Listening Fatigue
Fri, May 10 2013, 5:09PM
#2
RE: Listening Fatigue
MODS
Why have my paragraphs all be squashed together? Has something gone wrong with the formatting?????
Fri, May 10 2013, 5:29PM
#3
RE: Listening Fatigue
Why is it so hard to respect the composer's own wishes? If we should go back to the first versions of every Mahler symphony, we should include the Blumine movement in every performance of the 1st as well. Still, that's hardly ever done. And how about having the 4th's finale following the 3rd's, as Mahler originally intended it?
Mahler always changed a lot in his scores during the rehearsals for the first performances. See Klemperer's account of the Prague premiere of the 7th. But his final verdict is what matters. So I find it hard to understand why this issue still divides the minds.
Mahler was right with his first thoughts. But he was an artist working in a material world. A world he feared would not take to such blood and thunder for such a long period on a night out. Bruckner was more susceptible to the demands of the paying public and what he was told they would like. Mahler later whispered to Alma ' look honey, I don't care who and how many you sleep with, but it's scherzo than andante for me, sweet pea'.
Fri, May 10 2013, 5:39PM
#4
RE: Listening Fatigue
I'll remember to shut the door before I play it with the Scherzo second, so that the offended ones won't hear it!
Or, ssshh! I might even leave the scherzo out.
Seriously though, I'm not arguing that the scherrzo should be played second, rather that there is a problem which Mahler recognised but never completely solved.
Chris:
PS: I've had that formatting problem several times, always when importing the text from a Word file.
Fri, May 10 2013, 5:53PM
#5
RE: Listening Fatigue
We expect that sort of behaviour from BBC Panorama journalists
Yep, I thought so. (Is anyone keeping count? I think I got up to ten or twelve before my sabbatical. Is it four or five since? And why?!!!)
Vic.
Vic has nothing to say on this or most other subjects but is just looking for a fight as usual. How sad he has become, sad and lonely.
Fri, May 10 2013, 7:32PM
#6
RE: Listening Fatigue
PS: Unanswered is just why Alma insisted later that the Scherzo should be second..
I have it on reliable information from an old friend who was lying under the bed at the time, that one night Alma said to her hubbie, "Darling, I think the Scherzo should be second. Mahler being very tired by then, whispered in her ear "Anything you say, my love." Next morning he heard of her affair with Gropius. Furious, he realised it had not been Alma's idea at all, and changed his mind again - Andante second.
That's it. At least I think that's right. Hang on: was it the other way round....
An uneventful vigil for your friend, if Alma's diaries are to be believed.
A lesson for us all. If you find yourself arguing with your wife over movements, there's something wrong in the bedroom.
Fri, May 10 2013, 9:31PM
#7
RE: Listening Fatigue
An uneventful vigil for your friend, if Alma's diaries are to be believed.
A lesson for us all. If you find yourself arguing with your wife over movements, there's something wrong in the bedroom.
Indeed...
I ran across this quote yesterday, which I suspect runs very true for this discussion:
'Art is never finished, only abandoned' - Leonardo da Vinci
Another piece of music where I think the issues are far more complex is Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, where we have the 11 published variations and then the five unpublished, which most performers see fit to add. I am not in any way an expert so would anybody care to explain why there seems to be no concensus about how this should be done?
Fri, May 10 2013, 9:38PM
#8
RE: Listening Fatigue
Vic has nothing to say on this or most other subjects but is just looking for a fight as usual. How sad he has become, sad and lonely.
"... and I would recommend a regualr change of name to brighten up his sad and lonely life. I'm sure it's going to work for me soon."
[Working on a new name, but Vic for now.]
Fri, May 10 2013, 9:59PM
#9
RE: Listening Fatigue
A lesson for us all. If you find yourself arguing with your wife over movements, there's something wrong in the bedroom.
Who comes first is an argument for the young, what comes first is an argument for the old it seems.
Fri, May 10 2013, 10:09PM
#10
RE: Listening Fatigue
Another piece of music where I think the issues are far more complex is Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, where we have the 11 published variations and then the five unpublished, which most performers see fit to add. I am not in any way an expert so would anybody care to explain why there seems to be no concensus about how this should be done?
Perahia plays them as published and then adds on the remaining 5 as 'extras'. It sounds small and concise. Richter mixes them in the middle and it gets a bit more rambling bit is a larger work. Both work and a pianist has a greater license in the piano repertoire than a conductor has in symphonic music. The pianist is both conductor and performer. A conductor is just a guy in a suit with a stick.
