# Mahler 6 Order of Movements?



## Star

I know there is some controversy about the order the movements of Mahler 6 should be played in. I feel to have the slow movement second to break up the march like movements which usually are 1 and 2

Any thoughts people?


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## Larkenfield

...............


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## Larkenfield

The order has often been discussed on other threads. Mahler always played the Andante before the Scherzo publicly. Always. So did others while he was alive. It was only after his death that his wife, years later, took the liberty of meddling with the order, obviously without his permission, as he had officially instructed his publisher in the revised edition that he wanted Andante-Scherzo, and always performed it that way during his lifetime. The symphony is just too unrelentingly top heavy with turbulence with the middle two movements in the reverse order. It needs the relief of the Andante second, IMO, and it's the only order that I will listen to this great symphony. Here is the history of the ordering for those who are interested:

http://www.posthorn.com/Mahler/Correct_Movement_Order_III.pdf


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## EdwardBast

Star said:


> I know there is some controversy about the order the movements of Mahler 6 should be played in. I feel to have the slow movement second to break up the march like movements which usually are 1 and 2
> 
> Any thoughts people?


We had this discussion rather recently. There is no real controversy. The slow movement goes second based on overwhelming historical and documentary evidence. The only thing I would quibble with Larkenfield about is that the blame for the screw up should go primarily to editor Erwin Ratz who for no good reason put the slow movement third in the complete edition.


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## wkasimer

Larkenfield said:


> The symphony is just too unrelentingly top heavy with turbulence with the middle two movements in the reverse order. It needs the relief of the Andante second, IMO, and it's the only order that I will listen to this great symphony.


I haven't quite made up my mind which order I prefer, although I recognize that Andante-Scherzo is the order that Mahler eventually wanted and performed. But the finale is also pretty relentlessly heavy (and rather long), so putting the Scherzo third makes the symphony bottom-heavy. It becomes a choice between 40 minutes of relentless angst up front, or 45 minutes on the back end.


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## Bill Cooke

My personal preference is Scherzo-Adante. I like having an episode of relative peace before the onslaught of the final movement.


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## Larkenfield

Well, it’s an agitated and turbulent symphony anyway with a large measure of suffering. But its overall emphasis is dramatically changed depending on where the calmness, peace and psychic relief of the Andante is placed, and Mahler obviously preferred his final ordering for a reason, or one can assume that he never would have instructed his publisher to print the score as A-S... Those who prefer those movements reversed probably heard the symphony that way in the first place and are unlikely to ever change their preference, regardless of the way Mahler always conducted the symphony himself, and others did for almost 10 years after his death. Then came the unwarranted change by Alma Mahler, and later the misguided Ratz edition that sought to ratify the unwarranted change... IMO, the symphony, which is full of conflict and suffering already, is made even darker, more pessimistic or foreboding, with the continuation of the unrelenting fateful pounding at the beginning of the Scherzo in the second position, and I see that as another reason why he wanted the Andante after the first movement and officially instructed his publisher accordingly during his lifetime. Mahler never recanted in the five remaining years of his life, and his published score of A-S for the 6th can be viewed at IMSLP, but it is often still ignored.


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## Becca

I was fortunate enough to be originally exposed to it in the A-S format by Rattle/CBSO and Barbirolli/NewPhil, although in the latter case, the record producers reversed the order in the original release. Needless to say, Barbirolli was not pleased.


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## Heck148

Bill Cooke said:


> My personal preference is Scherzo-Adante. I like having an episode of relative peace before the onslaught of the final movement.


I tend to agree with this pov.


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## mbhaub

There's been a lot written about the order of the two middle movements. A/S or S/A? And a lot of nonsense. In Mahler's first published edition is was clearly S/A. In the second edition it was changed to A/S, but Mahler's third and final performance he resorted back to S/A. His first idea was S/A and his final was, too. He did deliberate about it quite a bit. He most certainly did NOT conduct it in the same order every time - he did, after all, only perform it three times. Personally, I prefer S/A but listening to it A/S really changes the emotional response. The Sixth will always be a dual-version work, not unlike the Bruckner symphonies. I'm not sure there is a "correct" way to do it - there are several.

