quartets.
Mahler and Shosta wrote my favorite symphonies....well.....ever.
I own and have tried Sibelius, as he is often mentioned as one of the masters of the symphony, but aside from his 4th, he hasn't moved me yet. Maybe he never will?
Also, as a HUGE Ives fanatic, I highly suggest delving in and seeing what he was all about. A true original and genius, often overlooked and misunderstood.
ps- I just got my first Ring cycle on disc (Janowski/ Staatskapelle Dresden). I'm diving in.....yikes!
-
I would not consider Josef Suk to be a composer influenced by Mahler. He's far closer to Zemlinksky, early Shoenberg, Scriabin and other composers of that highly chromatic (half-step harmonies), late romantic style.
-
While it may not sound much like Mahler, I think a Mahlerian scaled experience can be had with Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem".
-
This post was quite apt for me as my cousin and i have just started a Mahler cycle. He only has recordings of M1, M2 and M9 and he wants to explore them all. What we are doing though is listing to other works written at the same time as each symphony so i took in the dates 1884 to 1888 for the 1st, so we just had our Mahler 1 day last week where we listened to extracts from Tchaikovsky's 5th, Dvorak's 7th and Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, 1st movement of Bruckner 8 and Strauss Don Juan. Most of that stuff was new to him other the Tchaikovsky 5, so its also aimed at getting him interested in other composers. Im keeping Brahms 4 for a later date.
We are also going to include Mahler's influences during each day, we didnt leave ourselves much time last week so we only listened to the funeral march from Beethoven's 3rd, he wasn't too impressed with that much to my amazement, but i said that Beethoven takes longer to get into than Mahler.
Would also like to hear what other people would consider Mahler's favourite works?
Also im currently reading Mahler, his life, work and world, are ther any other books that contain his letters? Its great reading Mahler's humour come thorugh in those letters ;D, something that ive never seen mentioned much.
-
Also I'm currently reading Mahler, his life, work and world, are there any other books that contain his letters? It's great reading Mahler's humour come thorugh in those letters ;D, something that I've never seen mentioned much.
Here's a start:
Gustav Mahler: Letters to His Wife, Cornell Univ. Press, 2004
Gustav Mahler – Richard Strauss: Correspondence 1888–1911, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996
The Mahler Family Letters, Oxford Univ. Press, 2005
Mahler's Unknown Letters, Gollancz, London, 1986
Gustav Mahler, Memories and Letters (Alma Mahler), Univ. of Michigan, 1968
James
-
"Would also like to hear what other people would consider Mahler's favorite works?"
You have to keep in mind that it wasn't until late in Mahler's career that he got to conduct much symphonic repertoire. The majority of his conducting work was in opera. Among operas, the late Du Ponte operas of Mozart; Don Giovanni; Tales of Hoffmann; Die Freischutz and Fidelio would be obvious candidates. He also liked Lehar operettas, but wouldn't admit to it during formal discussions or heated debates. Mahler was crazy about R. Strauss' "Salome", but never got to conduct it because of the court censors in Vienna. He and Alma walked out on "Elektra" in New York, and I very much share that view as well.
In regards to symphonic stuff, obviously the Beethoven symphonies; Beethoven piano concertos; late Mozart symphonies; Schubert 9; the four Schumann symphonies (which he loved); late Haydn symphonies and Haydn's "Creation" (which I believe he conducted twice). As someone has already mentioned, "Symphonie Fantasique" was an obvious influence, and Mahler conducted it on more than several occasions. I do believe that Mahler got around to all four Brahms symphonies, but he conducted the Third the most. At some point, he did voice his preference for Brahms 3 (which makes sense to me). Oddly enough, Mahler did not conduct much Bruckner.
Mahler did his own version of Bruckner 4, which I've been told has several severe cuts to it (Rozhdestvensky has made a difficult-to-find recording of it). Mahler gave one of the earlier performances of Bruckner 6. To my ears, the beginning of the scherzo to Bruckner 6 sounds very similar to the very beginning of Mahler 6 (repetitive low A in the double basses). Also, the sort of 'telegraph rhythm' that happens in the first movement of B6 shows up in the first movement of M7. Mahler also did Bruckner 5, but I don't know if he put cuts in it or used the Schalk edition. To the best of my knowledge, Mahler didn't conduct the last three symphonies of Bruckner.
Much to my astonishment, Mahler did not conduct the late symphonic poems of Dvorak with the singular exception of "The Wild Dove", which contains a sort of typical Mahlerian funeral procession within it. He did conduct several of the shorter orchestral works of Smetana, but I do not believe that he ever gave the entire "Ma Vlast" (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that). Mahler very much liked the Smetana operas. At that time, I believe that Smetana was still better known in Austro/German circles than Dvorak.
