Originally posted by Shallow Blue
I'm certainly not a Mahler fan - can't really say why, but in a way he's always sounded a bit too random to me - but I must agree that Rattle handles the Berliner magnificently.

Richard

Very interesting. I like to hear from people who don't like Mahler.

Please tell me, in contrast, what then do you prefer to do for you what Mahler does not, in symphonic music. The older style perhaps ?

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Of course the 2nd symphony contains so many brass fanfares. The off stage trumpets in the 5th mvmt. (to be payed as far away as possible), the extended horn fanfare of "The Great Summons", the "Epiphany" with, again off stage trumpets before the hushed enttry of the chorus in the remote key of Gb major, with that delicious Bb below the bass clef for the ba ...[text shortened]... hammer blows of A minor, the Tragische is, in my view, music at its most powerful.

Much as I love the 2nd, the 6th has to be my favorite, with the first and last movements unusually being in sonata form, even with the traditional recapitulations in dominant, that ending! Those hammer blows of A minor, the Tragische is, in my view, music at its most powerful.

This is a genuine question.
Wouldn't the recapitulation in the sonata form be in the tonic ? Recapitulating BACK to the opening key ? I'm thinking Haydn and Mozart perhaps.

Anyway, I think the 6th is the most skillfully combined set of moods. It is the scope of overlapping moods that make the 6th so well conceived and written to me. He's longingly looking to his childhood, it seems, and also in the shadow of his expected demise. All this interwoven together.

In another post I'll compare it with Nielson's 6th which I think had a similar childhood to funeral conception, IMO.

Whereas the Nielson's 6th ends like his acceptance and determination to swallow a bitter pill, the Mahler screeches one last scream before the funeral drum beat pounds him down into the coffin.

(A little liturary license there)

Originally posted by jaywill
Very interesting. I like to hear from people who don't like Mahler.

Please tell me, in contrast, what then do you prefer to do for you what Mahler does not, in symphonic music. The older style perhaps ?

Well... yes. I'm a great baroque fan - there is nothing, but nothing, which beats Bach - but I also like Beethoven a lot. And some of the Russians - Tchaikovsky has done a lot of good things. Then again, some newer stuff can also tickle my fancy. I haven't heard much of Respighi, for example, but I like what I have heard. And Stravinski, and Ravel.

Richard

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Mahler, like Wagner, is one of those love him / hate him composers.

Oh, I dunno. I don't hate him, really, he just leaves me puzzled and mostly cold. As for Wagner, I subscribe to Signor Rossini's opinion of him.

No, if you want a composer I really cannot stand, look no further than that underachiever Mozart. Bloke had talent by the bucketfuls, but only wrote one piece of real music in his life, and that when he was about to pop off.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Oh, I dunno. I don't hate him, really, he just leaves me puzzled and mostly cold. As for Wagner, I subscribe to Signor Rossini's opinion of him.

No, if you want a composer I really cannot stand, look no further than that underachiever Mozart. Bloke had talent by the bucketfuls, but only wrote one piece of real music in his life, and that when he was about to pop off.

Richard

Underachiever? Surely not! I agree that the Requiem IS very moving, but I think you're being a bit hard on old Wolfgang. Only lived 36 years at a time when composers were mere slaves of rich and preferably titled employers. His music was written to please his masters. It was to be Beethoven, a bit later, who broke that mould. However, you must listen to Mozart's string Quintet in G minor, or the Symphonia Concertante, the later piano concerti and symphonies to get a real flavour of this amazing genius.

Originally posted by jaywill
This is a genuine question.
Wouldn't the recapitulation in the sonata form be in the tonic ? Recapitulating BACK to the opening key ? I'm thinking Haydn and Mozart perhaps.

Yes, you're absolutely right. I am getting confused. I think i am rightin thinking that in the classical symphonies the recapitulation of the second subject is in the tonic, rather than dominant or relative minor? Must revisit my old notes!

Originally posted by jaywill
Oh, by the way, the gong on the LSO was more effective in the 8th.

YES!! It's little things such as this that make the skin crawl on the back of your neck, like the chilling tantam in Mussorgsky's Hut on Fowl's Legs.

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Yes, you're absolutely right. I am getting confused. I think i am rightin thinking that in the classical symphonies the recapitulation of the second subject is in the tonic, rather than dominant or relative minor? Must revisit my old notes!

No big deal.

Do you play piano ?

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Oh, I dunno. I don't hate him, really, he just leaves me puzzled and mostly cold. As for Wagner, I subscribe to Signor Rossini's opinion of him.

No, if you want a composer I really cannot stand, look no further than that underachiever Mozart. Bloke had talent by the bucketfuls, but only wrote one piece of real music in his life, and that when he was about to pop off.

