Just watching Mahler 7 on TV with the BPO under Rattle at the Proms. Oh dear, perhaps my regard for Mahler is wearing off, but I found it overlong, discursive and, frankly, exhausting (in a bad way) to listen to. The announcer described it as 'over the top' - for me it was way beyond that.
So, have we been taken for a ride with Mahler? Or is there just too much of his music around these days? And why aren't we hearing his great contemporaries, e.g. Wilhelm Berger?
The seventh has always been the one symphony of his that has refused to stick with me. Not that it's bad by any stretch (no pun intended), but it seems paradoxically to be too little / too long. If that makes any sense at all :D
I must confess that I have never felt much love for Mahler beyond the first four symphonies. I don't think it's the giganticism, because the Third is the most expansive of the lot, isn't it? No, it's the decline in passages of heartfelt, romantic lyricism and quirky, unpredictable playfulness and their replacement by what always seems to me to be hysteria and self-pity. It's the latter characteristics which I think appeal in the age we live in, but for me Mahler never bettered the finale of the Resurrection Symphony, and it was all downhill after that. Heresy, I know, but I never claimed to be "on trend".
I think I may have reached the point when Mahler's giganticism has begun to pall. I began my trek through Mahler many years ago with Symphony No.1 (one of Kubelik's recordings, I forget which) and find myself returning to its freshness with some relief these days. Years of over-exposure may well be part of the problem for me, but I do increasingly wonder whether the trek itself has been worth it. These days I find myself favouring (a) something rather more concise and (b) something which suggests rather than batters me over the head...
My favorite Mahler -- and the only one I even have a recording of -- is the first symphony.
I *love* over the top music, in fact I probably enjoy Khachaturian's 3rd more than almost anyone (I know, not in the 'remit' but it's the first thing that comes to mind).
Take that as you will.
I too like the first. To me this is his greatest symphony.
For what little it's worth, I go especially for the fourth, sixth and ninth, and do hear the caprice there that you don't, especially in a movement like the scherzoish movements of the sixth and fourth (I might have given up on Mahler immediately if I hadn't happened on the fourth soon after hearing the fifth perhaps woodenly performed at Tanglewood back in 1987. I've since come to love most all of his works, certainly including his songs, but the first and eighth symphonies not nearly so much as other music.)
It was the 7th that hooked me on Mahler - the Bernstein NYPO recording from 50 years ago. It took a few years but eventually became quite an addict of Mahler. I spent a small fortune on LPs then CDs, going to concerts. To me, Mahler could do no wrong. The only symphony that I didn't really love was the 8th. But as I got older, more experienced, and listened to a LOT more music, my interest and the thrill has waned to be sure. Maybe it is overexposure, but that doesn't explain it all. There was a time when the local pro orchestra did Mahler and they would sell out three concerts. No more. At one point it was a real rare experience to hear Mahler live, but that's no longer the case.
There's also the problem that some conductors keep doing the same repertoire - Rattle! He's been doing Mahler since he was in LA. Give it a rest! Take up something else. Do some Elgar, Schmidt, Atterberg. He's done enough Mahler. His 7th was no great shakes in LA, his Birmingham recording was nothing special, either.
When I was in college one professor who was aware of my obsession with Mahler said that the only thing he had against Mahler was that he didn't have an eraser: he didn't know when to stop. I didn't understand what he meant then - I do now. There are moments in every symphony that I think are too long, too overblown. Oddly, Mahler is still one of the few composers I will travel extensively to hear performed live, but the "Mahler effect" is definitely wearing off. But I will be in Amsterdam, 2020.
I usually associate Rattle with the CBSO in the UK but I see he's no longer there. I like their program this year though (this (https://bachtrack.com/concert-listing/birmingham-symphony-hall/rachmaninovs-third/06-april-2017/14-15) "covereth a multitude of sins" - though I wouldn't be able to go...)
The one Mahler symphony that remains completely fresh for me is...the seventh. The reason is that it doesn't "stick" like all the rest - neither in the memory, nor in the gullet. Insanely episodic, chaotic even, I'm inclined to believe he was parodying himself. Just occasionally I wonder if he couldn't stop being "Mahlerian" for a few bars, but I believe that's part of his conceit. The cowbells, guitar and mandolin sound completely incongruous, but what the hell? No big chorale tunes intended to reach the heavens, no "poor me" hammerblows, just a celebration of teeming abundance. From another perspective one might suspect he was finding a use for all the scraps of rejected manuscript he found on the floor of his summerhouse, but I prefer to believe this to be a uniquely inventive creation. And although I've never been a great Rattle fan, his performances are often the ones that convince me the most, including last night's!
Oh, I have no problem with Rattle in Mahler, although I too wish he'd try doing something else. I'm just tired of the composer's ubiquity. He badly needs rationing, not further exposure.
I have always thought of Mahler as 'a sung' composer. At least that has been the case for the past 50 years. What makes him 'great' in many people's eyes is his unique sound. I love Song of the Earth. Now back to the unsung please.
I'd mention Rattle's advocacy of Szymanowski and Suk, but they're sung and outside the increasingly narrow scope of this forum; and this thread isn't about Rattle - or about Mahler...- so...
I think it fair to say that Marx's Herbst Symphonie is both great and overblown. Others that come to mind are Klenau and Hausegger, but one might argue over whether the former's 9th symphony or the latter's Naturesymphonie deserve the adjective "great". I find some of Havergal Brian overblown, but I think he was a great composer nonetheless.
After reading this whole thread I have to admit I don't know the meaning of "overblown" any more. Who is doing the blowing and what is getting blown over?