In his late New York period, Mahler suddenly became far more 'continental', modern and 'catholic' (varied) with his tastes in symphonic music. He gave premieres - or certainly American premieres - of various wild and interesting works by American, British, French and Italian composers (and probably a few other nationalities as well). It's been said that when Mahler died, he possessed the score to Charles Ives' 3rd symphony. I've never found any written literature to support that claim, but it's a widely circulated story.
Going back to Berlioz, Mahler did conduct "The Damnation of Faust" and voiced his liking of it as well. "Le Troyens" would have hardly been performed at this point.
Prophetically enough, the very last item (or maybe the next to the last item) that Mahler ever conducted was the "Berceuse Elogique" by F. Busoni. It's a soft and melancholic work that appropriately ends with a solo stroke on the tam-tam.
-
Mahler did his own version of Bruckner 4, which I've been told has several severe cuts to it (Rozhdestvensky has made a difficult-to-find recording of it).
I have this; it's with the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR Ministry of Culture and it's based on the 1888 version of the symphony. Mahler not only made several severe cuts but, as was his wont, altered the orchestration significantly. The entire thing lasts only 49:40, while a typical performance of the original takes 65 to 70 minutes. Overall, a travesty, though an interesting one.
James
-
I would be curious to hear it because, in my opinion, there are plenty of problems with Bruckner's 4th symphony - particularly the slow movement and, most of all, the finale. It may not be better, but it would be interesting to follow what Mahler's thinking may have been.
-
Figuring out exactly what Mahler did to the Bruckner Fourth is not as easy as one might hope. The problem is that Mahler took as his starting point the so-called "1888 Version" of the symphony, rather than the now-standard 1878–80 version represented by both Haas and Nowak. The 1888 version is thought to have been influenced by Ferdinand Löwe and the Schalk brothers (it was even known as the Löwe-Schalk Edition for a time) and contains two cuts and significant changes in orchestration not found in the 1878–80 version. Without the availability of scores (Mahler's version has never been published) and given the fact that Rozhdestvensky's recording suffers from early 1980s Soviet audio engineering, separating Mahler's contributions from those made earlier by others—even if by Bruckner himself—is not an easy task.
The good news is there's a modern (2010) recording by Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra of the "un-Mahlerized" 1888 version that can be used as a benchmark. Earlier recordings exist by Furtwängler (1951) and Knappertsbusch (1949), but these are sonically compromised and thus less helpful in making comparisons.
James
-
As far as Tchaikovsky goes, Mahler greatly admired the Manfred Symphony, conducting the Vienna première of the work as well as a further performance in St. Petersburg. It was his favorite among Tchaikovsky's symphonic output. He also liked Tchaikovsky's operas.
Another piece in which I find a Mahler "resonance" is Rachmaninov's "The Bells". In some ways it reminds one of "Das Lied", and it was completed just a year or so after Das Lied's première in 1911.
Then there is Strauss's "Eine Alpensinfonie", the music of which could very well be, at least in part, a reflection of Strauss's reaction to Mahler's death.
Mike Bosworth
-
Thanks for the replies Barry, James and Mike on the influences and other books, after reading what you've written and what ive read in Mahler his life, work and world, i'll have to take some Mozart through at some point, the late symphonies and the overtures to the late operas, maybe during the 4th symphony day.
My line up for the 2nd Symphony day will include Beethoven's 9th, Death and Transfiguration, Debussy Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, Nielsen Symphony no 1 and possibly Tchaikovsky 6, i could include Dvorak 9 but my cousin has that, or i could include Zemlinsky's 1st as well. Quite a few interesting works written around that time.
Going back to the books, James you mentioned Mahler's Unknown Letters, Gollancz, London, 1986 i noticed it was also edited by Herta Blaukopf so i wondered whether it just included letters that were published in the Mahler his life, work and world book?
-
Going back to the books, James you mentioned Mahler's Unknown Letters, Gollancz, London, 1986 i noticed it was also edited by Herta Blaukopf so i wondered whether it just included letters that were published in the Mahler his life, work and world book?
I can't give you a definitive answer since I have neither book immediately at hand, but I will hazard a guess. Because the Life, Work and World book first appeared in 1976 and Unknown Letters came out in 1986, it's hard to imagine Herta Blaukopf would republish letters she had already published a decade earlier and call them "Mahler's Unknown Letters."
James
-
As far as Tchaikovsky goes, Mahler greatly admired the Manfred Symphony, conducting the Vienna première of the work as well as a further performance in St. Petersburg. It was his favorite among Tchaikovsky's symphonic output. He also liked Tchaikovsky's operas.
