Has anybody else seen the new PBS documentary?

[mahler09]

You can watch all of it here before it premieres on the website...
http://video.pbs.org/video/1892824854/

It's on tomorrow at 9 (Eastern time) on PBS 2 I believe.
There's a variety of music including the Songs of a Wayfarer w/ Hampson, as well as parts of M7, M9, and the Adagietto from M5. 

I know the general consensus on MTT but thought it was worth posting.

[Jot N. Tittle]

Not to let you hang there alone, 09:

MTT's "Keeping Score" was indeed on last night at the time you indicated, but alas I was away then. At 10:00 PBS showed MTT and the SFO perform M1, most of which I was able to see/hear (I need a new-improved verb).

Fortunately, I already have the DVDs that came out recently. MTT makes a few misstatements in the first one--in which he visits (or appears to visit) Kaliste but oddly does not even show Mahler's birthplace. The second disc has the M1 performance. I like his conducting of it much more than his other keeping score performances.

Now, what was your take on the program(s)?

    . & '

[john haueisen]

I enjoyed actually seeing video of Mahler's homes and composing huts, inside and out, instead of just the usual still photos.
To me it seemed a good attempt at tying in Mahler's childhood environment with his compositions.  It was also nice to see video going out in all directions of Jihlava to show the areas frequented by Mahler as a child.   Using local military bands and small local ensembles, Michael Tilson-Thomas captured the flavor of the early influences on Mahler.

Of course, I enjoyed the up-close view of the Holzhammer as it struck for M6.  Good photography even let us see the tiny bit of dust raised by the hammer blow.  Was that the Welte-Mignon piano system that provided Mahler music played by Mahler?  If so, I both wish they had explained it, but I understand if they didn't want to bore non-Mahlerians.

How do you do justice to Mahler in under two hours?  But I think it was a reasonably good attempt and might just pique the interest of folks considering a jump into the Mahlerian waters.

John H

[waderice]

The two installments of the MTT documentary on Mahler are scheduled for broadcast in Washington, DC, around the date of Mahler's birthday.  I've already gotten them scheduled for recording on my DVR so I can go back to look at them again.  Hopefully, the local PBS affiliate here won't mess things up with the scheduling by having a fund drive at that time to cause the recording to be incomplete.

Incidentally, there is another one in the series on Berlioz, for those interested.

Wade

[wagnerlover]

To tie this to another thread on this board.  I thought the Mahler "Keeping Score" and the MTT M1 would make for a great introduction to Mahler for a virgin or neophyte.  Tilson Thomas (whatever you think of his conducting) has an obvious affection and enthusiasm that I found very convincing.

Question:  Were those old bits of Wagner they played actually recordings conducted by Mahler?  If noone knows I'll have to "frame-by-frame" through the credits.

There's another installment scheduled for next week.  I liked the first one enough to be sure not to miss the second.

db

[James Meckley]

Question:  Were those old bits of Wagner they played actually recordings conducted by Mahler?  If no one knows I'll have to "frame-by-frame" through the credits.

Although acoustic recording technology was available at the time, by all accounts Mahler never took advantage of it—there seem to be no audio recordings of Mahler conducting his own music or anyone else's. The nearest thing we have to that are the piano rolls.

I'd love to be wrong, but any recordings of Mahler conducting anything would surely have been widely disseminated and discussed by now.

James

[waderice]

Question:  Were those old bits of Wagner they played actually recordings conducted by Mahler?  If no one knows I'll have to "frame-by-frame" through the credits.

Although acoustic recording technology was available at the time, by all accounts Mahler never took advantage of it—there seem to be no audio recordings of Mahler conducting his own music or anyone else's. The nearest thing we have to that are the piano rolls.

I'd love to be wrong, but any recordings of Mahler conducting anything would surely have been widely disseminated and discussed by now.

James

As fastidious as Mahler was about performances of not only his works, but of others, had he lived longer, I'd be willing to bet that he would have avoided recording entirely until at least the beginning of electrical recording (1925).  He would have wanted everything in the orchestra to be included, and no substitution or reduction in orchestral forces, which acoustic recording often necessitated.