I do think that a debate on sung music which is "overblown" and thus ripe for demotion to "unsung" (if this is the meaning of it) is the mirror image of most discussions on this forum and as such perfectly fit to be here.
I hardly think it'd be possible or even desirable to demote Mahler's music; it's his unmerited hegemony that's the problem. As I said at the outset, it's what this situation does to the music of his contemporaries that really concerns me, one example being Wilhelm Berger.
Oh, and I'd say Mahler was pretty unsung 50 years ago. Certainly Symphony No.7 was. And I'd've thought that the meaning of 'overblown' was clear: dictionary definitions include 'excessively inflated', 'grandiose' or 'overelaborate' - all of which could justly be applied to that work.
I was sitting in a rehearsal playing 1st bassoon on a work that is beloved, popular, over-recorded and what has to be the most overblown, hysterical thing ever written: Tchaikovsky's 5th. By page 8 you're thinking "will this ever end?" The over-the-top, grandiose, pomposity is almost embarrassing. And I know tomorrows audience is going to love it. A lot of Tchaikovsky is "overblown"; understatement was not his forte. But, it is a great symphony by any measure, there's no doubt about that in my mind.
I wish I could record Wilhelm Berger one day, but suppose the "traktor"-like trajectory of cpo will take also this project for themselves one day. I have finished believing in doing more such repertoire, I have not enough connections - and they don't want me anyway because I worked for Klaus Heymann in the past.
QuoteAnd why aren't we hearing his great contemporaries, e.g. Wilhelm Berger?
Sadly, Alan, I think the answer to this question is probably the same as why we don't hear the work of many worthy unsungs - a combination of ignorance and prejudice: "I haven't heard of him; therefore, he can't be any good." It's not that Mahler is sung to the detriment of his contemporaries. It's that Mahler had some champions in the days when he was relatively unsung, so now he is popular: "I've heard of him, so he must be good." And also, in the same vein of prejudice, therefore everything he wrote must be good!
What I was trying to get at is that Mahler is over-performed; we're surely way past saturation-point in both concert hall and recording studio. Enough already!
Well, up to a point, Lord Copper! Might not the same be said of Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Brahms, Beethoven... ? I do concede that Mahler appears frequently in the concert hall, but concert promoters might tell you that that is because he sells tickets.
Oh, I'd give a lot for a cycle of Mendelssohn symphonies at the Proms! Three (1, 2 and 5) are pretty unfamiliar...
You're right, of course. But the Mahler thing's just gone too far. And I can't bear Rattle's smugness, playing the same old stuff time after time with his super-drilled BPO outfit. Try some Berger, or Draeseke, or Raff for once! Or Rufinatscha! Or even Marx!
I agree about Rattle. A good conductor, but not adventurous when it comes to repertoire (by and large) and, yes, I would enjoy a Mendelssohn cycle. No. 1 is greatly underestimated IMHO. But you remind me that - was it last year? - the Lobgesang was done at the Proms and the performance much lauded, not least by the two BBC presenters, one of whom, however, was Petroc Trelawney who could not resist adding, after praising the performance: "... not sure about the music though." - a very Radio 3 sneer, for which I do not forgive him. His smug dismissal was nauseating. I have cordially disliked him ever since!
So
Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 03 September 2016, 17:14
I hardly think it'd be possible or even desirable to demote Mahler's music; it's his unmerited hegemony that's the problem. As I said at the outset, it's what this situation does to the music of his contemporaries that really concerns me, one example being Wilhelm Berger.
Oh, and I'd say Mahler was pretty unsung 50 years ago. Certainly Symphony No.7 was. And I'd've thought that the meaning of 'overblown' was clear: dictionary definitions include 'excessively inflated', 'grandiose' or 'overelaborate' - all of which could justly be applied to that work.
Sorry, I ought to have written "de-emphasized".
Under this definition it would be the composer who is doing the "overblowing". However in many of the replies it seems to be the reception of the music that is seen as overblown. Maybe we should come up with a list of "overblowing" composers? Wagner as the prize winner in the discipline (in several dimensions, up to and including the founding of Bayreuth)? Tschaikowsky has already been mentioned. Any others? More to the point in our context: Any unsungs? Is maybe "overblowing" a way onto the list of sung composers?
BTW 50 years ago I was a teenager who went to concerts a lot. I don't think Mahler was unsung then, at least not in Zurich. And then at the university I took musicology as a "Nebenfach" (not sure how this translates into the Anglo-Saxon college world) and Mahler was extremely popular with faculty and students there. That was still more than 40 years ago.
My starting-point was 'overblown great music', prompted by Rattle in Mahler 7. And I might agree that there are stretches of Wagner which are interminable (in Siegfried, for example). But the same applies to the unsungs: Rubinstein's 4th, for example, or Draeseke's Christus.
What I was getting at is that over-performing music which is already over-the-top in and of itself is stifling exploration of the repertoire - and doing so in a peculiarly self-indulgent manner, with smugness all round, from conductor to orchestra to (in all likelihood) the breed of BBC presenter that Gareth mentions, carried along by the current seemingly unstoppable wind of fashion. It's depressing and it's everywhere.
And I can't bear said presenter either.
The Shostakovich Symphony No. 7 is very "overblown" in my opinion. It's a great listen only in context to WW2, else ...
Couldn't agree with Berwald more.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Sunday 04 September 2016, 09:18
....
What I was getting at is that over-performing music which is already over-the-top in and of itself is stifling exploration of the repertoire - and doing so in a peculiarly self-indulgent manner, with smugness all round, from conductor to orchestra to (in all likelihood) the breed of BBC presenter that Gareth mentions, carried along by the current seemingly unstoppable wind of fashion. It's depressing and it's everywhere.
