# Works you LIKE by Composers You DONT LIKE



## 20centrfuge

*Are there pieces of music you like, by composers whose music, in general, you really don't like? Now's your chance to spill the beans. *

_(I guess it is like being on a first date and disliking everything about the person, except one thing. Maybe they really are a sharp dresser, or they are very articulate, or they have nice legs  , but I digress)_

_Please no attacks on TC members because they may not be in love with your favorite composer. _

I'll start:

I don't care much for Mahler, but I like Mahler 5.

I like Jonchaies by Xenakis, thought I haven't heard much else by him that I like.

Saariaho has a piece entitled Lichtbogen that I like a lot, but everything else I have heard by her leaves me scratching my head.

I guess you could argue (with the dating analogy), "if you got to know the person better, you would like them more." But, nah, I don't want to have to work tooo hard to like a person. After all, there are lots of fish in the sea.


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## hpowders

Schubert- two of the Impromptus.

Bruckner-Symphony No. 7.


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## 20centrfuge

Yah, Bruckner 9 for me


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## elgar's ghost

I'm not keen on Sullivan's music at all as a rule but I readily admit to quite liking some of the choral output and a couple of the stand-alone overtures. It's not his fault that those stage works where, by general consensus, he usually found himself to be at his most inspired happen to be ones which I have a deep aversion to.


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## Rhombic

I'm not quite into Tchaikovsky, but his 5th symphony is likeable.


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## 20centrfuge

elgars ghost said:


> I'm not keen on Sullivan's music at all as a rule but I readily admit to quite liking some of the choral output and a couple of the stand-alone overtures. It's not his fault that those stage works where, by general consensus, he usually found himself to be at his most inspired happen to be ones which I have a deep aversion to.


Exactly. It's appreciating the exception and not the rule -- the fringe cases.


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## GioCar

The Piano Trios and the Vespers by Rachmaninoff


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## Cosmos

Grieg's Symphonic Dances are fun


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## brotagonist

As soon as I recognize that I like a piece by a composer, my preconceptions of dislike have already started to crumble.


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## musicrom

Generally, I'm not a huge fan of Penderecki's music, but I like his 3rd symphony well enough.


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## Celloman

John Tavener - Song for Athene

I dislike most of his other music.


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## DiesIraeCX

I dislike most of Beethoven, but I find his _Wellington's Victory_ to be the greatest work of art since Michelangelo's David.


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## Celloman

DiesIraeVIX said:


> I dislike most of Beethoven, but I find his _Wellington's Victory_ to be the greatest work of art since Michelangelo's David.


That's funny, I was going to say the same thing!


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## GreenMamba

I like Khatchaturian's Violin Concerto, but not really anything else I've heard from him.


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## hpowders

L'isle joyeuse by Debussy.


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## Itullian

Symphonie Fantastique and a couple of overtures. 

Berlioz


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## Guest

I like the Planets by Gustav Holst. People say it is not representative of his work as a whole. But everything else to me sounds lame. So I guess I don't like Gustav Holst.


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## TwoPhotons

Hungarian Dance No.5 by Brahms :devil:


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## Mahlerian

My reaction to the vast majority of Shostakovich ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the *Symphony No. 4*.


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## Chronochromie

Handel - Concerti Grossi
R. Strauss - Salome
Elgar - Cello Concerto


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> My reaction to the vast majority of Shostakovich ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the *Symphony No. 4*.


Saw that coming! Psychic powers working perhaps??


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## Celloman

Alan Hovhaness - Symphony No. 2
Philip Glass - all of his music for the first fifteen minutes (after that, I zone out)


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## Blancrocher

I've come around to Wagner's Polka for piano, and expect a love of the rest of his work to follow in due course.


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## hpowders

R. Strauss, Four Last Songs.


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## QuietGuy

I've always been intrigued with Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. The more I listened to it, the more it grew on me. But I cannot stand anything else by him. It all sounds like noise to me.


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## MoonlightSonata

I can't think of any composer I dislike enough to answer this


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## Metronome

brotagonist said:


> As soon as I recognize that I like a piece by a composer, my preconceptions of dislike have already started to crumble.


+1
Exactly the same for me.


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## DeepR

As soon as I like one piece, I like the composer. Not liking any other piece by that same composer is improbable but should it happen then it's probably temporary.


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## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


> My reaction to the vast majority of Shostakovich ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the *Symphony No. 4*.


