Author Topic: Pittsburgh M6  (Read 4879 times)

Offline AaronMcGarvey

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Pittsburgh M6
« on: May 11, 2012, 04:54:50 AM »
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will be performing Mahler 6 the weekend of June 15-17, as part I the final concerts of their current season. I'm really not familiar with the processes of recording and then distributing CDs but Pittsburgh has been recording Mahler with Honeck and I was wondering if anyone had a general idea of when this recording would be released? This is one I want to preorder  :)

Offline barry guerrero

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Re: Pittsburgh M6
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2012, 04:57:48 AM »
hey Aaron, it seems like Exton got out the 3rd and 5th fairly fast - faster than they did their first two releases (M1 & M4). Just guessing from what I've heard so far, they ought to do a pretty incredible 6th. Are you going?

Barry

Offline AaronMcGarvey

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Re: Pittsburgh M6
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2012, 05:19:15 AM »
I wish. I unfortunately live in Florida and being a poor college student, will have to wait for the recording. I'm expecting it will be incredible as well. I'm really excited for this one, as M6 ranks up there as one of my favorite works by Mahler, if not my favorite work.

Offline barry guerrero

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Re: Pittsburgh M6
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2012, 06:01:33 AM »
It's certainly has to be one of his most 'idiomatic' (M6). I love it as well, and have actually had a long history of both hearing it, and performing in concerts of it.

I think it's the start of a 'political trilogy': M6 - M8. It's simultaneously his most 'German' (Brucknerian) and anti-German symphony at the same time. It's a sort of an Austo-German 'Rite of Spring' before Stravinsky's "Le Sacre". In fact, if you combine the mountainous 'walls of sound' from the finale, with the alternating mixed meters from the trio sections located within the scherzo (Alma's thought of her children playing games and ziz-zagging in the sand in arrhythmic patterns) , you get - voila! - the Rite of Spring. Strange that it had its premiere in Essen, of all places, because you really could watch news reels of the troops charging back and forth on the western front while listening to the fast sections of the finale, and find that those two seemingly incongruous things fit perfectly.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2012, 02:17:42 AM by barry guerrero »

Offline AaronMcGarvey

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Re: Pittsburgh M6
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2012, 05:00:04 AM »
I had never thought of it as a Austro-German "Rite," but I can definitely see that. As with a lot of Mahler, it seems to both embrace and mock the idiom that is being used. While it may look on the surface to be a very "Classical" symphony (traditional 4 movements, etc.), he almost uses the structure to mock and defy those same conventions he is using, producing some of the most moving music in the whole repertoire. And you can almost see the troops marching along. This symphony kind of grabs the listener by the collar and demands to be listened to, at least what my experience with it was when I first heard it.

Offline barry guerrero

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Re: Pittsburgh M6
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2012, 05:18:50 AM »
Agreed. Very good description.

 

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