The most exciting, dramatic and compelling performance I have ever heard, live or recorded, was in Tucson of all places where the conductor, the brilliant George Hanson, resorted to the original and used A/S and a Finale with all three hammer strokes. Why not? Mahler did die after all.


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## Phil loves classical

From my perspective, where I don’t care what Mahler intended either way, but what sounds better and more logical to me is the Andante before Scherzo to follow the more traditional symphony format, having the slow movement after the heavier first movement. The slow movement 3rd works well in Beethoven’s 9th, after a more bouncy scherzo, and is more monumental in its timing.


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## Becca

mbhaub said:


> There's been a lot written about the order of the two middle movements. A/S or S/A? And a lot of nonsense. In Mahler's first published edition is was clearly S/A. In the second edition it was changed to A/S, but Mahler's third and final performance he resorted back to S/A. His first idea was S/A and his final was, too.


Au contraire... From http://www.posthorn.com/Mahler/Correct_Movement_Order_III.pdf

"However, during the rehearsals for the premiere that he conducted in 1906 in Essen, Germany, Mahler reversed the order. Perhaps he felt that the opening of the Scherzo was a bit too similar to the first movement. Perhaps he came to prefer the gentle Andante as a change of pace before returning to the turmoil of the Scherzo. It's unlikely we'll ever know why Mahler made the switch, but no one questions that he did so, and at his instructions a new score was published. This was the only way Mahler ever performed the symphony. With only a few exceptions,this was also the order followed by conductors for more than 50 years."

[Referring to the idea that S/A makes more sense...]
"This idea, though, fails to acknowledge that the order in which Mahler performed the work was also the order he mandated his publisher use in a new, corrected score."
- Gilbert Kaplan - Rescuing Mahler from the "Rescuer"

"The currently available evidence, which clearly supports the A-S order of inner movements, is that:
• All of Mahler's own performances of his Sixth Symphony, without exception, had its Andante precede the Scherzo.
(Essen, May 27, 1906 (premiere); Munich, November 8, 1906; Vienna, January 4, 1907)
• All other performances of the Sixth during Mahler's lifetime, and for almost a decade thereafter, observed his final Andante-Scherzo order.
• No record exists of any written or verbal instruction by Mahler himself to his friends, associates, other conductors or his publishers to indicate that he ever intended to revert to his earlier ordering of these movements."

"On May 27,1906, Mahler conducted his Sixth Symphony for the first time in public. Following the concert, Mahler contacted his publisherto request that the scores Kahnt had already been selling for three months be updated and/or replaced. He asked that an erratum slip be inserted in each of the unsold copies of all three scores to advise buyers that the inner movements were now to be reversed. Mahler further requested that Kahnt prepare new editions of the study and piano reduction scores with the new order of middle movements, and also make the corresponding change in Specht's "Thematic Analysis" booklet."

- Jerry Bruck - Undoing a "Tragic" Mistake


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## Larkenfield

The soaring live performance of the 6th by Sir John Barbirolli, as if the composer himself was being repeatedly hammered by Fate. Later in life it happened with the death of Mahler's daughter and his own terminal ill health. Barbirolli was a champion of Mahler's preferred 2nd & 3rd published order of the Andante before the Scherzo and never performed it otherwise, nor did others during Mahler's lifetime.


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## Becca

Larkenfield said:


> The legendary performance by Sir John Barbirolli. It's almost as if the composer himself was being repeatedly hammered by Fate when it finally happened.


Listen to the recording on Testament made at a Proms concert a few days before the studio recording, it's what the studio recording should have been, especially in the first movment.


