Too much Mahler

He encontrado este artículo del Spectator de 1999 en el que el autor con bastante humor pedía que se implantara una moratoria de cinco años sin Mahler.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199905/ai_n8831932/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1

Too much Mahler

Spectator, The, May 8, 1999 by Henderson, Michael

Michael Henderson believes there should be a five-year moratorium on the composer

Wouldn't you just die without Mahler?' The line that Willy Russell wrote for Maureen Lipman's pretentious madam in the film Educating Rita has always been good for a laugh, and now the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is using it to flog tickets for its cycle of the composer's symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall.

Mahler - The Spectacle, which began last autumn and ends next month, may, at first sight, dazzle a few eyes. Although the old boy died in 1911 with his genius largely unrecognised, he ends the century known by all. If an orchestra wants to make an impression, it puts Mahler on the programme. His symphonies are long, loud and wrenching, and can persuade listeners they have undergone a dramatic or `spiritual' experience. Often they have.

Closer scrutiny does the RPO few favours. First, to reinforce the image of 'spectacle', the advertising posters - and the concert programmes - use a pair of Mahler's glasses. What sort of feeble gimmick is this? Then there is a silly bump-itup quote from Humphrey Carpenter: 'A great event in a great hall. Well done RPO.' How can anybody pronounce an event to be 'great' before it has even taken place? Worse by far is an unattributed remark that is pure flim-flam: `One of the most significant musical events for 20 years.' Why significant? Why 20 years? Says who? When Sir Thomas Beecham founded the RPO half a century ago he can't have had this sort of guff in mind.

It wouldn't matter so much if the RPO justified those claims with fine musicianship. On the night I caught them, when the featured work was Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli, who may charitably be described as a common-orgarden hacker, their playing was distinctly moderate. Nor did it help that the singers were, alternatively, flat (the mezzo) and woefully underpowered (the tenor). Having heard this band clatter gracelessly through the Fifth Symphony in San Francisco two years ago under another mediocre Italian, Danielle Gatti, it didn't come as a great surprise.

So, the question stands: what is significant about the RPO series? It is not as if Mahler cycles are uncommon. Within the 20-year period the anonymous boaster talks of, the LSO has performed two, and the Proms marked its centenary three years ago by playing all ten symphonies in a season. Klaus Tennstedt confirmed his reputation with the LPO in the Eighties doing Mahler every other month, and Simon Rattle's visits to London with the CBSO were not exactly rare.

In addition to the crowded domestic programmes, every foreign orchestra feels obliged to bring some Mahler of its own. In this decade alone, the Berlin Philharmonic has played four of the symphonies in London. Other Mahlerian visitors include the orchestras of Vienna, Amsterdam, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, to name only the most prominent. The difficulty these days is getting people to offer something else.

It's easy to see why Mahler is such a hit though it wasn't always the case. As recently as 1971, when Kingsley Amis published that spiteful little wheeze, Girt 20, he referred to the composer's `overwhelming talentlessness'. That was also the year Visconti filmed Death in Venice, which borrowed the adagietto of the Fifth Symphony as a hymn of unimaginable longing. However false that was (it was more of a love song to his wife, Alma, than a Tristan-style Liebestod), it recruited thousands of willing young Mahlerians.

His symphonies, enormous in size and emotional appeal, can raise the roof. Played well, by an orchestra that understands the music, and led by an expert conductor, they can be magnificent occasions. Nobody who heard Leonard Bernstein conduct the Ninth Symphony with the Concertgebouw at the Barbican in 1985, or who caught Tennstedt during his wonderful partnership with the LPO, will easily forget the rapture.

The LSO venture, of which Bernstein's triumph was the crowning glory, was called Mahler, Vienna and the Twentieth Century. It worked brilliantly, because it sought to explain Mahler historically, in terms of the musical world of his time, and what came afterwards. Besides Bernstein and Claudio Abbado, the orchestra's music director, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis and the young Rattle collaborated in the process, and it was pure gold.

These days people no longer need a peg to hang Mahler on. When the LSO, an undeniably great orchestra, performed another Mahler cycle three years ago, under Michael Tilson Thomas, it was simply because they felt like it. That is not a good enough reason. Nor does it make much sense, as the Philharmonia has just done, to call something `Beginnings and Endings', when all that means is pouring small measures of Mahler-with-soda (Alban Berg and pals).

The Philharmonia closed its series with the Ninth Symphony under `the iceman', Christoph von Dohnanyi, their new principal conductor. There was some beautiful playing but the overall effect, as it tends to be with Dohnanyi, was glacial. At the end of Mahler Nine there should be complete silence for as long as possible. The silence is part of the listening experience. When the Berliners played this work at the Proms in 1994, nobody stirred for what seemed like a minute, and it was profoundly moving. Dohnanyi brought the musicians to their feet within eight seconds of the music fading away into nothingness. If he couldn't be bothered to explore this most extraordinary of 20th-century works, how could he expect anyone else to try?
Yes, there is far too much Mahler, and far too few good performers, or performances. For every Haitink there is a Maazel, making a fearful racket as though noise alone counted. For every Abbado there is a Muti, reducing a work as innocent as the Fourth Symphony to an inconsequential bore - and with the Vienna Philharmonic, to boot! Then there are those, no names, no pack drill, who should not be allowed anywhere near a score.

