# Overall, who do you prefer: Wagner or Mahler?



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

If you have no problem with lists, please rank your top ten or fifteen works by them at the moment.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I admire Mahler, but still prefer Wagner. My top fifteen works by them today would be:

1. Wagner - Tristan und Isolde;
2. Wagner - Parsifal;
3. Wagner - Die Walküre;
4. Wagner - Götterdämmerung;
5. Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg;

6. Wagner - Das Rheingold;
7. Mahler - Symphony no. 9;
8. Mahler - Das Lied von Der Erde;
9. Wagner - Lohengrin;
10. Wagner - Tannhäuser;

11. Mahler - Symphony no. 2 "Ressurection";
12. Mahler - Symphony no. 4;
13. Wagner - Der Fliegende Holländer;
14. Mahler - Symphony no. 6;
15. Mahler - Symphony no. 5.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

This seems to me to be an unfair question because it's like comparing apples and oranges. One was a composer of classical music while the other was a composer of opera. They both were artists in their own right.
Being an opera lover first automatically encourages me into the Wagnerian music category first. 
As much as I adore Mahler's 5th the most, I cannot resist the compelling and exquisite music of Wagner's Parsifal and the Prelude and Love-Death of Tristan and Isolde.
The final 5 minutes of Gotterdammerung just blows me away.
So I guess you have your answer.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I don’t like Mahler as well as I do Wagner, though I don’t like everything Wagner composed. Nor do I like everything Mahler composed. But if I had to choose, I’d take Wagner‘s music.


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## LeoPiano (Nov 1, 2020)

I agree with nina foresti that this is an unfair question because I love both composers, and because they are in different fields, I thankfully don't need to compare them. But, since I am more interested in opera right now, I prefer Wagner (if I was asked this question a year ago I would have said that I prefer Mahler without even hesitating).

(I should also mention that I have only heard the Ring, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal from Wagner so I can't rank his other operas.)

1) Wagner: Tristan und Isolde. I genuinely believe that this is the greatest opera ever written. Nowhere else in opera is a work so dramatic and emotionally captivating. John Culshaw said it best in his autobiography _Putting the Record Straight_: "The intensity of Wagner's sound . . . can uplift and transform or stupefy and numb the listener. It is the nearest thing I know to a musical drug. To use a word which had not come into fashion at that time, _Tristan_--at least as far as the second and particularly the third acts are concerned--is a 'trip'. It has literally driven people mad . . ."

2) Wagner: Parsifal. While I don't believe Parsifal to be on the same level as Tristan, it holds a special place in my heart. It is an incredibly moving experience, especially to listen to all of it in one sitting. The music is so expertly composed that I feel that I am spellbound whenever I listen to it.

3) Wagner: Die Walkure. My favorite of the Ring tetralogy. Even in the slower performances, the intensity never seems to let up, especially in the 3rd act (Wotan's Farewell never ceases to bring me to tears) and the end of the 2nd act (starting at "Zauberfest"). If I want to listen to something exciting, I always put this opera on.

4) Mahler: Symphony No. 9. My favorite Mahler symphony, and one of my favorite symphonies of any composer. The 1st movement is sometimes unbearably intense (in a good way), and the quiet ending of it always makes me shed a tear. The 2nd movement is dance-like and fun, the 3rd movement is exciting with a slower middle section that warns the listener of what's to come. And, the finale. It is simply heart-wrenching.

5) Wagner: Gotterdammerung. A fitting conclusion to the Ring cycle. All of the motives from the other operas all meld together into something epic, with its final conclusion in Brunnhilde's Immolation scene. The 3rd act is one of my favorite acts of the ring, but as an entity, Die Walkure is more consistent across all of the acts, which is why I like it just a bit more.

I only did a top 5 because these are the only works I wanted to write about, but as you can see here, Wagner is the clear winner. But, as I said, since one composed operas and the other composed symphonies, I thankfully don't need to pick favorites between them. Instead, I can listen to either of them when I want to and I don't need to decide whether I prefer Das Rheingold or Mahler's 3rd symphony!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Wagner is a solid top10 composer for me, but Mahler is my #2.

Top 15 combined:


Das Lied von der Erde
Symphony 4
Kindertotenlieder
Symphony 9
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Symphony 6
Ruckertlieder
Symphony 2
Tristan und Isolde
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Symphony 10
Symphony 1
Parsifal
Symphony 3
Lohengrin


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I assume you specifically want input from people who (also) love opera? Otherwise this would make more sense in the general forum.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> This seems to me to be an unfair question because it's like comparing apples and oranges. One was a composer of classical music while the other was a composer of opera.