I completely agree with what you are saying. I would like to use Chopin and Satie as examples although I don't consider either composers over the top. The tendency to over-romanticize Chopin by means of wrong and overblown use of rubato [nothing puts me off like this!] as if the composer was in a permanent sate of purple haze, somehow reduces this great master's music to background Muzak. Another case is Satie - His satirical and extra-musically conceived pieces end up as relaxation music or even the use of Debussy in this context [I'm not saying that it's not relaxing].
Again, the over-performing of these composers is all part of the problem.
Going back to Mahler (isn't he the best example?): Isn't there a dilemma because of the unwieldy nature--in a practical sense--of much of his music? Either you overperform him or you don't perform him at all.
You have a concert series of say 12 evenings a season. You use one evening for a Mahler orchestral work (most of them fill a whole evening). This is about 8% of the total time you have to program. So if there are more than a dozen worthy composers (I am sure everybody agrees that there are) you are already overperforming Mahler.
I think we ought to separate this particular problem from related issues like "Muzak" (meant as a generic term). Satie in Muzak isn't any more appalling than the Kleine Nachtmusik--or indeed Mahler's adagietto--in Muzak.
QuoteEither you overperform him or you don't perform him at all.
Speaking personally, I'd give him a total rest...
To me, overperforming Mozart and Beethoven is a bigger problem :-)
With all my respect for Mahler's "Handwerk", his 7th is the most boring and less tense of his Symphonies - considering his previous 6th and what all will be delivered in the 9th. The 8th has quite some dull lenghts too...
@Double-A: You are right about your Zurich time: I was there only from 1964 on, and even then, very little people knew about Mahler. At that time I studied architecture, and it was a French fellow student who intoduced me to Mahler, by giving me Klemperer's EMI LP of the Fourth, which I found strange and a rather boring. Now I like it much better, but depending on which interpretation... Then I met musicologist Willy Reich, so I got to know more about Mahler.
If I am not wrong, in 1967 or 1968, Klemperer conducted a Mahler Symphony ("Resurrection?") at the Zurich Tonhalle. I was allowed to follow the rehearsals and to talk with the Maestro. One or two years later I came across to George Sebastian's recording of the Adagio of Mahler's Tenth (coupled with Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht", a wonderful recording) - and it was mainly because of this Adagio I started loving this composer. Would I ever be asked to conduct a Mahler Symphony, I would just chose this separate movement - coupled with some of his orchestral Lieder, wich I also adore.
About Shostakovich: A couple of years ago, I was discussing Shostkaovich's 7th with the musicians of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra - we were just recording "The Fall of Berlin" - and I remember having said that the "Leningrad" Symphony is not much more than film music (no wonder it has been used to underscore a couple of Russian films). I even said that of all what DSCH had composed, his String Quartets were his best works.
QuoteTo me, overperforming Mozart and Beethoven is a bigger problem
There's a lot more to over-perform, of course!
Very interesting indeed. Thanks for those insights.
Are you still in Bratislava? And are you well?
I have to say that I do enjoy Mahler very much. The 3rd is a particular favourite of mine and the extraordinary Adagio from the 10th. But I would agree that the 7th is the least interesting of his symphonies. As Hadrianus says, it is a great disappointment coming after 6th. I have sung in two performances and recordings of the 8th, one under Sinopoli (not very inspired, I thought, but the maestro had just flown in from Italy, his flight was delayed and he was in a bad mood; he said some cruel things to the two chorus masters in front of the whole chorus, orchestra and soloists - not really fair). The other was under Michael Tilson Thomas and seemed much more exciting, though still not in the very top class. But I was more aware of the occasional longueur in the Tilson Thomas performance than with Sinopoli. A friend of mine once dismissed the 9th as "old man's music". The first time I heard it I almost agreed, but now I could not disagree more. It is a truly marvellous work IMHO.
I agree, Gareth. And the first movement of No.8 has always been a favourite of mine. But surely Mahler's overdone these days?
If we're looking at 'overblown' music that still stands up to scrutiny, surely Schoenberg's Gurrelieder fits the bill perfectly. The zenith of overblown, over-indulgent late Romanticism epitomised in one glorious work.
And I'd just *DIE* without Mahler. He can never be overdone for me (except than by conductors who don't 'get' the music).
I'm not suggesting that we should be forever without Mahler. Just for a season. Or two. Or three...
As for Gurrelieder, it's now surely being over-recorded, but it's hardly ever performed in public (unsurprisingly, given the forces required).
Try a musical diet. I've done it several times with music that I just played too much. Most recently with Dvorak. For a whole year no recording of anything by him graced the cd player. After the long hiatus I took out the symphonies, string quartets, several operas, the symphonic poems and spent a week listening anew. What a great composer! What beautiful works he wrote. Not having heard the New World in over a year let me listen with fresh ears. It's a masterpiece.
I've done the same with Beethoven, Raff, Tchaikovsky, Prokofieff and Rachmaninoff. Sometimes it would happen that pieces that I once thought were so great, were pretty embarrassing and trashy when revisited after a long absence.
So try it. No Mahler until next July 7th. Then set aside the day and listen to everything - from the quintet and Das Klagende Lied to the 10th symphony, in order - and wallow in his sound world. Just make sure you have first-class recordings available, a well-stocked bar, and turn the telephone off.
An excellent suggestion. A pity concert-goers can't go on the same diet...
This is in fact a somewhat confusing thread, since great music might be overblown in a performance (eg a brass concerto) but is either blown the right amount or the less great for it... hrm.