Richard

Oh, I dunno. I don't hate him, really, he just leaves me puzzled and mostly cold. As for Wagner, I subscribe to Signor Rossini's opinion of him.

Interesting. For example, The Adagietto from the 5th Symphony leaves you "cold " ?

What did Rossini say ? I know a few other comments.

No, if you want a composer I really cannot stand, look no further than that underachiever Mozart. Bloke had talent by the bucketfuls, but only wrote one piece of real music in his life, and that when he was about to pop off.

Cracks about Mozart usually don't bother me. Someone may take the bait though. That is not because I don't like Mozart. Probably its because he's given so much attention, it is useless to think of him as not having succeeded as a composer.

Besides, being a composer myself, I am ALWAYS on the side of the composer. If there is a composer whose music I DON'T like, it often causes me to listen even more closely.

For example, I have not heard anything by Havergall Brian which I thought was really good. That makes me return to his works periodically to hear more. I even ask why this music doesn't do anything for me.

Now there are a few composers that took me years to appreciate. Here's a short list of composers who took me about 20 years or more to appreciate:

Hector Berlioz
Benjamin Britten
Bach (maybe ten years)

The keyboard playing of Glenn Gould won me over to Bach.

Originally posted by jaywill
[quote] The keyboard playing of Glenn Gould won me over to Bach.

Very quirky, highly individual, almost eccentric readings of Bach. In the Goldberg Variations, for example, Glenn Gould dazzles with astonishing tempi, rubato and touch. I even quite like his humming (rather like Oscat Petersen), gives it mor of an authentic feel.

Yes, I suppose my avatar is a bit of a giveaway! I am a pianist and Head of Music at a boys Independant School in England (I really should know more about Sonata Form!). Trained classically, but now feel most at home with jazz.

I don't know Nielsen at all. Which symphonies would you recommend?

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Oh, I dunno. I don't hate him, really, he just leaves me puzzled and mostly cold. As for Wagner, I subscribe to Signor Rossini's opinion of him.

No, if you want a composer I really cannot stand, look no further than that underachiever Mozart. Bloke had talent by the bucketfuls, but only wrote one piece of real music in his life, and that when he was about to pop off.

Richard

“Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.” I can't help but agree. (But have you listened to recordings of Nietzsche's music?)

I think Mozart tells a good story. I have a recording of his piano quartets that I go back to (my criterion: do I want to listen to it again or not). But fluff a-plenty, to be sure.

I have a friend who loves Mahler to the point of writing a play about him ... but he leaves me cold too. So does Brahms. Tchaikovsky. Others.

Liszt ... a special case. Bus crash horror fascination, maybe, the Dante bit.

Who can I listen to on a loop? The likes of Tallis ... God help me.

Originally posted by jaywill

Besides, being a composer myself, I am ALWAYS on the side of the composer. If there is a composer whose music I DON'T like, it often causes me to listen even more closely.

Yes! Alas, hours spent listening to Schoenberg and Stockhausen ... although Stimmung (Stockhausen) really had the effect of a rare hallucinogenic on first listening.

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Very quirky, highly individual, almost eccentric readings of Bach. In the Goldberg Variations, for example, Glenn Gould dazzles with astonishing tempi, rubato and touch. I even quite like his humming (rather like Oscat Petersen), gives it mor of an authentic feel.

Yes, I suppose my avatar is a bit of a giveaway! I am a pianist and Head of Music ...[text shortened]... l most at home with jazz.

I don't know Nielsen at all. Which symphonies would you recommend?

Without a doubt, in my opinion you should start with the "Inextinguishable" Symphony #4.

I don't know the early ones too well. The 4th blew me away when a friend played it to me on his stereo, years ago.

Originally posted by jaywill
Without a doubt, in my opinion you should start with the [b]"Inextinguishable" Symphony #4.

I don't know the early ones too well. The 4th blew me away when a friend played it to me on his stereo, years ago.[/b]

OK, will do my homework and get back to you....

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Yes! Alas, hours spent listening to Schoenberg and Stockhausen ... although Stimmung (Stockhausen) really had the effect of a rare hallucinogenic on first listening.

I have heard one or two Stockhausen's that were memorable for that style.

Shoenberg and the atonal composers, you have to learn to listen for other things beside what one would traditionally listen for in tonal music. They are more like sound dramas.

I think the ear unconsciously seeks out a tonal center. But the skill with which Schoenberg is doing things is evident. Latter composers of that style, some of them, exhibit a very deep level of skill.

But I find you simply have to hunt for other things to enjoy because the tone relationships are anarchistic. In making "each note have equal meaning" I think really no note has particular meaning.

Remember, I said I am always on the side of the composer. So I have heard a great amount of music from people enfluenced by Schoenberg.