Sir Neville Cardus, the critic who probably did more than anybody, except Bernstein, to popularise this music, thought that Mahler was `not the most musically satisfying of l9th-century composers but certainly the most original in his way of making music, of experiencing music'. Yet he is now considered so easy for virtuoso orchestras to play, and so comfortable for CDfriendly audiences to absorb, that we must start to listen afresh.

The current RPO project, regrettably, adds nothing to the sum of human knowledge. As Cardus wrote, he was an original. His music is too precious to become part of the pattern in a well-worn carpet. Perhaps there should be a five-year moratorium, with the Arts Council empowered to license a dozen performances each season - the ten symphonies, Das Lied von der Erde and Das Klagende Lied. Those conductors deemed not to pass muster would be stripped of their batons, and issued recordings of Walter and Barbirolli to study at their leisure.

Would we die without Mahler? No. There were plenty of great composers before him, some of whom have been all but washed away in the raging postRomantic tide. Perhaps the RPO could look towards Haydn, whose wit and delicacy would, on the form its musicians revealed recently, represent something of a challenge. Are they familiar with his symphonies? After all, he wrote only 104.

Sin saber muy bien donde meterla subo esta curiosa foto a este hilo... parece que el personaje de la foto tiene la respuesta bien clara

Material no me falta para hacer la foto pero no, no soy yo, hubiese elegido el final de la Octava y no el de la Segunda

Una foto sensacional, Psanquin! Pero al individuo en cuestión le falta la camisa de fuerza, no?

X

Mola la idea!!!

Maga escribió:Mola la idea!!!

Vaya, lo que hay que leer Ya sabes que para desordenar la casa no tengo problema... pero luego, ¿recoges tu todo?

Psanquin escribió:Material no me falta para hacer la foto pero no, no soy yo, hubiese elegido el final de la Octava y no el de la Segunda

Yo también hubiese elegido la Octava . Por cierto, como se nota que todos tenemos las mismas ediciones.

Una pregunta Pablo, como puedo conseguir la 10ª, me refiero a la partitura en el full score, la Deryck Cook III y la versión Barshai, o en su defecto, el Adagio inicial?

Psanquin escribió:

Maga escribió:Mola la idea!!!

Vaya, lo que hay que leer Ya sabes que para desordenar la casa no tengo problema... pero luego, ¿recoges tu todo?

quienes son tu mujer y tu niño?
Un saludo y encantado, yo soy el Boulefílico Mahlerido, y posible Nottefílico

Te he enviado un privado sobre las partituras, José María ;-)

No todos tenemos las mismas partituras, y no lo digo por mi

Psanquin escribió:Te he enviado un privado sobre las partituras, José María ;-)

No todos tenemos las mismas partituras, y no lo digo por mi

jajajjajajaa, bueno yo tengo varias ediciones, de aquí y de allí, las de dover fueron las primeras qeu conseguí, y las de imslp, conoces la página? me hacen dudar, podrías decirme, por ejemplo, la 5ª que es la que más caña le di últimamente, que clase de edición es esa? vienen detalles de orquestación que difieren de otras ediciones, por ejmplo con la dover antes mencionada

por cierto, muchas gracias por las partituras

José María escribió:jajajjajajaa, bueno yo tengo varias ediciones, de aquí y de allí, las de dover fueron las primeras qeu conseguí, y las de imslp, conoces la página? me hacen dudar, podrías decirme, por ejemplo, la 5ª que es la que más caña le di últimamente, que clase de edición es esa? vienen detalles de orquestación que difieren de otras ediciones, por ejmplo con la dover antes mencionada

Has puesto un dedo en una yaga, vaya casualidad; el año pasado llevaba semanas trabajando con la partitura de la IMSLP de la Quinta en un ambicioso tema que algún día espero sacar adelante ;-) cuando me di cuenta de que había importantes diferencias en orquestación. Se trata de la edición de Peters ¡con la que se estrenó la obra! y efectivamente no contiene las correciones posteriores de Mahler.

Psanquin escribió:

José María escribió:jajajjajajaa, bueno yo tengo varias ediciones, de aquí y de allí, las de dover fueron las primeras qeu conseguí, y las de imslp, conoces la página? me hacen dudar, podrías decirme, por ejemplo, la 5ª que es la que más caña le di últimamente, que clase de edición es esa? vienen detalles de orquestación que difieren de otras ediciones, por ejmplo con la dover antes mencionada

Has puesto un dedo en una yaga, vaya casualidad; el año pasado llevaba semanas trabajando con la partitura de la IMSLP de la Quinta en un ambicioso tema que algún día espero sacar adelante ;-) cuando me di cuenta de que había importantes diferencias en orquestación. Se trata de la edición de Peters ¡con la que se estrenó la obra! y efectivamente no contiene las correciones posteriores de Mahler.

Pues lo primero fue quedarme a cuadros porque no me cuadraba lo que veia con lo que escuchaba sta que me puse con otras partituras y vi que habian bastantes diferencias y entonces ya me di cuenta del tema. Donde ya me quede un poco pillao dle todo, fue en un fugato, creo, del Scherzo que venía una entrada al unisono de violas y chelos, y en la trauermarch creo que tambien habia cosas, así que pasé d ela imslp, y solo la leía para cosas sueltas, por cierto hay una diferencia de orqeustación en el ich bin der welt en la que la versión boulez no aparece, no se si es un paso del oboe al clarinete y en boulez solo lohace el oboe