[Tyson]

Too many notes in Brahms? Obviously Hesse is a musical idiot. If anything the opposite is true, brahms just barely presents a musical idea before he is moving on to the next. I'm speaking mainly of musical phrases, not of texture. Obviously brahms had a thicker texture than many composers, but his musical phrases were often short and extremely compact. Throw in some very odd and interesting rhythms and you have a seriously interesting composer.

 

[Bunnyears]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyson Too many notes in Brahms? Obviously Hesse is a musical idiot. If anything the opposite is true, brahms just barely presents a musical idea before he is moving on to the next. I'm speaking mainly of musical phrases, not of texture. Obviously brahms had a thicker texture than many composers, but his musical phrases were often short and extremely compact. Throw in some very odd and interesting rhythms and you have a seriously interesting composer.

Maybe that's why Mahler used one of his themes for the 3rd symphony? Brahms just didn't have enough notes.

 

[scottder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbhaub Oh well, I can't stand Mozart's Requiem,...

Blasphemy!!

 

[Mark from HFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbhaub Hey, I was in Cleveland for that performance. I went there for that very reason -- snow and all. What a stunning performance! I admit the work isn't for everyone, but if you are attuned to it, musically and spiritually, it packs a powerful punch. Do you realize that in this 2 hr work Schmidt uses every musical style from Gregorian Chant to 12-tone serial writing? Maybe that's the "turgid" writing you didn't like. It had monumental fugues, and seriously great organ interludes. I can't speak highly enough of this work. It's been rarely performed in the US, but is quite popular in Germany and Austria. There have even been 8 CD recordings made! Oh well, I can't stand Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. All a matter of taste...

Absolutely a matter of taste. Who knows, in time (by sampling it in bits and pieces) it may grow on me. But it didn't sit well on my stomach that night.

 

[Mark from HFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyson Too many notes in Brahms? Obviously Hesse is a musical idiot. If anything the opposite is true, brahms just barely presents a musical idea before he is moving on to the next. I'm speaking mainly of musical phrases, not of texture. Obviously brahms had a thicker texture than many composers, but his musical phrases were often short and extremely compact. Throw in some very odd and interesting rhythms and you have a seriously interesting composer.

I assume he was talking texture. The orchestral pieces are well-upholstered, and that can get glutted if the conductor doesn't sort things out and keep it moving. But then again, a lot of that texture problem is related to modern instruments. The modern symphony has a built-in well-upholstered sound, so Hesse may have been responding to how that effects Brahms when the conductor doesn't have a deft touch.

 

[boodi]

I'm listening to Mahler V ( Abbado , Chicago Orchestra )and I'm enjoying it more then a bit , maybe first time ...
did it happen to you too , Mahler taking some time on your ears to be appreciated ?

 

[DarkAngel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boodi I'm listening to Mahler V ( Abbado , Chicago Orchestra )and I'm enjoying it more then a bit , maybe first time ... did it happen to you too , Mahler taking some time on your ears to be appreciated ?

Rome was not built in a day............even with very large mahler/classical collection & 20 years of listening still discover new insights all the time.

Mahlerites
Why do you hold back, let us hear your impressions of recent purchases, come forth and be counted...........

 

[Mark from HFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boodi I'm listening to Mahler V ( Abbado , Chicago Orchestra )and I'm enjoying it more then a bit , maybe first time ... did it happen to you too , Mahler taking some time on your ears to be appreciated ?

Boodi,

The first time I heard Mahler, I hated it. Age 12, I had just started listening to classical music. It was the scherzo from the first symphony, on a Bruno Walter sampler LP (excerpt from the NYP recording). I couldn't figure out why the music seemed so urgent, so close to being ecstatic... over such a simple dance tune. But that sense of ecstasy made me curious, and so I came back to the movement over the next few weeks and kept listening to it, trying to figure out why it was so ecstatic. Soon, it had me hooked like a drug. I begged my mom to take me to the record store. She did, and there I found Bruno Walter's Columbia Symphony recording on LP. Again, listening to it at first, I was confused and overwhelmed, but that sense of ecstasy began to weave its spell. In the end, the piece ended up being my gateway into growing up, and to this day retains a vivid potency for me (at least when well conducted). Before that piece, I never knew how life-changing music could be.