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## Larkenfield

mbhaub said:


> There's been a lot written about the order of the two middle movements. A/S or S/A? And a lot of nonsense. In Mahler's first published edition is was clearly S/A. In the second edition it was changed to A/S, but Mahler's third and final performance he resorted back to S/A. His first idea was S/A and his final was, too. He did deliberate about it quite a bit. He most certainly did NOT conduct it in the same order every time - he did, after all, only perform it three times. Personally, I prefer S/A but listening to it A/S really changes the emotional response. The Sixth will always be a dual-version work, not unlike the Bruckner symphonies. I'm not sure there is a "correct" way to do it - there are several.
> 
> The most exciting, dramatic and compelling performance I have ever heard, live or recorded, was in Tucson of all places where the conductor, the brilliant George Hanson, resorted to the original and used A/S and a Finale with all three hammer strokes. Why not? Mahler did die after all.


"Three weeks before the first performance, Mahler had the Symphony read through in Vienna under his direction, at which time he irrevocably decided that the correct middle-movement order should be Andante-Scherzo. Mahler conducted the world premiere in Essen on 27 May 1906, with the middle movement order of Andante-Scherzo, after having instructed Kahnt to insert an erratum slip in the unsold copies of the scores and in Specht's booklet, detailing the correct middle movement order, and to republish the scores and booklet with the corrected middle-movement order, which Kahnt did in November 1906.

"From that point on, therefore, there would seem to be no question regarding the order of the movements, the more so as the remaining five complete performances of the Symphony in Mahler's lifetime were given with the order of Andante-Scherzo. Chronologically, these performances were:

*October 1906, Oskar Fried conducting, Berlin (Mahler attended the rehearsals and performance)
*8 November 1906, Mahler conducting, Munich
*14 November 1906, Bernard Stavenhagen (a pupil of Liszt) conducting, Munich (the second performance in the city in a week)
*January 1907, Mahler conducting, Vienna (the Philharmonic Orchestra)
*March 1907, Hans Winderstein conducting, Leipzig
*April 1907, Ernst von Schuch conducting, Dresden (middle movements only, in the order Andante-Scherzo).

"Mahler died in May 1911 in Vienna, six weeks before what would have been his 51st-birthday. The following November, Ferdinand Löwe conducted the Sixth Symphony in Vienna, with Alma in the audience, and in September 1916 Willem Mengelberg gave the Dutch premiere of the work in Amsterdam with the Concertgebouw Orchestra; both of these posthumous performances were given in accordance with the re-published score, the middle-movement order of Andante-Scherzo."

Those who argue that this is a "dual-version" symphony, in an effort to justify the Scherzo played before the Andante, are making the assumption that Mahler wanted that order on the basis of KEY CENTERS rather than simply a change & contrast of MOOD-and such an assumption is unprovable because it is not in keeping with the final decision that he made regardless of the "key centers" or not. That assumption is based on speculation and guesswork rather than how Mahler actually performed _his_ symphony.

Every once in a while a deceased composer deserves to have somebody stand up for his interests rather than the interests of the historians who may like to speculate at the expense of the composer's final wishes. Mahler lived for five more years and never changed his ordering of A-S.

But despite Mahler's wishes, people are going to listen to the 6th in whatever ordering they are used to, and it can still be appreciated as the great Mahler symphony that it is 

http://www.posthorn.com/Mahler/Correct_Movement_Order_III.pdf[/url
:angel:


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## Star

Thanks for these observations. Thankfully with CD we can programme in the order we like best.


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## Totenfeier

I find I'm slowly coming around to the A-S order. We all know about Mahler's extensive directions to the performers: "Yes, these are what the notes _are_, but this is how they should be _played_." He was apparently more concerned with mood and effect that with technicalities such as key relationships. Recall his injunction to Klemperer (not to cite the whole quotation again): it must _sound_ right, or be changed. (Besides, lately I find that I'm behind whatever Sir John Barbirolli thought.)


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## Triplets

I don’t really care what Mahler did during his lifetime. He was known to change his mind and how many opportunities did he get to hear it played anyway? Scherzo Andante more closely resembles the layout of the 5th, the work that most resembles the 6th.