Opera is classical music, and I prefer Mahler.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Without trying to order them:

Wagner: All ten operas 

Mahler: Most of the symphonies

I know little else from these two composers. If I had to choose between the two, it would be Wagner, but I am biased towards opera so...


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

nina foresti said:


> This seems to me to be an unfair question because it's like comparing apples and oranges. One was a composer of classical music while the other was a composer of opera.


Very much apples and oranges, one has no operas, the other has only a couple of symphonies that really don't get much recognition and, while I have copies of them, do not make my playlist.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Art Rock said:


> I assume you specifically want input from people who (also) love opera? Otherwise this would make more sense in the general forum.


Yes, this is a complementary poll to the one that already is in the general forum. I had a talk with another member there yesterday and he suggested that Mahler was much more popular than Wagner here on TC (due to the results of a project done there some months ago), to what I replied that in my opinion the opera lovers of the community had not been considered and that, therefore, the results were not conclusive. So I decided to make this poll here to complement the other poll (he doesn't seem to believe in polls, but I do - besides, if members rank their preferences like I suggested we will have the "strenght of preferences" he asked for at least here).

It's my impression that many members who come here at this subforum don't go to the general forum frequently, and due to this the results of projects/polls done there are a bit biased against opera composers such as Wagner. I may be wrong of course.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I prefer Verdi and Berlioz.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Three cheers for not asking 'who's the best...'.  

The works of both are central to my collection, but I would choose Mahler because I play symphonic music much more than I do opera. Had the composers' respective strengths been the other way around then my vote would very probably have reflected that.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Like some of the previous posters, I also found it impossible to vote.

Wagner and Mahler have two completely different approaches to organic structure and development, though both composers certainly reward a long sit-down. Both have the power to completely envelop the listener in their sound worlds - making it easy to lose track of time over the course of an hour or more. In Wagner, we often talk about "the art of the transition" and the long light-filled climaxes. Mahler, on the other hand, is known for his kaleidoscopic shifts and fragments transformed by the context of the overall structure.

Mahler feels like a brilliant, perfectly-balanced patchwork quilt, whereas Wagner looks more like a long, flowing silk scarf of changing colors.

I could not do without either of them.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Odd that a number of members think this an 'unfair' question. Given that comparing apples with pears is a staple of the Forum, what makes this _particularly _'unfair'?

As someone who is the opposite of what the OP describes (I don't often visit the Opera sub, spending most time looking at the general Classical) I can easily say that I prefer Mahler to Wagner, if only because I'm not a fan of opera.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

That the thread is placed in the opera forum might give Wagner an advantage.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

joen_cph said:


> That the thread is placed in the opera forum might give Wagner an advantage.


As it would Mahler in a non-operatic forum. It's a unfair comparison, as many have said.


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## JohnP (May 27, 2014)

It may be unfair, but it's easy for me: Mahler.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

MAS said:


> As it would Mahler in a non-operatic forum. It's a unfair comparison, as many have said.


There's a general classical music section too, where it could be placed.

I don't think it's an unfair poll, due to certain stylistic resemblances between the two.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

joen_cph said:


> There's a general classical music section too, where it could be placed.
> 
> I don't think it's an unfair poll, *due to certain stylistic resemblances between the two*.


Sort of like Wagner is the operatic arm of Mahler and Mahler is the symphonic arm of Wagner. But there the similarities may part as their world views and basic philosophies of life may be quite different.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> Sort of like Wagner is the operatic arm of Mahler and Mahler is the symphonic arm of Wagner. But there the similarities may part as their world views and basic philosophies of life may be quite different.


I've always felt that Mahler's music has the quality of a personal confession, a confession to and for himself; composition seems to have been, in part, an exercise in objectifying his own feelings. For all I know it may sometimes have been that for Wagner as well - of _Tristan und Isolde_ he almost said as much - but the need to portray a wide range of characters, settings, situations and concepts in dramatic form required a more objective, impersonal or superpersonal, approach to musical expression. I think my sense of this difference contributes to my preferring Wagner's music over Mahler's; I'm not necessarily comfortable listening to someone expose himself in such merciless detail as Mahler sometimes seems to, and I'm always feeling, listening to Mahler, something equivalent to "that is a person who is not me, revealing things to me that I would not, in life, be a party to and might not care to hear." My response to that person may be positive or negative, depending on the piece and my mood at the time, and since it just happens that I do find some of what Mahler's seems to be reporting alien or alienating, I often dislike his music to a certain extent.