Mike Bosworth
Mike, it's curious that you mention Mahler's liking for Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. I too, like the work, and think that it's mood seems to fit Mahler's generally lugubrious moods. Various conductors either love or have expressed complete disdain for the work. Toscanini liked the work and programmed it infrequently in his concerts, whereas Bernstein, the Mahler lover, thought Manfred as "unspeakable trash".
Most aficionados of the work prefer Igor Markevitch's recording of the work; to me, it's OK. I myself am not sure what particular recording I like of all the ones I've listened to, though Haitink's is near the top of my list.
Wade
-
The only problem with the Manfred For me is the finale, it just doesnt seem to hang together, and the theme doesn't seem to go anywhere, it sounds stilted compared to other Tchaikovsky themes.
-
Perhaps that's why there are two versions of the finale that exist in Russia. Toscanini and Yevgeny Svetlanov have made recordings where the sudden chord on the pipe organ is replaced by what is, for intents and purposes, a reprise of the ending to the first movement - possibly THE finest moment in all of Tcahikovsky's output. There are probably a few other recordings of that version as well. It does exist in printed form in Russia, because a good friend of mine had a copy of the score show up on his doorstep about two years after he had ordered it. That was several decades ago. Anyway, that same version also has a series of extra tam-tam smashes at the end of the first movement. Andre Previn included those extra tam-tam smashes, but I believe he did the usual, 'normal' finale (with its quiet fade-away).
To me, there's nothing wrong with the regular version of the finale, but it does require that a conductor keep the tension up throughout the whole movement, as well as 'step on the gas' a bit through the fugue section. Ashkenazy did a fine job of doing just that. I have several recordings of it that I like.
For me, a few 'sleepers' are the Ormandy/Philly, Chailly (with gorgeous playing from the Concertgebouw) and the Raymond Leppard/Indianapolis S.O. one that was beautifully recorded by the Koss headphones people. I'm not familiar with the Haitink. A number of critics really like the Jurowski/London Phil. recording, including David Hurwitz.
http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Manfred-Symphony-~-Jurowski/dp/B000FMR48Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1348559238&sr=1-2&keywords=manfred+london+philharmonic
I really should have mentioned "Manfred" earlier because it's as much 'proto-Mahler' as are the late Dvorak tone poems. I have no trouble understanding why Mahler was drawn to it. Other than "Manfred", Mahler seems to have had a love/hate relationship with Tchaik's music. By and large, he expressed borderline loathing more than admiration. Yet, he kept performing Tchaikovsky. He definitely liked the "Nutcracker", as well as the Tchaikovsky operas (as mentioned above). It's somewhat obvious to me that the "southern storm" fantasy passage - the climax to the development section of the first movement in Mahler's third symphony - was clearly lifted from "the battle with the King Rat" from Tchaik's "Nutcracker". Play them back-to-back and you'll see what I mean.
In the last year of Mahler's conducting career, Mahler got trapped into performing Tchaik's "Pathetique" symphony - a work that Mahler expressed his loathing for in previous years. Yet, it's rather funny that Mahler's 9th symphony seems to, more or less, follow the same formal outline as T6. Mahler conducted Tchaik. 6 several times with his N.Y. Phil., and I believe he even took it 'on the road' when the orchestra toured to the north (I don't have my Knud Martner book handy with me now, but I could look up the details of all this when I'm back down in S.J.).
Anyway, YES, Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" was a biggie in the canon of works that Mahler semi-frequently conducted.
-
Interesting post Barry, i have 2 recordings of the Manfred the Jurowski you mention and the Pletnev. I have to say though i find Jurowski's interpretation a tad on the dull side, its slower than Pletnev, in fact i have Jurowski's recording of Tchaiks 6th and 1st and im not a fan of those either, and i wasnt a fan of his Mahler 2 as well, there is just something about his conducting and thats either very rushed or has no momentum and i dont get the hype that surrounds him. I find Nelsons and the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra much more interesting in the Tchaikovsky symphonies.
Barry what recording would you recommend in the Manfred?
James, thanks for the info, i wasnt aware that the Unknown letters book came out after the his life, work and world book, so there seems to be a few 2nd hand copies still available on amazon.co.uk.
-
I just ordered a used copy of the Jurowski through Amazon. I think Muti/Philharmonia on EMI is a good, 'all around' Manfred. However, I like the Leppard one for its huge tam-tam smashes near end of the first movement, as well as for its excellent sound quality. Some people have very good things to say about the Petrenko on Naxos.
For me, the Pletnev was too light weight, and waaay too wimply with the same tam-tam smashes near the end of the first movement.