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## OperaChic

Triplets said:


> I don't really care what Mahler did during his lifetime. He was known to change his mind and how many opportunities did he get to hear it played anyway?


If that's the only criteria for placing the Scherzo first, I suppose all of his symphonies are open to amendments, since who knows what he _might_ have done.


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## Star

The Bain factor in thus us what wirks. I will here the Andante first from now I think. Seems far more logical as the first and second movements are so alike


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## Larkenfield

'Mahler notated his scores with fanatical precision. Sometimes it looks like notational overkill. He could have marked the glorious slow movement that ends the Third Symphony simply ''adagio.'' But no, he marks it, in German, ''slow, peaceful, deeply felt, very legato, very expressively sung,'' throwing in an Italian ''molto espressivo'' for good measure, and all this in a passage where the strings are also asked to play pianissimo.'

He knew what he wanted, even if he didn't always know at first, such as his final ordering of the 6th, whether people choose to accept that or not. Had Alma kept out of it, there would have been no controversy or confusion at all after Mahler died-she didn't even like the 6th-because he had already told his publishers what he wanted regarding the ordering in the 2nd and 3rd editions of his published score, etc., etc., etc. One would have to be blind to ignore all the indications of what he wanted-or be swayed by Alma Mahler, who had no artistic authority and was considered notoriously unreliable in her recollections and opinions re: The "Alma Problem": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Problem


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## Enthusiast

I used to prefer AS but am coming round to thinking that AS creates more interpretive problems than SA. An example might be Janson's very good LSO Live recording where the journey he takes the first movement on (pretty "enthusiastically brutal" at first - quite scary - but becoming more "routinely brutal" and inevitable as it goes on) makes it possible to continue into his scherzo (which is slightly triumphant). But he doesn't do this: he places the adagio second and has to deal with the very unsettled finale following directly from the scherzo. It works OK but at the moment I think it works even better when I change the playing order. Similarly, Bernstein in Vienna makes a good case for SA providing you can buy into his rather unremittingly (apart from the adagio!) grim view of the work.


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## Star

Larkenfield said:


> 'Mahler notated his scores with fanatical precision. Sometimes it looks like notational overkill. He could have marked the glorious slow movement that ends the Third Symphony simply ''adagio.'' But no, he marks it, in German, ''slow, peaceful, deeply felt, very legato, very expressively sung,'' throwing in an Italian ''molto espressivo'' for good measure, and all this in a passage where the strings are also asked to play pianissimo.'
> 
> He knew what he wanted, even if he didn't always know at first, such as his final ordering of the 6th, whether people choose to accept that or not. Had Alma kept out of it, there would have been no controversy or confusion at all after Mahler died-she didn't even like the 6th-because he had already told his publishers what he wanted regarding the ordering in the 2nd and 3rd editions of his published score, etc., etc., etc. One would have to be blind to ignore all the indications of what he wanted-or be swayed by Alma Mahler, who had no artistic authority and was considered notoriously unreliable in her recollections and opinions re: The "Alma Problem": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Problem


Excellent thanks.


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## EdwardBast

Enthusiast said:


> I used to prefer AS but am coming round to thinking that AS creates more interpretive problems than SA. An example might be Janson's very good LSO Live recording where the journey he takes the first movement on (pretty "enthusiastically brutal" at first - quite scary - but becoming more "routinely brutal" and inevitable as it goes on) makes it possible to continue into his scherzo (which is slightly triumphant). But he doesn't do this: he places the adagio second and has to deal with the very unsettled finale following directly from the scherzo. It works OK but at the moment I think it works even better when I change the playing order. Similarly, Bernstein in Vienna makes a good case for SA providing you can buy into his rather unremittingly (apart from the adagio!) grim view of the work.


You are not hearing the symphony as Mahler intended, and his opinion on the issue was stated unequivocally. Do you not trust his aesthetic judgment on his own work? There really is no excuse for performing it SA.


