Overblown great music?

[Alan Howe]

Either you overperform him or you don't perform him at all.

Speaking personally, I'd give him a total rest...

[adriano]

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.

[Alan Howe]

To 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?

[Gareth Vaughan]

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.

[Alan Howe]

I agree, Gareth. And the first movement of No.8 has always been a favourite of mine. But surely Mahler's overdone these days?

[Delicious Manager]

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.

[Delicious Manager]

And I'd just *DIE* without Mahler. He can never be overdone for me (except than by conductors who don't 'get' the music).

[Alan Howe]

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).

[MartinH]

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.

[Alan Howe]

An excellent suggestion. A pity concert-goers can't go on the same diet...

[eschiss1]

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,...

[Alan Howe]

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.

[adriano]

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...

[Alan Howe]

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...

[FBerwald]

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.