My reaction to the vast majority of Schoenberg ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the _Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, "freely adapted from Handel's Concerto grosso in B-flat major, Op. 6, no. 7"_ (1933). This clearly demonstrated the importance of older music to Schoenberg to write music that was accessible to a broader audience, as many I know in the real world also agree with me here.


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## dgee

Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson


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## hpowders

Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata in C Major K 513.


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> My reaction to the vast majority of Schoenberg ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the _Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, "freely adapted from Handel's Concerto grosso in B-flat major, Op. 6, no. 7"_ (1933). This clearly demonstrated the importance of older music to Schoenberg to write music that was accessible to a broader audience, as many I know in the real world also agree with me here.


I'd wager that I know Shostakovich's oeuvre far better than you know Schoenberg's, Artmusic.


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## hpowders

Shostakovich Symphony No. 7.


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## hpowders

Vivaldi Concerto in C Major for Diverse Instruments RV 558.


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## hpowders

Richard Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos.


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## SimonNZ

Evita by Andrew Lloyd Weber


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## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> I'd wager that I know Shostakovich's oeuvre far better than you know Schoenberg's, Artmusic.


You're my hero.


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## violadude

Mahlerian said:


> I'd wager that I know Shostakovich's oeuvre far better than you know Schoenberg's, Artmusic.


Can I second that and double the stakes? :devil:


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## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


> I'd wager that I know Shostakovich's oeuvre far better than you know Schoenberg's, Artmusic.


I like that, very funny.


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## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata in C Major K 513.


haha--love the Mozart allusion, hpowders. I tried to find a harpsichord version, but here's one on clavichord if you're interested!


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## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> haha--love the Mozart allusion, hpowders. I tried to find a harpsichord version, but here's one on clavichord if you're interested!


Yes. The Scarlatti reaches Mozartean heights of lyricism, way before Mozart, of course.

The "K" stands for Kirkpatrick and is a common numbering system for the Scarlatti Sonatas.
That one is K 513.


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## hpowders

Richard Strauss Ein Heldenleben.

A piece written for virtuoso orchestra and when Chicago or Vienna play it, it's always an aural treat.


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## Überstürzter Neumann

Mahler:Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.


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## elgar's ghost

Lennart said:


> Mahler:Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.


As you like these I'm a bit surprised you aren't fond of some of the Wunderhorn songs.


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## elgar's ghost

Non-classical division:

Beautiful Stranger by Madonna


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## Überstürzter Neumann

elgars ghost said:


> As you like these I'm a bit surprised you aren't fond of some of the Wunderhorn songs.


Good point. But I haven't listened to those songs for years and don't remember any in particular. 
But yes, I might add include some of them at a later point.


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## mmsbls

Mahlerian said:


> My reaction to the vast majority of Shostakovich ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the *Symphony No. 4*.


Maybe I should know this from past posts, but disgust for Shostakovich, the music, or the period which helped create the music?


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## hpowders

Wagner Wesendonck Lieder.


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## Mahlerian

mmsbls said:


> Maybe I should know this from past posts, but disgust for Shostakovich, the music, or the period which helped create the music?


The music. His personality and life were complicated, and I have sympathy for the view that he hated his erstwhile position as "official composer for the state," and appreciate the fact that there are no easy choices for a man living under such a regime.

Given all of that, I do understand why his work had to be simplified under pressure, and I do agree that much of his work pushes the boundaries of what was acceptable under Soviet aesthetic doctrine, but to me that doesn't make the music itself much more interesting, it's merely biographical detail.


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## hpowders

Weber Hungarian Rondo for Bassoon and Orchestra.


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## Dim7

Webern - Passacaglia & Im sommerwind. I dislike the cold, minimalist pointillist 12-tone style of Webern but these two early, romantic works are fabulous.


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## EdwardBast

Mahler 5, Kindertotenlieder, and isolated movements here and there, although even the Fifth Symphony is greatly flawed. I was starting to like Mahler 6, but the more I listened, the more I realized that the man was largely clueless about how to structure a large scale work. In the first movement of the 6th, for example, the developments of the themes are obvious, mundane, and don't really add up to anything. Symphonies only contain worlds when their composers lack the critical skills to be selective.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Mahler 5, Kindertotenlieder, and isolated movements here and there, although even the Fifth Symphony is greatly flawed. I was starting to like Mahler 6, but the more I listened, the more I realized that the man was largely clueless about how to structure a large scale work. In the first movement of the 6th, for example, the developments of the themes are obvious, mundane, and don't really add up to anything. Symphonies only contain worlds when their composers lack the critical skills to be selective.