Mahler 7 is not what people expect from "Mahler symphony", I think- less direct expression , more virtuosity, for instance- but it's not what it exactly seems to be either. Though I could be wrong; Cooke agreed that it was the weakest of the lot, and I don't have the -strongest- of reasons for disagreeing with him.
There's some logic steps missing in that change of use of diet there from listener to whole orchestra but hrm,...
There shouldn't be any confusion. I've given a clear definition of what is meant by 'overblown' and suggested that over-performing and over-recording this sort of music is particularly exasperating, especially when it's accompanied by the sort of smugness on the part of conductors and commentators that panders to fashion and closes down consideration of other repertoire.
Now some Mahler news: there is a brand-new boxed set of all Mahler Symphonies with the Bamber Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joanthan Nott. Of course the single discs were issued over the last years. That's the next after the Zinman-Zurich Tonhalle set, which I found quite disappointing.
1) My Dr. Jekyll-side says: Who is going to buy this?? I think Tudor must have had some mighty sponsors for this Mahler project, or they had a deal that the orchestra (and the conductor) would do it for free. Now from whom will the next complete Mahler be coming? I fear it will a Dudamel DGG thing, in other words the good times for Mahler recordings seem to be gone by.
2) My Mr Hyde side says: I am going to buy it (in the shops it costs some 80 Euros) since I collect all complete Mahler Symphonies sets done by one conductor - and I really have them all. Although I am very critical sometimes, my sympathy for this composer did never vanish, perhaps not even for musica-technical reasons, but for the feelings expressed and those wonderful outbursts followed by Adagios and even some funny kitsch. Listening to Mahler's music I feel quite at home, since I am also a Cancerian and curious to discover what other conductors do with this music, since I will never be allowed to conduct it myself...
The Dude? Oh, probably.
Once upon a time a conductor's interpretations were matured over a lifetime. No we just wind 'em up and off to the studios they go...
I quite like the Zinman-Zurich Tonhalle set.... for me this is a Mahler without the histrionics usually associated with the interpretation / recordings of his symphony.
I find Zinman a rather cool conductor - which can be an advantage when there are so many 'super-heated' maestros out there. However, I'd have to have a bit more temperament in this music, I think.
I still want thorough rest from Mahler, though.
I looked forward to the Zinman cycle, tried the first when it came out and that was it. Where was the thundering passion? Then a couple of years ago the whole set came out at a bargain price that was too good to pass up: $30, about 20 pounds? The symphonies are without exception well played, sanely conducted. There are no duds - but there's not a single one that I would take on a desert isle. If you attended a live concert and the symphonies were played like this you would leave quite happy. The set has one advantage over most others: the sacd sound. On a well set up surround sound system there's a real presence of sound that is quite gratifying. And it has one sad drawback: the 10th. Why, oh why, did Zinman opt for that horrible Carpenter version?
Nott's edition: I did pick up the 2nd and 7th and was quite impressed an pleased. But neither would be a top choice. (Correction - the new released box is indeed SACD.) Missed that information when I first read about this several months ago.
And there's no doubt that the Dude is going to record them all. Why? There are so many cycles already and based on what I've heard him do, live (an awful, really awful 1st) and on record, I am just not impressed. He's up against stiff competition, and just playing loud and fast doesn't make it great. Personally, I'd really rather have a set from Mark Elder. His recent 9th was superb and the BBC relay of DLVDE from the Proms this week was terrific. Here's an experienced, fine musician who has matured into a conductor of real substance. I'd like to hear more Mahler from him.
I wonder where the record businesses are headed; how many more Mahler sets will the world support? The closure of record stores surely has influenced the buying public. Do the members of the millenial generation buy classical like our generation? I don't know. I doubt it. But that's the way the companies do it: let each new generation of conductors re-re-re-re-record the same literature again and again. And sadly, rarely are the newer recordings compare favorably to the best of the past. It's aggravating that Zinman, Nott, and others will have complete Mahler cycles, and yet two of the greatest Mahler conductors of all, Horenstein and Barbirolli, will only be represented by a handful of symphonies.
QuoteIt's aggravating that Zinman, Nott, and others will have complete Mahler cycles, and yet two of the greatest Mahler conductors of all, Horenstein and Barbirolli, will only be represented by a handful of symphonies.
Hear, hear! It's time to call a halt until conductors really have something to say...
You won't believe that today, when I visited another Vienna CD shop (Gramola), I just disovered that there is one more new complete Mahler set which just came out: one with Markus Stenz, conducting the Gürzenich Orchestra! And this costs about 50% of rhe Nott set. Nor further comments, except admitting, that I bought it... I know I am crazy...
Apropos Netrebko: while I was perusing Gramola's CD shelves, which took about 30 minutes - and just after we said quite a few bad things about Netrebko's new Verismo CD, 4 people came in to buy it. I said that this CD would make perhaps the shop's monthly rent, and he laughed. He also complained about similar "title" and "cover in costume" presentations of Kaufman and Bartoli recitals... He also mentioned that he would recognise"the usual Netebko fan's faces" coming in before they would buy. He categorically refuses to display and to sell the Chopard luxury version of this disc.
I am now at Vienna Central Station waiting for my night train to Zurich. Among the many CDs I have bought, there are the Prokofiev piano concerti with Krainiev/Kitaenko (new Melodyia remastering) and that famous live "Masked Ball" from the Vienna Staatsoper with Abbado, Pavarotti, Cappuccilli and my deraest friend Gabriele Lechner, with whom I had lunch yesterday at the Café Mozart...
After you've listened to the Stenz cycle, please let us know what you thought. His Mahler 5th from Melbourne was terrific in every way. This remake...well, I let you decide. The set is available for under $50, and in sacd, which in this case adds nothing.