Wade

Wade

[john haueisen]

My review of MTT's Keeping Score: Mahler is now posted at Amazon.

It's not THE PERFECT video biography of Mahler and his music, but then who could possibly satisfy all our wishes in a two hour video?  It is, however, the best video I've seen so far on Mahler's life.   It also contains a disc of MTT and the SFSO performing M1.

John H

[barry guerrero]

I caught the first segment just the other night. This is exactly the sort of program that Tilson Thomas excels at. Obviously, we all loved the shots of Iglau and Mahler's birth town (I'm afraid I'll misspell it), not to mention all the military band and village tavern music as well. Great stuff! I wish I felt as strongly about the performance of M1 that follows, but it's still pretty good. I just think he's a bit too slow with the "Hallelujah" brass chorale music at the end of the finale. All in all, though, it's a pretty classy production.

Barry

[Wilbur]

I didn't saw that before but after watching this i came to know that the video is not perfect because it's not the actual biography of Mahler and his music.

[john haueisen]

Barry said:   I wish I felt as strongly about the performance of M1 that follows,

I agree, and am glad to hear Barry confirm my impression that the brass chorale was too slow.

It's hard to please Mahler fans, and I welcome every new attempt.

[mike bosworth]

About I month back I posted at the Mahler-List about the first "Keeping Score" disc as
follows:

"I thought it was on the whole quite well done, especially with the images
of Jihlava (Iglau) and the interesting discussion on the various local
musical experiences/influences on the young Mahler.  My one caveat is that
the creators of the film missed a golden opportunity to take a deep look
at the complex ethnic and linguistic circumstances faced by Mahler as he
grew up in Jihlava, the legacies of which remained with him for the rest
of his life."

To elaborate a bit on this point, the film fails to make it clear that
Mahler was living in a largely German city, the central city of a
German "Sprachinsel" in Bohemia/Moravia.  He spoke German at home, had
German music teachers as a child, went to the German-language primary
school and Gymnasium, the military marches he heared were of Austro-German
origin, etc.  Of course there were also Czech (and Jewish) musical
influences around him, but Mahler's upbringing was overwhelmingly "German"
in orientation.  I don't believe the film once mentions this.  It shows
Czech folk-singers, the singers in the church are singing in Czech. 

The German heritage of Jihlava (and Prague for that matter) is downplayed
in the modern-day Czech Republic, and MTT may have fallen victim to this
during his visit there in 2009 (exactly one year before my own visit).

The whole subject of how much Czech culture Mahler absorbed as a child is
a fascinating one.  It is becoming clear to me that he did know some of
the language.

Mike Bosworth

[barry guerrero]

Mike,

This is an excellent topic that you bring. I was actually wondering about how much Czech Mahler might have known, just today. But he definitely had a German speaking/reading upbringing.

[waderice]

The PBS affiliate here in Washington, DC, finally showed the MTT Mahler documentary today.  The one glaring omission I observed about the two-hour, two-part show was it totally ignored the Eighth Symphony.  When you look at the duration of the DVD version of the documentary, Amazon lists it as being 224 minutes.  When you subtract the time it would take for a full performance of M1 that the set says it has, that leaves about 170 minutes (close to 3 hours) for MTT to discuss and hopefully not overlook any significant milepost of Mahler's life and artistic development.  Now what I saw, I enjoyed very much, except with the total omission of M8.  While I agree that MTT may not be stellar in performing M1, I think that I will eventually purchase the set just to see what all was omitted in the broadcast version of this documentary.

Incidentally, the MTT documentary on Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique was quite good as well, and comes recommended.  One thing I was glad to see in that was that the principal tubist of the San Francisco Symphony brought out the historical fact (with appropriate comparative demonstration) that the Symphonie Fantastique was composed before the valve tuba was invented, so Berlioz wrote the work for an obsolete instrument called the Ophicleide, which looks to be a brass version of a Bassoon.  This documentary's duration as documented at Amazon is 116 minutes, so there is almost half of the documentary excised from the DVD release.  So I think I will get this as well.

Wade