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## Heck148

Enthusiast said:


> I used to prefer AS but am coming round to thinking that AS creates more interpretive problems than SA. .....Similarly, Bernstein in Vienna makes a good case for SA providing you can buy into his rather unremittingly (apart from the adagio!) grim view of the work.


Likewise, Solti makes a most compelling case for S-A order...his interpretation is really brutal, crushing....the incessant pummeling of the poor subject is carried thru the First movement, then the scherzo - which is most effective....the sweetness, and relative peace of the Andante is a most welcome respite, only to be completely crushed by the brutal finale....
for me, switching the middle mvts weakens this approach considerably...


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## Becca

I would like to make a case for reordering the movements in Mahler's 5th. It has always seemed to me that having the two heavy movements at the start is just too much so I suggest that a compelling case can be made for putting the adagietto between them and having the scherzo lead directly into the finale.
</sarcasm>


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## Larkenfield

Becca said:


> I would like to make a case for reordering the movements in Mahler's 5th. It has always seemed to me that having the two heavy movements at the start is just too much so I suggest that a compelling case can be made for putting the adagietto between them and having the scherzo lead directly into the finale.
> </sarcasm>


Interesting! He does have a storm movement following the 1st movement funeral march. But for me, it sounds like a sudden dramatic contrast of mood that can make it work, unlike having more unrelenting pounding of the Scherzo follow the pounding and turbulence of 1st movement of the 6th.


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## Becca

In case it was missed...



Becca said:


> I would like to make a case for reordering the movements in Mahler's 5th. It has always seemed to me that having the two heavy movements at the start is just too much so I suggest that a compelling case can be made for putting the adagietto between them and having the scherzo lead directly into the finale.
> *</sarcasm>*


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## jdec

Becca said:


> I would like to make a case for reordering the movements in Mahler's 5th. It has always seemed to me that having the two heavy movements at the start is just too much so I suggest that a compelling case can be made for putting the adagietto between them and having the scherzo lead directly into the finale.
> </sarcasm>


You could hear it that way if you wished, and you would not hurt anybody.


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## jdec

Andante-Final remains the most effective emotional experience to me.


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## Enthusiast

EdwardBast said:


> You are not hearing the symphony as Mahler intended, and his opinion on the issue was stated unequivocally. Do you not trust his aesthetic judgment on his own work? There really is no excuse for performing it SA.


Fair enough but I do think that once an artwork is in the public domain it becomes what the public hear/see it as. And I think it has long been the case that artists thoughts and ideas are often subject to editorial decisions that they have little influence over. I can think of a few examples from literature. TS Eliot's "The Wasteland" was significantly edited and shaped (with Eliot's permission) by Ezra Pound and others. And it seems that the distinctive brevity of the stories of Raymond Carver owe as much to his editor as to him - indeed, you can now buy some of his stories in both his own and the edited versions (with many people preferring the edited ones and failing even to see distinctive Carver in his original drafts). In music, some composers were given to editing their works after the initial publication and we, the public, feel the right to decide which version we prefer.

(Added a few hours later Mahler was a noted conductor as well as a composer. His preference as a conductor might have been different to his apparent preference as the composer. Britten was an excellent conductor as was Stravinsky in his own music but neither seemed to feel too tied to what they had said in the score.


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## Enthusiast

Becca said:


> I would like to make a case for reordering the movements in Mahler's 5th. It has always seemed to me that having the two heavy movements at the start is just too much so I suggest that a compelling case can be made for putting the adagietto between them and having the scherzo lead directly into the finale.
> </sarcasm>


A problem he solves with a lovely scherzo after the two heavy movements (which are, anyway, both quite different - a funeral march followed in the second movement with turmoil). Maybe the answer to the 6th is to add a movement? Just joking.


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## Barbebleu

Becca said:


> I would like to make a case for reordering the movements in Mahler's 5th. It has always seemed to me that having the two heavy movements at the start is just too much so I suggest that a compelling case can be made for putting the adagietto between them and having the scherzo lead directly into the finale.
> </sarcasm>


 ooh you are awful, but I like you!


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