It'll be for completists only - from the reviews I've read.
I have been silent on UC for a while, and am now awaiting the arrival of a new computer, but I had to get out the old laptop and see what was happening. To my surprise, we are discussing Mahler - the antithesis of an Unsung Composer! I have been confused by it all because there seems to be several overlapping arguments, including one concerning 'too much Mahler', another about the quality of Mahler's music, and another about the number and quality of recordings.
I take Alan's point that Mahler's ubiquity might be at the expense of some Unsungs like Berger, but of course one might say the same of many of the Sungs - Tchaikovsky, for example, who probably gets more airtime here in Australia than anyone but Mozart, and certainly more concert coverage than Mahler, and potentially crowds out neglected romantic Russian UCs.
There are many reasons for Mahler's continuing popularity with CD companies, orchestras, and programmers, but the most salient is probably the appetite of the public for his music. Receipts count for more than scholarly discourse. For me, every note of Mahler is precious, but I ration them out just as I do with all music. If listening reaches 'saturation' you can always listen to something else!
I always wonder if "receipts" are what drives this: Mahler's I think are the most costly symphonies in the repertoire. This ought to rather put a break on: You can probably record 10 or 20 Haydn symphonies for the money you spend on one Mahler (not that I call for more recordings of Haydn symphonies, we have plenty, most of them unremarkable).
I have no idea what drives the "Mahler boom" but there seems to be something else at work.
Presumably it's the public appetite for Mahler that drives the market? And remember that a big symphony concert need only play one of Mahler's blockbusters to every three Haydn or Mozart symphonies. :)
I am encouraged that, in the age of short-attention spans and rapid responses, at least audiences are prepared to put in the time and sustained effort of appreciating a Mahler symphony.
Can the public appetite not be educated to appreciate other music, though?
It's the managers, those mafiosi who are not interested in promoting less-known repertoire, because they know exactly that audiences are not well-educated enough and still prefer listening their Beethovens and Mozart because they like to hum the tunes they know in their bathrooms afterwards - or have already the recordings at home. In other words, such concerts sell less. We talked about this in various earlier forums... And the teacher: how many of them would be ready (and willing) to introduce younger students to Bürgmüller, Draeseke, Schreker & Co.? Most of them are ingnorants or unflexible; they would have to invest more time studying, since they too prfere the usual routine... The only big praise goes to musicians and CD labels, who really love and promote unsung repertoire, this often with sacrifices!
I think public taste can be manipulated, Alan, but it's easy to exploit what's already fashionable.
However, I agree with whoever said that we live in a golden age when it comes to UCs... due in part to Naxos breaking the hold of the big boys decades ago, quickly followed by the freedom created by the digital age. Sorry for getting off track.
An interesting question from my perspective is whether the vogue for particular composers reflects some important aspect of society. Does the public taste veer toward certain musical styles/composers when society feels under threat, when it feels buoyant and optimistic, or - say - despondent and pessimistic? The taste for Mahler might be indicative of a certain section of society in mourning, say, or perhaps seeking solace in the face of loss - and as an ex-pat it's not hard to see why that could be the case. Just a thought.....
Or perhaps, dare I say it, morbid emotionalism...?
Quote from: semloh on Wednesday 14 September 2016, 04:29
Presumably it's the public appetite for Mahler that drives the market? And remember that a big symphony concert need only play one of Mahler's blockbusters to every three Haydn or Mozart symphonies. :)
It is not the number of symphonies that interests the accountants but the number of musicians. 30 musicians can do your entire hypothetical Mozart / Haydn program (I'd say four rather than three symphonies), a Mahler symphony requires a lot more.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 14 September 2016, 07:49
Can the public appetite not be educated to appreciate other music, though?
The public
was educated to appreciate Mahler not all that long ago. Maybe this is like the sorcerer's broom: Nobody knows how to put it back into the closet now that it is working so well--too well...
One wonders though how and when and why such educations take place. I mean there would have to be some sort of concerted action among people who plan and program concerts, write the learned stuff one finds in concert programs, write CD booklets, review concerts and recordings for the press etc.
BTW I don't think Mahler is uniquely suited to "morbid emotionalism". There are other candidates for that particular niche.
I didn't say that it was uniquely Mahler whose music is characterised by or suited to morbid emotionalism. However, what I
am sure of is that emotionalism is (perhaps uniquely) characteristic of our day. This was first brought home to me in August/September 1997 when observing the extraordinary outpouring of emotion (which seemed to me at the time to be more akin to morbid emotionalism) surrounding the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.
QuoteOne wonders though how and when and why such educations take place
I'd say this was largely conductor-driven when Mahler was unknown to the wider public. A whole generation of conductors (Walter, Klemperer, Reiner, Ormandy, Horenstein, etc. and their successors - Bernstein, Haitink, Solti, etc.) championed Mahler and so educated the public. Sadly, this educational role has been largely buried amid the promotion of superstar younger conductors who jet around the world performing the same old stuff time after time after time after time....