Of all the criticisms of Mahler I've heard, the one that he couldn't structure a large-scale work is the most ludicrous. Have you noted the presence of the chorale that grows in prominence as the movement progresses? The fact that outgrowths of the first theme group develop into a theme in the coda that becomes an important theme in the finale? That the motifs of the two theme groups are combined and recombined in so many ways that it becomes difficult to distinguish where a new motive-form comes from? The way that the movement is structured in an inversion of traditional sonata form models so that the point of least tension is in the center (which is in fact in the key of the slow movement that follows)?

At any rate, Mahler's symphonies are not structured movement-by-movement, but as entire pieces. The structure of the first movement is intimately bound up with the rest of the work.


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## lovetheclassics

Generally, I don't like Händel very much, but I really appreciate these works:

Solomon - Arrival of the queen of Sheba
Xerxes - Largo
Imeneo - Sorge nell'alma mia


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## ArtMusic

I also don't like the 20th century atonal music composer Ernst Krenek but I mildly enjoyed his opera _Karl V_ from the early 1930s.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Of all the criticisms of Mahler I've heard, the one that he couldn't structure a large-scale work is the most ludicrous.


Actually, I find it to be the most salient shortcoming of his oeuvre - well, okay, it's a toss up between that and a couple of others: the interminable elaboration of hackneyed figures, as in the Adagio of the 9th, with its countless iterations of the turn and leap figure, the ubiquitous exploitation of obvious cultural memes in a quest for gravitas (funeral marches, chorales, martial music), the interchangeability of material from one symphony to another.



Mahlerian said:


> Have you noted the presence of the chorale that grows in prominence as the movement progresses? The fact that outgrowths of the first theme group develop into a theme in the coda that becomes an important theme in the finale?


Organic thematic and motivic unity, which is what you are describing, is often an important substrate for coherence at the cyclic level, but it is possible to have such unity in abundance and still end up with a poorly structured work. Motivation and teleology, that is, a sense of direction and purpose, are essential as well.



Mahlerian said:


> That the motifs of the two theme groups are combined and recombined in so many ways that it becomes difficult to distinguish where a new motive-form comes from?


This is, arguably, the principal problem in a nutshell, and pretty much the opposite of how successful cyclic structures are built. Historically speaking, the trick is how to get variety out of unity-how to develop cogent oppositions out of tightly unified material, not how to take clear and cogent oppositions, like those Mahler starts with, and water them down through hybridization and mundane variation. The overall thrust of the symphony depends on opposition; the thematic processes you describe work against this.



Mahlerian said:


> The way that the movement is structured in an inversion of traditional sonata form models so that the point of least tension is in the center (which is in fact in the key of the slow movement that follows)?


Yes, he does spend a good deal of time in the pastures. And it is clear he is attempting to ally the pastoral element with the second theme of the first movement (not numerically speaking, of course, but the one that would be "S" in the traditional formal diagram, the main secondary theme). To what end? A good idea in principal, but I don't think he makes it work.



Mahlerian said:


> At any rate, Mahler's symphonies are not structured movement-by-movement, but as entire pieces. The structure of the first movement is intimately bound up with the rest of the work.


As is the case with many symphonies of this era. I just don't think Mahler ever succeeded in doing it well. I think he came closest in the Fifth.


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## Clairvoyance Enough

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Beethoven's 5th
The Nutcracker
Four seasons
Brahms Lullaby
etc...

up until about two years ago anyway. Now the only answer I can think of is Glenn Gould's "So you want to write a fugue?"


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## Guest

hpowders said:


> Weber Hungarian Rondo for Bassoon and Orchestra.


Do you really dislike all these guys that you've posted works from? I'm genuinely asking, because I find it fascinating just how hot or cold you are over composers from the same general group of "classics".


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## Becca

John Cage - 4'33" is the only one of his works that makes any sense to me :lol:

Beyond that I can't think of any composers where I know of only one of their pieces that I like.


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## Richannes Wrahms

*Pfitzner's Palestrina*, a strange surge of beauty and vitality from a concervative-Romantic-kitschmonger.

Side note:



Shostakovich said:


> Symphony No. 4


That concrete-grey interminable block of quaver rhythm I find almost as disgusting as the rest of the samey old rhythms blocks of concrete-grey that are the rest of the symphonies. Sub-Second Viennese School harmonic-formal interplay is not sufficient compensation for me.


