# Mahler would be fined for speeding In his own adagietto



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

These are timings of the adagietto in Mahler 5 recordings through the years. A huge spread! Mahler himself conducted the part in 7 minutes, which might be the reason for his scholar Bruno Walter is the Usain Bolt of the adagietto.

Of course, the adagietto is Mahler's 'eine kleine Nachtmusik', adopted by the public after "Death in venice" for its overly sentimental and slow interpretations. It is time for a HIP approach, let's speed up!

Note: I copied this overview from a Dutch language site, devoted to classical music: Musicalifeiten.nl, which great and impressive site is hosted entirely by Jan de Kruyff, a music journalist who still keeps his site up to date at 88 years of age. But as most of you here don't read Dutch, I take the liberty of quoting this overview, up for discussion



> Bruno Walter 7'35"
> 
> Boulez Londen 7'44"
> 
> ...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Maximilian Cobra (2021) 36"13".


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

The new Inbal recording is a refreshing 8:41. It sounds so much better.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Astonishing to think that the slowest recording in the list posted above is more than twice the length of the fastest. Maximianno Cobra is a joke so I'll ignore him.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Also interesting to note that Walter and Mengelberg knew Mahler personally and most likely heard him conduct the work himself and yet their interpretations are at very different speeds.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Try Kiril Kondrashin at 8:26. Note how he layers the masses of strings at the end. Fall in love with the Adagietto all over again.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

chill782002 said:


> Also interesting to note that Walter and Mengelberg knew Mahler personally and most likely heard him conduct the work himself and yet their interpretations are at very different speeds.


Mengelberg also conducted it much faster. See 



 where the timing is about 7:00. Mengelberg, I believe, sometimes had a penchant for rather extreme tempos on both sides of the spectrum. It is also interesting that Mengelberg was, reportedly, Mahler's favourite conductor of Mahler, beside Mahler.

As another note, I don't think we have a precise timing of what Mahler himself did. I've personally read that the movement was timed at between seven and eight minutes although more recent information might have narrowed it down to the OP's stated seven (I don't know).

If anything, it is a testament to the quality of the musical material that it works so well at such vastly different tempos.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Keep in mind that tempos in the 19th c. were generally quicker than they are today. The 20th c was something like The Great Slowing Down. Walter was the product of the 19th and understood that music needs to move and have a natural flow. I guess that's why I respond so well to the likes of Paray, Reiner, Munch, Monteux and Walter: they don't linger too long. I can't resolve that with Mengelberg, but then I've never like most of his recordings anyway - his excessive rubato and portamento drives me crazy.


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## chips (Jan 21, 2020)

I think the peculiar tempo marking, _Adagietto. Sehr langsam (Very slow)_, explains the great variation in tempo of this movement. In the latter half the 20th century, conductors seem to emphasize the _Sehr langsam_ over the _adagietto_.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Zander at 8.39. Love how the harp is played like someone strumming a guitar.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

If you're a fan of fast Adagiettos, try Rudolf Schwarz leading the London Symphony in 1958 (in very good stereo sound for the era from Everest) in 7:34, beating even Bruno Walter's version, which is very high on my list of favorites.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Haitink/Concertgebouw is 18 f**ing minutes?! That is absurd.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

flamencosketches said:


> Haitink/Concertgebouw is 18 f**ing minutes?! That is absurd.


Maybe he was having double vision that day and thought that he saw repeat markings around the entire movement :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Hard to imagine Mengelberg taking 14:13, since his recording comes in at about half that speed, 7:15, making it the fastest on record. It works extraordinarily well, I think, and is probably close to what Mahler had in mind:






Whatever the source is for those timings, I wouldn't trust it. Tennstedt is on YouTube at about 11:20, and Haitink at about 10:34 and 13:54 in different performances. Hermann Scherchen takes it at about 15:15, and time seems almost to stand still; you might begin to think you were listening to Feldman rather than Mahler, but it's interesting. I don't believe anyone could in good conscience stretch it out to 18 minutes. Even Maximianno Cobra's occupies only about 16:35 of his 19:40 YouTube post.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> ... *I don't believe anyone could in good conscience stretch it out to 18 minutes. *Even Maximianno Cobra's occupies only about 16:35 of his 19:40 YouTube post.


Well … there is Celibidache!