With Wagner the question of whether I'm encountering a person whose feelings I identify with simply never occurs to me; I'm being presented with a conception, not a confession, even when the music seems to be portraying states of intense emotion. The love of Siegfried and Brunnhilde is theirs, not the composer's or mine. This sense of aesthetic distance can be overwhelmed at times by the sheer visceral intensity of Wagner's music and/or the pure sorcery of his imagination, and some listeners have reported feeling uncomfortably invaded, even somehow soiled, by some of his works. I can imagine these folks taking a metaphorical shower after _Tristan_ by listening to _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_ or a bit of Satie. I've never felt that need myself, at least not to the extent that a little walk in the fresh air wouldn't restore to me my sense of belonging to the solid world of matter. One does have to "come down" from the experience of immersion in a Wagner opera, and depending on one's reaction to it one might prefer either to sit quietly for a while or to set about vigorously scrubbing the bathtub.

Mahler's works, too, may require some recovery time, especially when we feel that he's taken us through some personal journey, and our succeeding silence takes on a quality of personal respect, sadness or even admiration for the remarkably, and perhaps painfully, honest person whose company we have kept for an hour.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I prefer Wagner. Mahler is Wagner without a sense of direction.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I'm surprisingly little acquainted with either. I need to lay off the Italian for awhile and listen to some German rep.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Neither composer is among my favorites, but I like some movements (the slow ones) of Mahler's symphonies, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10; and parts (those without singing) from a few of Wagner's operas, Tristan, Parsifal, and Lohengrin.

However, I don't sense much of a stylistic similarity between Wagner and Mahler - Mahler sounds much more disciplined to me, more in the Brahms camp.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Couchie said:


> I prefer Wagner. Mahler is Wagner without a sense of direction.


I always though his music went nowhere and didn't pay off. Nevertheless, I like some of his symphonies despite the harmonic mixups (my opinion). No. 8 is my favorite.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

De facto I listen to a bit more Mahler because I don't like very much listening to opera at home. But I like the music of both roughly equally and in historical perspective I think it is no contest, Wagner is the more important composer by a large margin. Mahler was underrated until the 1960s but in the last 30 years I think he has been overrated; this may not change drastically, Mahler could remain popular for decades to come. Nevertheless, I think that Mahler was a late, sometimes overripe fruit of the symphony whereas Wagner was in many respects the high point of opera.

But Wagner's popularity has in practice hardly suffered at all despite being a controversial figure from the beginning, despite the posthumous association with the Nazis, despite his antisemitic writings, despite his strange personal takes on the myths he used, despite his obvious megalomania. 

Mahler does not really work unless one knows at least a bit of the 150 years of music before him. His music is always placing itself towards certain strains of tradition, taking from the fugues of Bach, the heroism of Beethoven, the idylls of Haydn or Schubert, the dark romanticism of Hoffmann and Schumann, the faux naivité of the Wunderhorn poems, the monumentality of Bruckner, and even the Straussian waltzes, the marches of k.&k. military. It's all fragmented, shot through with irony and reminiscences.

Wagner is of course also a product of a long tradition. But he really manages to make us believe that this is all new, that he came up as fresh with his heroic mythology as Homer or Sophocles, as if it was the first literary or dramatic elaboration of his myths.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I like all of Wagner's operas (the big 10 anyway) and perhaps the least favorite being Tristan. Mahler is great and about the only "modern" classical I can listen to, but I can only take so much Mahler at a time. I still struggle with Mahler 8 as it is just too much coming at me too fast. Maybe I just have not gotten the right recording yet.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> De facto I listen to a bit more Mahler because I don't like very much listening to opera at home. But I like the music of both roughly equally and in historical perspective I think it is no contest, Wagner is the more important composer by a large margin. Mahler was underrated until the 1960s but in the last 30 years I think he has been overrated; this may not change drastically, Mahler could remain popular for decades to come. Nevertheless, I think that Mahler was a late, sometimes overripe fruit of the symphony whereas Wagner was in many respects the high point of opera.l


Mahler had a great champion, in and after the 1960s, in Leonard Berstein who worked tirelessly to promote him wherever he conducted (his Symphony of a Thousand was a great hit, the monumentality adding to Lenny's emotional conducting). As to Wagner's "association" with the Nazis is very much not his fault and shouldn't be laid against his music. That he was a jerk, though, can't count against it either - a lot of our "heroes" have feet of clay or some baser material. His music was much much nobler that that --hole.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

SixFootScowl said:


> I like all of Wagner's operas (the big 10 anyway) and perhaps the least favorite being Tristan. Mahler is great and about the only "modern" classical I can listen to, but I can only take so much Mahler at a time. I still struggle with Mahler 8 as it is just too much coming at me too fast. Maybe I just have not gotten the right recording yet.