At least in the US, a large reason for the rise in popularity of Mahler, and better appreciation and consumption of classical music in general was the printed magazine. Fifty years ago there were three I read regularly: Hi Fidelity, Stereo Review, and Musical America. The first two, while primarily aimed at hardware nonetheless had a lot of music articles, classical reviews, and interviews. There was a famous article penned by Leonard Bernstein in Hi Fidelity about Mahler, His Time Has Come. I still have a copy of a nearly 50 year old Stereo Review with Gottschalk on the cover and a long article by Robert Offergeld about his music. Well, those days are long gone. I don't know if these magazines still exist, but they long ago got rid of the classical reviews, deciding to cover pop-rock-jazz and such. And I stopped reading. Musical America still sort of exists as a small section in the bi-monthly American Record Guide. But compare that to my 1955 edition of MA that I kept and it's a staggering difference. Back then it was a large magazine - large page size and a large number of pages. The advertisements are fascinating to read. The quality of the writing puts today's magazines to shame. Newspapers used to have classical reviews - concerts and records. No more. Now, if it's not a rock or pop concert, there's no interest and no reporting. It's quite sad, really. You may have a conductor who wants to promote a work or a composer, but without the press there's no public awareness. And the internet with it's unending information is no substitute for the printed word. Having said that, there's also the nagging possibility that there is no undiscovered composer who will ever be embraced as enthusiastically and universally as Mahler - he was the last. Maybe we're just too far from the "golden age" of composing to ever have another tidal wave like Mahler brought us.
You're probably right. Sigh...
All probably true.
I am intrigued however by the question: Why Mahler? Why did all those conductors more or less at the same time champion Mahler? Nobody knows better than the people on this forum that there were other worthy candidates: Draeseke or Raff for example.
Or is it the very overblown quality of his music that drew them: The biggest orchestra (which enhances the status of conductors like a big company enhances the status of its CEO), music written by somebody who was a great conductor himself, superbly orchestrated?
Frankly, Mahler's music is much more original, interesting, emotional variated and "erlebnisreich" ("eventuful?") - which also means more "personal" in style than Raff and Draeseke: as an agent I would not ignore the latter two, of course, but give a larger prefrence to Mahler. Music of the turn of the 19th century is more experimental, sanguine, colorful in instrumentation and has gone rid of some over-used Romantic clichés. Mahler even dared to ridicule them, or to use deliberate "kitsch". The same goes for Richard Strauss: such music is for an unprepared classical amateur less "boring" than Raff and Draeseke. On the other hands, we have "classical" giants like Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart etc. whose music is not depending from particular historical "changes" and still "works" in every epoch, apart from the usual "commercial" aspects. In other words, they delivere a more "universal" message. Look at the "absolute" and "emotionally powerful" character of Brahms and Raff: both are great, but worlds apart. Raff remains mostly a composer of (excellently orchestrated) Romantic character pieces, even in his Symphonies. Good tunes, sometimes over repeated and with no excting developments, other than within traditional limits. Raff and Draeseke were excellent composers, but no geniuses, and could not make their music reach more dimentions. It is not always the concert agents, conductors and orchestras who make wrong decision by preferring Mahler, for example. Hope not to shock my fellow-members and sorry for perhaps not using right terminologies...
You can't compare Mahler with Raff and Draeseke - they're from very different generations. It would be like comparing Puccini with Verdi or Respighi with Martucci.
The most helpful way of approaching the unsungs is to see what happens when you immerse yourself in their music for a period of time. I have done so with Rufinatscha, Raff, Draeseke and Berger (my own top four unsungs) and find that, when one fully enters their world, other composers - and the memory of the impact of their music - recedes to a place which then affords room for the appreciation of a wider range of music overall. So, try a Draeseke week or somesuch! You may surprise yourself!
Sorry, but I finally can't resist having my two-penn'orth. For me the difference is very simple - a good performance of Mahler (when I'm in a receptive mood myself) makes my blood run hot in a way that I've never experienced with any of these neglected figures. Alan is surely right that one's appreciation and admiration of any composer is likely to increase as a result of deep immersion and that this can actually have the effect of temporarily eclipsing their rivals, but has performance of Draeseke ever blown his socks off? Even for the greatest of works this unfortunately happens less and less frequently as time goes on, but I'd hate to think I'll ever be left with just "the memory of the impact".
Quotebut has performance of Draeseke ever blown his socks off?
Oh, absolutely: his
Tragica Symphony. And I remember vividly the first time I heard Rufinatscha's 6th (now 5th). And I don't believe that it takes the most gargantuan late-romantic music to achieve this effect. For me, it's the law of diminishing returns. So, to return to Mahler, it's hard to disagree that his marvellous music can have a uniquely powerful effect. But, again in my view, it's like indulging in a super-rich 5-course meal: it's wonderful every once in a while, but too much too often is bad for you. So, as I said, I want to keep Mahler in his proper place, performed with a frequency which (a) permits his music to make its mark to the full and (b) affords the emotional and intellectual space for the music of other composers to take their rightful place in the public consciousness.
You are right, Alan! And it always depends on the interpretation/playing. Perhaps Draeseke is one dimension more than Raff, so there are more interesting possibilities. Raff, you just can lean back and enjoy lovely tunes, nice developments and atmospheres, but with Mahler & Co you must participate while listening: if you are not prepared, or not in the right mood, it does not work - or you have to leave. These days I am just listening Markus Stenz's Mahler Symphonies box, and yesterday it was the case of his 1st and 4th Symphonies. It's really incredible, I was totally involved and shocked from the very beginning of the Fourth. It's absolutely fantastic and emotionally done, with a lot of espressivo-rubato, very original/personal dynamic, balance and tempi changes. In a way, at last, another excellent Mahler! Of all 28 complete Mahler "boxes" I have, this version of the Fourth may surpass Bernstein's, Solti's and Tennstedt, so I am impatienly looking forward for more!
Exactly - for Mahler you have to be in the mood! When he fails to make an impact it's not Mahler that needs a rest, it's you!
No, we all need a rest from a particular composer, even Mahler - from time to time. When Mahler's music is over-performed, which was my original point, more is definitely less...