Apparently, the conductor didn't much care for Mahler's symphonies. I don't know if he ever conducted one, but I think not. (I believe he did once perform the song cycle "Kindertotenlieder".) Perhaps Celi felt the symphonies were absolutely _too_ big and he didn't want to invest a day or two performing one of them. I find it more believable that the orchestral musicians cautioned him against doing Mahler, since they all had lives beyond the concert hall; and likely they appreciated small courtesies like bathroom breaks and lunch, things that may not have been afforded them for quite some while had Celibidache taken on Mahler.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

As Michael Steinberg said in program note, Adagietto refers to the size of the movement, not its adagioness. Leinsdorf wrote that once he guested a European orchestra, whose leader accosted him before the first rehearsal an asked what the tempo for the adagietto was going to be -- having had a bad experience earlier in the season. Leinsdorf had to assure him it would be playable.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> Note: I copied this overview from a Dutch language site, devoted to classical music: Musicalifeiten.nl, which great and impressive site is hosted entirely by Jan de Kruyff, a music journalist who still keeps his site up to date at 88 years of age. But as most of you here don't read Dutch, I take the liberty of quoting this overview, up for discussion


Thanks anyway I was searching for months, now I know the name again .


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Hard to imagine Mengelberg taking 14:13, since his recording comes in at about half that speed, 7:15, making it the fastest on record. It works extraordinarily well, I think, and is probably close to what Mahler had in mind:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I wouldn't be surprised if Mengelberg also had a 14:13 recording; he often did strange things and conducted the longest Mahler 9th ever. Do agree the times seem a little fishy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MarkW said:


> As Michael Steinberg said in program note, Adagietto refers to the size of the movement, not its adagioness.


That seems right. "Adagietto" is a musical instruction that normally means "a little faster and/or lighter than adagio." If Mahler used the term to call the movement a "small adagio" or "short adagio," we could reasonably take that to indicate a tempo at or near the faster end of the possible range. My suspicion is that it refers not to length as such but to mood - it's a "light" adagio, not a solemn, portentous one - and if this is so a faster tempo would again be closest to his intention, the important thing being the spirit of the movement, not the precise tempo. A faster tempo for this particular piece is still easily within the meaning of Mahler's "sehr langsam" (very slow) tempo marking, which is more or less the German equivalent of "adagio."


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Thx for all your interesting contributions.

After going through them, I listened with great interest to Walter 7:35, Kondrashin 8.15 and to Gielen 8:30 (who are the fastest I could find on Spotify). I found Kondrashin's interpretation to be the most fresh and convincing of the three. The next place on the grid is Jansons in Munich at 8:52, but here already the music gets its familiar sentimental mood.

Of course, this is not about a speed contest. But as Woodduck mentions, it is about the nature or mood of the movement, which however changes considerably with the tempo. I realize that this is the case with Mahler's music more than it is with Bruckner. Celi's slow Bruckner interpretations do not change the mood of the music as they do with Mahler's adagietto.

I also note that Mahler generally uses many tempo indications in one movement, also in the adagietto. It starts of with 'sehr langsam' (adagissimo), but he also uses 'nicht schleppen' (do not drag, which apparently is ignored by most conductors). Etwas flussiger (somewhat more fluid), (etwas) drangend ((somewhat more) urgently) as well as 'plain' adagio. 
So, it means the movement at least deserves a differentiated lively approach, with quite some changes in slowness. It occurs that even the HIP Mahler conductors (Norrington, Roth), while taking a lightweight approach, keep the mood of the adagietto sentimental.

I went back to de La Grange in his Mahler biography. He writes that the adagietto was composed as a 'song without words', which means that it should be played at a tempo which would allow an imaginary singer to sing along. That said, the movement also is a counterweight after the scherzo, to prepare for the final rondo.

The way the adagietto is played, sets the mood for the entire symphony. More so, this particular movement became the signature piece for Mahler's legacy, Mahler's music for the millions, his 10-15 minutes of fame. Maybe this is why conductors keep playing it in a sentimental mood? Last year I heard Haitink conduct Mahler 9, which of course rightfully deserves the title of his 'ultimate mood piece'. Haitink, the recognized captain slow of the adagietto with 13.55 on record in Berlin, also has a dramatic record with the ninth. But last year, at his old age of 89 and almost retired, he conducted Mahler 9 in Amsterdam totally fresh and clean, not at all sentimental, but as always with great authority. A great relief to hear Mahler played like this.

As to the adagietto, I just like to add Kondrashin's interpretation, for ease of reference (it starts with the last notes of the Scherzo, sorry, can't get it exactly right):


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I am probably in a minority but I'm never really comfortable with objections about speed alone. Perhaps this is connected to my allergy to the idea that there is a right way to play a piece. The speeds an interpreter chooses (on a given day) are among many other interpretive questions and the ways interpreters answer these should be seen together. And then there is the matter of whether the performance was a live one in a concert or a studio recording. Economics comes in as well as we know that some conductors rushed some recordings so as to fit them on a single side of a disc. Not particularly with this work, but I have known slow performances that I found riveting and some that even sounded sprightly. And I have also known fast performances that seemed to plod. Speeds are not the whole story and I don't think we learn much by considering them on their own. 