I can't stand *Tristan und Isolde* or *Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg* and can take *Parsifal* in small doses, but I love *Lohengrin* and much of *Der Ring des Nibelungen*, *Tanhäuser* and *Der Fliegende Hollander*.

Mahler does seem more lugubrious than he needs to be, in my view (many disagree), but I love the 4th and the 8th, but definitely not his Lieder.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

MAS said:


> I can't stand *Tristan und Isolde* or *Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg* and can take *Parsifal* in small doses, but I love *Lohengrin* and much of *Der Ring des Nibelungen*, *Tanhäuser* and *Der Fliegende Hollander*.
> 
> Mahler does seem more lugubrious than he needs to be, in my view (many disagree), but I love the 4th and the 8th, but definitely not his Lieder.


What is it you don't like about Tristan? I can see the plot (or lack thereof) putting people off, it's hopelessly romantic at best and downright nihilistic at worst, but the music itself is glorious.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Couchie said:


> What is it you don't like about Tristan? I can see the plot (or lack thereof) putting people off, it's hopelessly romantic at best and downright nihilistic at worst, but the music itself is glorious.


I like some of the music, but haven't been able to listen or watch it through to the end. It just doesn't move me.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

MAS said:


> I like some of the music, but haven't been able to listen or watch it through to the end. It just doesn't move me.


What could Wagner have changed in the score to "move" you? I must say your attitude disturbs me a great deal, Tristan not only moves me, I wonder whether anything else really does.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

I like them both and I am glad i don't really have to choose.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Couchie said:


> What could Wagner have changed in the score to "move" you? I must say your attitude disturbs me a great deal, Tristan not only moves me, *I wonder whether anything else really does*.


Consider joining Weight Watchers...


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Couchie said:


> What could Wagner have changed in the score to "move" you? I must say your attitude disturbs me a great deal, Tristan not only moves me, I wonder whether anything else really does.


I don't require Wagner to do anything to please me, thanks. Don't expect me to have a Pauline conversion to suddenly like *Tristan* because you do!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

MAS said:


> I don't require Wagner to do anything to please me, thanks. Don't expect me to have a Pauline conversion to suddenly like *Tristan* because you do!


*German accent* _We haff vays of making you enjoy Wagner...
_


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I prefer Verdi and Berlioz.


I prefer Liszt & Chopin, but I also like VERY much both of the guys. (Wagner has composed also 1-2 symphonies, not great though...) Compare operas with symphonies isn't my thing and I didn't vote.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

MAS said:


> I like some of the music, but haven't been able to listen or watch it through to the end.





Couchie said:


> What could Wagner have changed in the score to "move" you?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


>


Tom Hulce looks much better, I must say.

If I had your graphics skills I could wreak havoc on this forum.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

This is an incredibly difficult poll. However, I suspect I would tire of Mahler before I would tire of Wagner.
My favourite works of both are:

*Mahler*
Symphony no. 3
Symphony no. 6
Symphony no. 2

*Wagner*
Meistersinger
Die Walkure
Parsifal
Tristan


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Mahler's works, too, may require some recovery time, especially when we feel that he's taken us through some personal journey, and our succeeding silence takes on a quality of personal respect, sadness or even admiration for the remarkably, and perhaps painfully, honest person whose company we have kept for an hour.[/QUOTE]

Great point. If well performed - a Mahler Symphony should definitely require some recovery time.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

SixFootScowl said:


> I like all of Wagner's operas (the big 10 anyway) and perhaps the least favorite being Tristan. Mahler is great and about the only "modern" classical I can listen to, but I can only take so much Mahler at a time. I still struggle with Mahler 8 as it is just too much coming at me too fast. Maybe I just have not gotten the right recording yet.


The 8th is my least favourite Mahler symphony. I find it bombastic.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Couchie said:


> What could Wagner have changed in the score to "move" you? I must say your attitude disturbs me a great deal, Tristan not only moves me, I wonder whether anything else really does.


Some great works just don't appeal to people.


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