Listening Fatigue

No, no, no. Scherzo second is the only way that makes any sense thematically. The material obviously leads into the scherzo, as Mahler knew when he wrote it. A bad performance and a poor press made him try a different option but his first ideas and the first performance were the best, and the only authentic way to perform it. It should also be on one CD only, that is obviously what Mahler wanted and stretching it out to two CDs is just fleecing the public. Mahler may have been lots of things but he was never a fleecer.

Mahler changed the order before the first performance.

"However, during the rehearsals for the premiere that he conducted in 1906 in Essen, Germany, Mahler reversed the order. ... and at his instructions a new score was published. This was the only way Mahler ever performed the symphony." Gilbert Kaplan, Introduction to The correct movement order in Mahler's Sixth Symphony (2004).

Mahler 6:

I tend to prefer the scherzo 2nd, but that's probably because I heard it that way first. Also (and this is just an opinion) , I am not convinced this is Mahler's best slow movement. I've had a tendency to skip it when listening to recordings.

Bruckner 7

As someone said Colin Davies has played this with the scherzo 2nd. I can't think of any historical reason why this is the case. Can any of the Bruckner experts comment on this? Jane?(with or without digression!)

Vic, in an internet forum, we are nothing but messengers. So, I guess you are all these "lovely" things you describe in your real life. I bypass the "liberal", I consider as self-evident and redundant the "open-minded" (who can claim he/she is not?). However, I cannot comprehend this "politically correct". Do we have to be "politically correct" in order to be correct? Something either is right or not. Anything else is hypocrisy and concealed wrongdoing.

As for the Avison CD, the Concerti Grossi are based on the Keyboard Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. The recording of Divine Art is first class and they have done the best work in promoting, in the best possible sense, the opus of Avison. However, I have and appreciate also the (older) recording, on Hyperion, with Roy Goodman.

By the way, don't miss the marvelous and original Concerti Grossi by Alessandro Scarlatti. I have two safe and great recordings: a) one with Fabio Biondi on Virgin and b) one with Accademia Bizantina under Ottavio Dantone, on Arts (in SACD).

Parla

One thing I do not suffer from is listening fatigue. I can listen to pieces of music several times over and still enjoy it as if I had only heard it for the first time. The first piece of music I listened to was Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and that was 43 plus years ago. Treat music kindly and it will always be new. I recently bought some Schumann which is new to me, so I'll be looking forward to listening to that soon, and hopefully it will grow on me and expand my listening repertoire.

Re: Bruckner 7

I don't know which reasons Colin Davis had (I don't own the cd, so I can't check the liner notes), but I had formed my opinion about the 7th (one of the most beautiful but also the most unbalanced of Bruckner's symphonies) long before I knew that there existed a recording which reversed the order of the middle movements.

In my mind there's still some very unsatisfactory about having two very long movements in moderate/slow tempi followed by two faster short ones. It's almost like Shostakovich' 6th, another unbalanced masterpiece.

The "solution" I'd propose myself is - rather than changing the order, since unlike Mahler's 6th, there's no doubt here that the adagio-scherzo order is the only authentic one - regarding the scherzo and finale as "one movement". Works well, psychologically speaking. This way what you get is basically a three-movement symphony where every movement is of about the same length. In a live performance it helps immensily if the conductor allows only a very short pause between the scherzo and the finale.

I've got the same pet problem with the 8th, but in retrogade. The first movement is very short in comparison to the rest, and it almost works like a big introduction to the scherzo. I like it to be played that way too: again making one (virtual) movement out of the first movement and scherzo turns the 8th into a balanced three-movement symphony, much like this 7th. But I don't think there have been any attempts to play the 8th with the middle movements reversed.

The 9th is also problematic, balance-wise, since if you're going for the traditional 3-movement version, you've got the big-scale first movement and the adagio framing the little scherzo. It's like two fat people sitting on a metro bench with some poor skinny chap between them, gasping for breath. And if the finale is played, you've got the same metro bench with an extra fatso on the right.

It's strange that B.'s late period symphonies are so unbalanced compared to the early/middle period ones. If you take the 5th and 6th, they're perfectly balanced, no movement sticks out (not even the 5th's finale) or is oppressed by its bulky neighbours. The 4th's perfect too, in all its forms and revisions. The 3rd is problematic, with that huge first movement and the finale which is tiny in comparison. Bruckner's revisions didn't solve that unbalance. The 1th, 2nd, 0th and f-minor pose no big problems, but I was very surprised to hear the 2nd with the middle movements reversed, in Tintner's original version. It works fine: for once the scherzo and finale don't form such an oppressive pompous c-minor block - and the lyric qualities of the first movement make it logical that the scherzo comes 2nd, not the adagio. One wonders why Bruckner changed it back in the later revisions.