As for the Adagietto, I do hate it when it is too indulgent but that crime can be committed at a variety of speeds - just as a slow speed can seem to give us sentimentality or an almost impressionistic take on the work.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> I am probably in a minority but I'm never really comfortable with objections about speed alone. Perhaps this is connected to my allergy to the idea that there is a right way to play a piece. The speeds and interpreter chooses (on a given day) are a part of many other interpretive questions and the ways interpreters answer these should be seen together. And then there is the matter of whether the performance was a live one in a concert or a studio recording. Economics comes in as well as we know that some conductors rushed some recordings so as to fit them on a single side of a disc. Not particularly with this work, but I have known slow performances that I found riveting and others that sounded sprightly. And I have also known fast performances that seemed to plod. Speeds are not the whole story and I don't think we learn much by considering them on their own.
> 
> As for the Adagietto, I do hate it when it is too indulgent but that crime can be committed at a variety of speeds - just as a slow speed can seem to give us sentimentality or an almost impressionistic take on the work.


Also, the only variable being discussed in this thread is the total length of the movement, which is not a definitive indication of how fast or slow the tempi are within the movement, except very roughly. For example, there can be lengthy fermatas at the beginning or end or even the middle of phrases, but more animated playing in between, or short sections can be played very slowly but not the remainder, in addition to how molto the molto ritardando is made. This is especially significant in this particular work, and is a major reason why there can be such a large range in total times. Playing a true adagio, but keeping a (relatively) strict and even beat throughout the movement can result in a very short timing, as Schwarz does with the LSO in the record I linked to above.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I agree. I am often surprised at how my perception of speed in a recording fails to match what the numbers tell me.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Timing is indeed not everything, however having said that, once it gets into the 12+ minute range I feel that the entire concept of the movement has been distorted.

One other question, has anyone done a comparison of how the adagietto timing correlates with the other movements, especially the scherzo and rondo-finale?


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> I am probably in a minority but I'm never really comfortable with objections about speed alone.
> (...)
> As for the Adagietto, I do hate it when it is too indulgent but that crime can be committed at a variety of speeds - just as a slow speed can seem to give us sentimentality or an almost impressionistic take on the work.


I agree, although speed certainly says something in case of the adagietto. As was mentioned before, the mood of the interpretation is what counts most. In that respect, I just listened to Ivan Fischer and his Budapest orchestra in the adagietto (Channel classics hopefully releasing a complete Mahler box with Fischer after completing the series with the 8th). He times at 10:42 (sorry to mention this first), but in all subtlety he stays away from sentimental moods and obesitas. A very interesting interpretation in the midrange of speeds! Also the balance with the final rondo is very nice, being played in featherweight.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

NLAdriaan said:


> I agree, although speed certainly says something in case of the adagietto. As was mentioned before, the mood of the interpretation is what counts most. In that respect, I just listened to Ivan Fischer and his Budapest orchestra in the adagietto (*Channel classics hopefully releasing a complete Mahler box with Fischer after completing the series with the 8th)*.


I remember recently reading that Fischer does not 'believe' in the 8th and will not be recording it.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Becca said:


> I remember recently reading that Fischer does not 'believe' in the 8th and will not be recording it.


Mr Fischer has just risen in my estimation. Lol.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Merl said:


> Mr Fischer has just risen in my estimation. Lol.


Neither of you know a good thing when you hear it :lol:


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Another seasoning in the pot: Norman Lebrecht wrote this in his book _Why Mahler?_: "The slower you play the Adagietto, the sadder it sounds." So, if it's a rapturous love song to Alma, it seems that, to justify a slower tempo, we have to presume prescience on Mahler's part!


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Well … the main thing I've learned from this thread is this: I should probably stop playing my Mahler LP records on 45 rpm speed, something I'm prone to do so I can hear as many as I can in as short a time as possible. So, you all are saying that the Symphony No. 5 _Adagietto_ should be at _least_ 7 and a half minutes long? Hmmm ….


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Doesn't your turntable have 78?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

NLAdriaan said:


> I agree, although speed certainly says something in case of the adagietto. As was mentioned before, the mood of the interpretation is what counts most. In that respect, I just listened to Ivan Fischer and his Budapest orchestra in the adagietto (Channel classics hopefully releasing a complete Mahler box with Fischer after completing the series with the 8th). He times at 10:42 (sorry to mention this first), but in all subtlety he stays away from sentimental moods and obesitas. A very interesting interpretation in the midrange of speeds! Also the balance with the final rondo is very nice, being played in featherweight.