So my contention is that less is actually more. Oh, and there's far more to Raff than one might imagine. Try immersion, as I suggested - especially in the chamber music...
Right, Alan. I admit that quite a few chamber music works by Raff are more valuable than his Symphonies :-)
I am of the same opinion. I am fond of Raff's symphonies but I do think that some of his very best music is found in the chamber works.
We are of one accord.
So: can chamber music 'blow one's socks off'? I contend: Yes!!
Chamber music to blow your socks off? Intellectually speaking I'd agree (albeit with the metaphor several stages removed), but for obvious reasons there is no chamber piece that packs the same physical impact as a great symphony. With all due respect, Draeseke's Symphonica Tragica doesn't do that to me, probably doesn't even aim to be physically overwhelming, which is why Mahler (not to say Brahms and Bruckner) will always trump him in the concert hall.
QuoteDraeseke's Symphonica Tragica doesn't do that to me
It does to me. So does Mahler, of course. But that wasn't my original point at all. I was complaining about the ubiquity of performances of Mahler and the law of diminishing returns, especially with regard to such overwhelmingly powerful late-romantic music
when it is played too often. Sometimes - to name two of Mahler's contemporaries - I just yearn to breathe the clearer air of Sibelius or have the cobwebs blown away by Nielsen.
So, can great chamber music make a huge impact? Of course it can, on its own terms, which is all that matters. Comparison with orchestral works is pointless. I remember when I heard Wilhelm Berger great Piano Quintet for the first time; and Raff's 1st String Quartet too. And Draeseke's magnificent Cello Sonata. And many other pieces. I remember being enchanted for days by one of Röntgen's Violin Sonatas - and so it went on...
Gabriel Fauré's, César Franck's, Florent Schmitt's and Elgar's Piano Quintets; Schubert's String Quintet, Janacek's String Quartets, Schönberg's "Verklärte Nacht", Ravel's "Introduction et allegro" and his Trio, Rachmaninov's "Trio Elégiaque", plus, of course, many chamber pieces by Brahms, do really blow my socks off (I like this expression). And this list is terribly incomplete :-)
I agree 100%!!!
When I first heard Beethoven's late quartet in C-sharp, it was in an orchestral form (Bernstein's string orchestra arrangement.) I haven't listened to that recording (overheard in a store) since but I can't deny it caught my attention. (The work kept my attention by being itself.)
I perceive a golden opportunity to return to the "subject" (the words in the box above) here! I love to have my socks physically blown off by some great chamber music (Elgar's quartet, Shostakovich's 9th, Ravel's violin sonata), but deplore the increasing tendency of certain groups to overplay pieces such as the Schubert G major quartet. Yes, the composer was striving for an "epic" scale, but can scarcely have imagined the grandiosity and overblown intensity we often hear today. I'm not sure I want to hear Bernstein's arrangement of Beethoven's Op.131 either!
Maybe "overblown" and "knocks your socks off" are almost synonymous, at least in Alan's definition of "overblown" which is perfectly compatible with "great".
I do think though that "knocks your socks off" is not a sine qua non for great music (Raff may not knock your socks off and still be well worth listening to--especially the chamber music--to me anyway). Schumann's piano quintet to me is the ultimate knocks-your-socks-off chamber piece. To me however his piano quartet is equally great--if not greater--but the socks of the audience are perfectly safe throughout the performance.
P.S. "erlebnisreich" is maybe better translated as "full of life" or "rich with life"--"eventful" is basically just the opposite of boring and does not express the intensity adequately. At the bottom of the word "Erlebnis" is "Leben", so life in one form or another ought to be included in any translation.
My 'Mahler moment' was the Ken Russell film, which prompted me to borrow Mahler LPs from the public library. I was completely bowled over by what I heard - after 20 years of listening to classical music it was a revelation, and I still react the same way another 45 years on! Maybe that film was a small factor in Mahler's popularity during the 70s.
I'm not sure one can justifiably accuse the music-buying public of "morbid emotionalism", despite evidence that it is widespread in contemporary society [such as the ubiquity of exaggerated and superficial emotionalism in popular TV programmes]. As far as music lovers are concerned, the amazing popularity of Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, surely suggests otherwise. Maybe I am being snobbish but I would venture that such a term might be more reasonably directed at the crossover fans, who swoon over Karl Jenkins and the like, rather than those who buy Mahler CDs.
Many people's working lives suppress emotional honesty, and are frustrating and unfulfilling. In most organisations the individual is forced into a managerially defined identity which has no place for human qualities. If so, maybe music that invokes strong emotions provides a catharsis - an ready outlet for what has been suppressed. Perhaps the UCs could serve the same purpose, but at this point it happens to be Mahler... (?)
You're onto something regarding music as a way of fulfilling the absence of emotion. Most people listen to music as entertainment and incapable of deriving emotional pleasure from great music. But even trained musicians often miss out: I can't tell you the number of musicians I know, including conductors, for whom something like the last movement of the Mahler 3rd are just notes on a page to be conquered. Nothing deeper or profound can be found - just notes. There is some music that literally chokes me up; fellow listeners hear nothing. People who really care about great music DO listen on a level different from others and when the composer, performer, and listener are all aligned (in some mysterious way) real magic happens. But lest I think that my music means more than "lesser" music, I see those old films of the hoards of screaming fans listening to the Beatles; that music sure hit an emotional button somewhere (of course, there was more to it than the music alone.) There are surely plenty of unsung works that hit my buttons (Bloch c# minor symphony, Balakirev 1st, Schmidt 4th) in the same way that Mahler hits it for others.
It's bound to be different for different people. My original point was that my Mahler buttons have been pushed too often and too hard...
