I hope you'll all forgive me, but I just couldn't resist adding a further note to Luca's very interesting comments. He quotes Kubik stating as follows: "It seems that Mahler did not have a very high regard for that kind of continuous legato and vibrato playing almost universally practised today- "a liquefied pulp without substance or form" as he once remarked to Natalie Bauer Lechner-but favoured instead a short range, declamatory style of "baroque" articulation."
Let us look at this statement more closely to see the level on which so much of today's scholarship, and Kubik's in particular, operates, because this makes such a fine example. Here is the entire passage in question from Bauer-Lechner (in Newlin's translation):
"At the Philharmonic concert, we heard a bad performance of the 'Pastoral' Symphony. Mahler was driven to despair by it, for he felt the lack of a 'sustained melodic line.' When I asked him what he meant by this, he explained: 'The melodic and rhythmic passages which make up the whole must be clearly shaped at all times. Instead of that, these mechanics pound it into a sort of mush without substance or form, in which there is so little of Beethoven that I wonder how it ever became popular in such a garbled fashion." (p. 45)
Now, just how screwed up is Kubik's characterization of the few words that he quotes out of context? Let us count the ways:
1. Mahler is discussing a specific performance that he witnessed, in other words, a one-time event. He is not generalizing about performance practice in his era, but Kubik treats his remarks as though he is. This violates one of the basic rules of using historical material: Never turn a specific, limited observation into a blanket generalization about a whole period without overwhelming justification and tons of supporting evidence. This is "History 101"--really elementary stuff.
2. Mahler NEVER mentions vibrato.
3. In fact, Mahler clearly FAVORS a sustained legato line, just the opposite of what Kubik maintains (and thus Mahler likely favors vibrato as well, which is advocated on sustained notes in melodic passages by even the most conservative treatises dating back literally centuries). In fact we know that Mahler encouraged abundant vibrato from the recorded testimony of those who actually played under him. What Mahler is really talking about, if you read the entire passage, is the need for clarity of rhythm, phrasing, and articulation in passages of different kind. At no point in history, not now, not then, would anyone maintain that all such passages, whether melodic or rhythmic, should be played with exactly the same kind of continuous legato and vibrato. The very idea is nonsense (as well as technically impossible, even if you wanted to do it).
4. Kubik is using Mahler's remarks on a performance that he witnessed in is own day to make a categorical statement about what Mahler's attitude would have been to a theoretical modern performance practice, which Mahler could NOT have witnessed (obviously). In other words, this is simply hot air--worthless, unsupported speculation.
5. Need I point out that Kubik's blanket generalization about contemporary performance practice is no more accurate than his misleading characterization of Mahler's actual words? Was the approach to vibrato and legato exactly the same in Beethoven's Sixth as played by, say, George Szell and Eugene Ormandy (never mind Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the king of oily legato phrasing)?
6. Finally and most stupidly, if what Mahler witnessed and criticized actually was both typical and also similar to the "modern practice," as Kubik seems to suggest, then it only proves that orchestras in Mahler's day played in a manner which is essentially indistinguishable from our own. How then can Kubik use this as evidence that orchestras in Mahler's own day did NOT play as they do today with respect to vibrato (or anything else)? Could his reasoning possibly be more confused and illogical?
Hard to believe that this is what passes for scholarship, and that this is the guy in charge of Mahler's legacy. Heaven help us! One thing I have learned, both in researching the vibrato question as well as many other issues: take any quotation or citation, go back to the original source, and chances are you will see that the source is either being quoted out of context or used in an intentionally misleading fashion--often to the point where the original source is made to say the opposite of what is clearly means. Sometimes in historical circles this is called "revisionism," but among normal people we call it "lying," and "fraud," and that is how it surely deserves to be treated. This happens with such frequency that I begin to wonder if meaningful musical scholarship of any kind is even possible any more on very many subjects, because there simply cannot be communication of meaningful information without at least some basic agreement on what constitutes reality. If, for example, Kubik can say that the one bar of specifially notated vibrato in the Adagietto means that string sections never used it anywhere else, and really mean it, then he's simply not operating from a shared understanding of what notation means, what the sources say, or what the Western musical tradition for the past several centuries has been.
Best regards,
Dave H