Sat, May 11 2013, 12:33AM
#11
RE: Listening Fatigue
This will change the mind of absolutely no one as to the proper order of the 2nd & 3rd movements of the 6th, but Sir Charles Mackerras, when asked why he performed the scherzo as the third movement, had this to say: "It's well known that Mahler changed the order of the Scherzo and slow movement during rehearsals for the premiere, and that he never reverted to the original again in performance. But apart from that it strikes me as so much more effective that way. The Scherzo is a kind of ghastly parody of the first movement, and for it to come immediately after the thing it parodies strikes me as silly - they're too similar. Going from the beautiful pastoral slow movement into the finale doesn't make much sense, but it works well when the Scherzo goes down into the depths, with the contrabassoon and the timpani, before that incredible chord that starts the last movement. It seems so obvious." I guess not.
He also restored the third hammer blow in the finale which Mahler removed. Mackerras had a long reply as to his reason for doing so but I'll sum it up by quoting "...Mahler's....intention was that there should be three blows, with the third being the death blow. To cut it emasculates the symphony." For the full quote see the notes written for BBC Music Magazine CD MM251 issued in 2005.
Comments on the hammer, anyone?
Sat, May 11 2013, 12:46AM
#12
RE: Listening Fatigue
Bliss, for me Mackerras' views just go to show that for performers at least the decision about what goes where will always be a matter of personal prefernce and understanding of the score. That's why I don't worry about the order - I worry about the excution of the music. I would hazard a guess that decisions about the sequence lead to interpretive decisions about how to play the piece. No doubt Mackerras played particular attention to that switch form scherzo to finale - for him it is a matter of logic. If I hear that in the performance then its a good peformance, if not then it falls short. Isn't that how we should view interpretation?
As for the third hammer blow I have no prefernec either. Again its about the execution. If you go for no third blow then the moment of its omission becomes something else, a shadow of the other blows, as if the deadliest blow has already be struck and after the struggle the body finally gives in, particularly if you magine the orchestra as the body and three blows as external to them. Keep the blow in and it becomes (I feel) defacto the climax of the symphony, leading to a threnody of sorts.
Sat, May 11 2013, 2:37AM
#13
RE: Listening Fatigue
"Listening Fatigue"? What? You mean to tell me that one day I'm going to grow exhausted of the music of Wagner - the man whose portrait I bow to on a daily basis? Good grief. If that ever happens just shoot me since listening to Wagner is the only reason I have for living.
Sat, May 11 2013, 2:49AM
#14
RE: Listening Fatigue
"Listening Fatigue"? What? You mean to tell me that one day I'm going to grow exhausted of the music of Wagner - the man whose portrait I bow to on a daily basis? Good grief. If that ever happens just shoot me since listening to Wagner is the only reason I have for living.
I already know what reply is comming: "If listening to Wagner is the only reason you have for living, you probably deserve to be shot."
Sat, May 11 2013, 3:09AM
#15
RE: Listening Fatigue
If you replace the "only reason" with a good reason, I would give you "two thumbs up", fw.
Parla
It is worth nothing if Mahler decided that it was worth nothing - which he evidently did. Obviously, a composer (or author, for that matter) can spend months or even years working on a piece and then make fundamental changes. Seen from a certain perspective, if we were to view the work of any given artist over time, we would simply see a long succession of changes......one draft, followed by another draft, followed by a sketch.........The question is this: at what point do we regard the artist's decision on these matters as final and definitive? Sometimes, we don't know. But Mahler clearly did make such a decision in this matter and he stuck with it for the rest of his life. He made the decision and he made sure everyone knew it.Your arguments (Chris) that we can ignore this final and enduring decision seem a bit weak, to be honest:(1) You say that he might have reversed it had he lived another 20 years and you are right - he might have done. But this is true of every artist who ever lived and would entitle us to make all kinds of changes without ever knowning what they might have done. Joyce might have cut Ulysees in half, Mozart might have re-written La Clemenza di Tito. The fact that we don't know if they would have done this or not can't possibly entitle us to make such changes ourselves.(2) You say that Mahler may have had his mind on other things. But quite apart from the fact that you don't know this - you can't possibly know what was going on his mind at the time - it is simply a way of discounting or disregarding the decision he did actually make on this matter. As above, you could do this to any artist. Any time it is known that they made a final decision on this or that work of art, you could ignore it on the grounds that "they evidently had other things on their mind at the time."