In my personal opinion, it is sad (or questionable) that Mahler's music had also to be promoted through a miselading film like "Death in Venice" and Ken Russel's stupid and exhalted Mahler movie (his Tchaikovsky is even more stupid). With the Visconti, Deutsche Grammophon even issued an LP with the title of "Death in Venice" using excerpts from Kubelik's recordings.
I will never pardon that Thomas Mann's Aschenbach had to be transformed into Mahler, in order to make the film more "commercial" and this also by using the Adagietto as a seducing element for audiences.
These were the beginnings of the Mahler "popularisation experiment"; suppose Bernstein did not count with such unpleasant side effects.
A note: Nothing against those earlier Ken Russel movies he did for TV - and for his congenial "Tommy"!
Russell's film on Elgar was excellent; but he became maddeningly self-indulgent with the years.
Since we have slightly diverged into the topic of screen depiction of composers, I can think of nothing worst than the trash called "The Strauss Dynasty" 1991. It reduced the Strauss family to caricatures :- Johann - A grinning idiot, Josef - a sickly waif, Edward Strauss got the worst depiction - a talent-less hack seething with envy of his brothers [Even Offenbach is shown as a sneering old man]. Johannes Brahms makes one ridiculous and brief appearance where he plays the role of a musical detective and demonstrates how the waltzes of Johann and Josef are different ... something to the effect that While Johann's melodies were natural and free Josef's melodies have an unnatural and deliberate slant probably because of his training as an Engineer. To top it all off, Edward burns the entire Strauss Orchestra Manuscripts after Johann's death because he wanted to destroy his elder brother's legacy. The entire series was so bad ... Anyone else seen this garbage?
No. Thank God!
I doubt very much that Death in Venice was made to promote Mahler. For starters it appeared at a time when Mahler didn't require promotion any more. You might argue that it tried to profit from Mahler's popularity--but he never was popular enough to help the promotion of a movie (in spite of Alan's complaint).
While you might question the decision to turn Aschenbach into Mahler I think you'll need to admit that a composer is a more suitable movie character than a writer (who is of course great for a novel--almost too great I think sometimes when I read yet another book with a writer as hero/heroine). Hence turning him into a composer is ok with me.
I do think the movie does a good job tackling Mann's themes which to me is the main thing it ought to do. Anyway Aschenbach in the book is of course Thomas Mann, but not really. Analogously Aschenbach in the movie is Gustav Mahler--but not really. I admit it has been a long time since I saw it last so I am not sure I'd still like it.
What 'Death in Venice' did was to popularise Mahler's music - especially the Adagietto from Symphony No.5. Unfortunately this has turned into the Classic FM phenomenon where all anyone knows of Mahler is that vastly over-performed piece.
Incidentally, the film came out in 1971 which was still pretty early in the Mahler boom.
Yes, but Bernstein had completed his cycle already in 1966 (except for the Adagio of No. 10) and Abravanel was already quite far with his cycle too (which he concluded in 1974). In other words, Mahler was already well-known around the world.
Death in Venice was (at least officially) not produced to promote Mahler, but the music industry did take advantage of this oppurtunity and, Visconti had an easily available and commercially promising "source music" to use (like Stanley Kubrick later on). I think producers were more clever than artists. Visconti, in any case, had declared that the Adagietto was for him the epitome of Decadence - a thing which made me furious. He also said he had transformed the writer Aschenbach into a composer in order for audience to have an easier understanding by just listening to music intead of having written texts quoted.
Critics of that time were all other than enthusiastsic about what had become of that poor Adagietto - this, among other, a totally miselading sampler of Mahler!
Incidentally, Thomas Mann had visited a concert performance of Mahler's Eight.
Sure, Mahler was widely known by the early 1970s; my point was that the boom followed rather later - two complete cycles do not a boom make! And by now the boom has reached saturation point, to which I say: enough already!
Let me be the first, and last, to bring up the irrelevant point of Mann and Adorno, in this thread. Done. :D
(But thanks for reminding me that on the 40th anniversary of the death of the composer of a opera on Death in Venice, I've yet to hear it. Must...)
Yes, please do, eschiss1 :-)
Unfortunately the main part of that Venice opera had to be sung/recorded by that usually "pleurnichant" Peter Pears. And it has a terrific part for baritone in it. Although the music is very intellectual, if it's good staged, it can work :-) Still, earlier Britten operas are more enjoyable: Screw, Grimes and Budd are masterworks.
QuoteWhat 'Death in Venice' did was to popularise Mahler's music - especially the Adagietto from Symphony No.5.
Just as a point of historical interest, that moment of popularity had been coming for a while. If memory serves (not near my references) one of the first U.S. performances of a symphonic piece by Mahler -- perhaps
the first such -- occurred during the 1906/07 season when Leopold Stokowski led the Cincinnati SO in a performance of the Adagietto.
If by more enjoyable you mean "less modern" and vice v, no worries, I know that going in.
Hey, I was searching for some resources, lay-targeted about Satie, as I used to listen to him in my teens a lot (yeah, romanticized age) abut also got interested somehow in his musique d'ameublement idea, from which allegedly ambient stemmed (how..? really?). And then I heard that some music teacher of my gfs told them once that it's a "music for ladybugs" thus dissing it. And I'm looking for info on why.
This may be the wrong forum for discussing Satie because of a change in guidelines (quite unclear from the name of the group "Unsung Composers" in and of itself, I'm afraid- sorry!) of more recent date - but individual members should I think be willing to take that interesting discussion of a thought-provoking and influential French 20th-century composer (and fellow Eric- well, Erik... :D ) into one-on-one discussion, I hope.