This entire issue of the number of Hammerschlagen makes me wonder if some conductor someday will make alternate recordings of the finale with two, another with five, and a third one with three. Not that any conductor would want to confuse the issue, but to clarify Mahler's thoughts at various times throughout the work's gestation. What think the rest of you?
I'd be content with a
properly-done recording of the three-hammer-blow version, but so far none has been forthcoming. Of course Ben Zander made a recording of the Sixth (Telarc, 2002) which includes two versions of the Finale, one with two hammer blows and one with three. Much was made of his having altered the orchestration in the region of the third blow in order to be true to Mahler's original intent. Unfortunately this was a halfway measure, at best. This has already been discussed here at length, but to briefly summarize:
There were three published versions of the Sixth Symphony during Mahler's lifetime, all released within the span of a year. Let's call them versions A, B, and C.
Version A (early 1906) included three hammer blows, a middle-movement order of
Scherzo–Andante, and an orchestration throughout that is quite different from the one we're used to hearing. This is the version currently available from Eulenburg (Redlich, 1968).
Version B (mid-1906) was the same as Version A except that the middle movements are now
Andante–Scherzo.Version C (late 1906) had the third hammer blow removed and the orchestration revised in all four movements including the region where the third hammer blow had been. This is the version represented by the current Critical Edition (Kubik, 2010) and is what we're used to hearing in modern performances and recordings.
What Mr. Zander did in his three-hammer-blow Finale was restore the original orchestration from version A
only in the region around the third hammer blow, retaining the revised orchestration from Version C throughout the rest of the symphony, thereby creating a hybrid version Mahler never imagined.
Someone, sometime should record the
real three-hammer-blow Sixth to be found in Version A: the original orchestration of the entire symphony including all three hammer blows.
I have no particular interest in hearing a five-hammer-blow version. The two extra blows (at measures 9 and 530) existed only as blue pencil marks in an early draft of the score. They were eliminated well before the first publication of the work and were never heard by anyone. Knowing where they were in the score is enough for me. Or, as Barry suggests, I can bang my fist on the table at those two spots while the recording plays and use my imagination. It would be the wrong orchestration in any case.
James