Ivan Fischer is brilliant. I knew of him first as principal guest conductor in Cincinnati (where I remember a wonderful performance of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra), and then as a last minute replacement for an ill conductor in New York. His performance of Mahler 4 (on two days notice) with the NY Phil was the best I've ever heard.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

It is of course instructive to know how Mahler conducted his performances but we have other factors too not least the general technical skill of orchestras which has increased greatly since his day. One not only needs technical skill to play fast but also to sustain a slow tempo convincingly. Pity Klemperer did not record the work (did he?) as he too knew Mahler.


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

Becca said:


> Timing is indeed not everything, however having said that, *once it gets into the 12+ minute range I feel that the entire concept of the movement has been distorted*.
> 
> One other question, has anyone done a comparison of how the adagietto timing correlates with the other movements, especially the scherzo and rondo-finale?


Interesting thought.

In an extreme case, Scherchen's live recording made in Philadelphia 1964 -

Scherzo 5:41 (Fast but not crazily fast, just heavily cut)
Adagietto 15:13
Rondo 9:12 (So fast I feel disoriented. Don't ask me about cuts, I don't recognize anything here)

The Scherzo became an interlude, the Adagietto the main focal point, and the Rondo a frenetic postlude.

Interesting, ah? :lol:

Sometimes I can't help wondering, could this crazy case be caused by serious errors in editing and/or tape playback speed during mastering... :lol:


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SONNET CLV said:


> Well … the main thing I've learned from this thread is this: I should probably stop playing my Mahler LP records on 45 rpm speed, something I'm prone to do so I can hear as many as I can in as short a time as possible. So, you all are saying that the Symphony No. 5 _Adagietto_ should be at _least_ 7 and a half minutes long? Hmmm ….


Gustav and the Chipmunks, huh?


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Merl said:


> Mr Fischer has just risen in my estimation. Lol.


And dramatically fallen in mine! One of my favourite symphonies and not just of Mahler's.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

DavidA said:


> It is of course instructive to know how Mahler conducted his performances but we have other factors too not least the general technical skill of orchestras which has increased greatly since his day. One not only needs technical skill to play fast but also to sustain a slow tempo convincingly. Pity Klemperer did not record the work (did he?) as he too knew Mahler.


Klemperer did not record Mahler 5. Both Walter and Mengelberg (just the adagietto) and were 7:34 and 7:04 (if memory serves me well) respectively; Walter was a personal friend of Mahler's and Mengelberg Mahler's (reportedly) favourite conductor of Mahler's music.

I wouldn't bet on Klemperer taking it slow though. He recorded 2, 4, 7, 9, das lied, and some other more minor works of Mahler (interestingly, he was supposed to record 6 but it didn't work out). His recordings of 2 (disregarding the last one) were generally fast, and, for the first one, the fastest ever recorded. The recording of 4 is faster than usual. 7 is very, very, slow. 9 is a quite average tempo. Das Lied is slow, but not absurdly slow, like 7. I largely think Klemperer's reputation for very slow tempi is somewhat undeserved and is based on a few famous recordings made late in his career. However, he certainly did, over the course of his whole discography, demonstrated a willingness to take on unusual tempos (be it slow or fast) for better or for worse.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Becca said:


> I remember recently reading that Fischer does not 'believe' in the 8th and will not be recording it.


Maybe the huge cost for recording it might also be a bit of a burden on Channel Classics


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BachIsBest said:


> Klemperer did not record Mahler 5. Both Walter and Mengelberg (just the adagietto) and were 7:34 and 7:04 (if memory serves me well) respectively; Walter was a personal friend of Mahler's and Mengelberg Mahler's (reportedly) favourite conductor of Mahler's music.
> 
> I wouldn't bet on Klemperer taking it slow though. He recorded 2, 4, 7, 9, das lied, and some other more minor works of Mahler (interestingly, he was supposed to record 6 but it didn't work out). His recordings of 2 (disregarding the last one) were generally fast, and, for the first one, the fastest ever recorded. The recording of 4 is faster than usual. 7 is very, very, slow. 9 is a quite average tempo. Das Lied is slow, but not absurdly slow, like 7. I largely think Klemperer's reputation for very slow tempi is somewhat undeserved and is based on a few famous recordings made late in his career. However, he certainly did, over the course of his whole discography, demonstrated a willingness to take on unusual tempos (be it slow or fast) for better or for worse.


Of course Klemperer's and Walter's accounts of the 2nd symphony are quite different in speeds


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Of course Klemperer's and Walter's accounts of the 2nd symphony are quite different in speeds


I've only listened to Walter's Mahler 2 once and I can't really remember the specific movement lengths, but the overall length of Walter's 1954 account and Klemplerer's 1962 (or his 1965 which used nearly identical tempos) recording is almost exactly 1:20:00.


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