Mark

 

[boodi]

you know
I started listening Mahler a while ago when I saw this thread and the hundred page dedicated to amhler made me much more the curious ..
weird that I've not stumbled in Mahler , since I'm into classical from youngness

I decided to start of with V Symphony - a quite casual choice to tell the truth ..
It's a big sadness of a movement , but I'm trying to understand it now.

 

[Mark from HFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boodi you know I started listening Mahler a while ago when I saw this thread and the hundred page dedicated to amhler made me much more the curious .. weird that I've not stumbled in Mahler , since I'm into classical from youngness I decided to start of with V Symphony - a quite casual choice to tell the truth .. It's a big sadness of a movement , but I'm trying to understand it now.

The 5th is an amazing piece, but it is big, so it may take some time to absorb. I feel that it starts in sadness and an almost crushing despair in the first movement, but begins fighting it in the second movement. At the end of the 2nd movement, it seems to give up and collapse (a moment that conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler described as the only moment of pure nihilism he had ever heard expressed in music). But then things suddenly look up (and down, and all around) in the topsy-turvy third movement, which is an ambivalent mixture of happy and sad music. Things finally calm down in the Adagietto fourth movement, which Mahler wrote as a marriage proposal to his soon-to-be wife Alma. The fifth movement is a joyous romp (although, this being Mahler, his sarcasm always lurks just beneath the surface) that builds up to a triumphant ending. Whether the ending is taken as sincere or desperately-trying-to-look-sincere varies from listener to listener. I happen to think that, boosted by his love for Alma, the 5th was one of the few times Mahler really reached a sincere moment of triumph, and his music reflects it.

 

[boodi]

next step ... ( since it's taking long before I fully absorb it probably

) ..
I'm thorned between the IX and the I/II .

 

[Yikes]

New discs received today.

Mahler Symphony No.4 Reiner/Chicago RCA Living Stereo SACD (New re-master done in my building by Soundmirror. I was able to listen to the original session tapes)

Elgar Violin Concerto/Williams The Lark Ascending London Sym Orch/Davis with Hilary Hahn SACD DG

Bruckner The Complete Symphonies Tintner/Royal Scottish National Orchestra Naxos white box $ 50 for an 11 cd set.

Unfortunately The Telarc Slatkin Mahler No. 2 SACD didn't ship with the rest.

I'll post thoughts on the No. 4 reissue tonight or tomorrow after I have a chance to listen to it.

 

[Mark from HFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boodi next step ... ( since it's taking long before I fully absorb it probably ) .. I'm thorned between the IX and the I/II .

Depends on what you like, I suppose. The IX is much more emotionally complex than I or II, but then, you always find different layers of emotion in Mahler. The earlier works are a little quicker to absorb than from V onward. Starting with V, Mahler's textures got busier, more complex. Then in Das Lied, IX, and what he finished of X, the textures are stripped back, but the emotions grow even more complex. Some people might be able to go right into IX, but I didn't really comprehend it until I knew most of his earlier symphonies.

 

[PSmith08]

I liked and still like the M2. I prefer it to most of his other work (although the 7th is a strong contender). The M7, M4, and the M5 follow in that order. I think the M5 is tied with the M2 for recordings I have of it. I recommend, to be honest, the Abbado release from 1993. He doesn't get fancy, and he isn't as slow as Barbirolli (also all of the major horn cues are there). Barenboim's Teldec outing is nice, but I sense more Wagner in the background than Mahler probably intended for the 5th. Also, it's live and too noisy for me. Von Karajan's '75 recording is about like Barbirolli's, except that it is characteristically emotionally barren.

I'd start with the 2nd, as opposed to the 5th or 7th. The 4th isn't a bad jumping-off point, either.

 

[Mark from HFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSmith08 Barenboim's Teldec outing is nice, but I sense more Wagner in the background than Mahler probably intended for the 5th. Also, it's live and too noisy for me.

Whatever is there it sure doesn't sound like Mahler in Barenboim's hands. I like his first movement, very stern and monolithic, but from there it just devolves into a grim, humorless, rigid affair. Has anyone ever made the finale sound less joyful? I played it once to a friend who was only just beginning to get into Mahler and he said, "Am I missing something or is this performance just not right at all?" I congratulated him on his perspicacity.