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## hpowders

Schubert String Quartet in G Major.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Actually, I find it to be the most salient shortcoming of his oeuvre - well, okay, it's a toss up between that and a couple of others: the interminable elaboration of hackneyed figures, as in the Adagio of the 9th, with its countless iterations of the turn and leap figure, the ubiquitous exploitation of obvious cultural memes in a quest for gravitas (funeral marches, chorales, martial music), the interchangeability of material from one symphony to another.


The use of cliched material is not considered a mark against a composer; the use of standard _types_ even less. That you perceive this as a striving after gravitas is interesting; to most people of the time, Mahler's use of these forms of music was the very thing that made his works non-symphonic and detracted from their seriousness.

But the criticism of drawing entire movements out of simple motifs is different. Is it wrong to use the full potential of a theme? As long as one does not have to resort to simple repetition, _and Mahler never does_, and one retains formal impetus, _as Mahler always does_, there is nothing wrong with using a motif such as the one in the finale of the Ninth, which I do not consider hackneyed.

It is true that Mahler often quoted himself, whether his songs or his symphonic works. It is not true that the themes themselves are interchangeable between works. Themes from a single work tend to draw on common elements that lend unity.

If one progresses from the first movement of the Sixth Symphony to its Scherzo, it is immediately clear that these are part of a single work; if one progresses instead to the second movement of the Fifth or the third movement of the Ninth, there will be jarring discontinuity, *and all of these movements are in the same key*.



EdwardBast said:


> Organic thematic and motivic unity, which is what you are describing, is often an important substrate for coherence at the cyclic level, but it is possible to have such unity in abundance and still end up with a poorly structured work. Motivation and teleology, that is, a sense of direction and purpose, are essential as well.


Yes, and Mahler's music has all of these things. One cannot cut things out of Mahler, for everything is necessary in it. There is no "filler" in his works.



EdwardBast said:


> This is, arguably, the principal problem in a nutshell, and pretty much the opposite of how successful cyclic structures are built. Historically speaking, the trick is how to get variety out of unity-how to develop cogent oppositions out of tightly unified material, not how to take clear and cogent oppositions, like those Mahler starts with, and water them down through hybridization and mundane variation. The overall thrust of the symphony depends on opposition; the thematic processes you describe work against this.


Traditionally, a cyclical work would have a theme or motif that appears clearly in its original form or some small variation thereon (change in orchestration/register). Cyclicality as such is not a very important part of Mahler's music, but interconnection between material is.

Mahler does not simply turn his material into homogeneous soup, however; as he reconfigures and shuffles around his motifs and themes, they grow and change over the course of a movement. One cannot ever say that his recapitulations are simply retreads of the expositions, for they always display the effects of the (often quite lengthy) development that has occurred in-between. Instead of thinking of the work as between oppositions of two defined themes, why don't you think of it as defined between the growth of multiple thematic complexes?

This is something different from what was done by many in the past, to be sure, but it is one of the things about Mahler's music that inspired composers such as Berg, Schoenberg, and Boulez in their own works.



EdwardBast said:


> Yes, he does spend a good deal of time in the pastures. And it is clear he is attempting to ally the pastoral element with the second theme of the first movement (not numerically speaking, of course, but the one that would be "S" in the traditional formal diagram, the main secondary theme). To what end? A good idea in principle, but I don't think he makes it work.


The point is contrast, of course, and the section in question does not only draw upon the second theme group, but also the chorale motif. Do you mean you don't think it functions as I said as a relaxation of the tension that surrounds it? I know that this is not the way sonata form movements usually work. That is not the point.

This section is also paralleled by a section in the middle of the slow movement which is in A major, bearing the same relationship to the main key. And both of these are paralleled with the E-flat minor section in the Scherzo.



EdwardBast said:


> As is the case with many symphonies of this era. I just don't think Mahler ever succeeded in doing it well. I think he came closest in the Fifth.


I think that he succeeded ten times, and magnificently; better than anyone else in his era, for sure.

I know you won't trust me on this, and I'm pretty sure you won't trust the person I've chosen to back me up, but it's not right because he said it, it's just something I agree with.

"Certainly the first symphonies already display great formal perfection. But when one thinks of the tautness and compactness of the form of the Sixth, where there is no superfluous note, where even the most far-reaching extension is an essential part of the whole and is fitted in organically; when one tries to comprehend that the two movements of the Eighth are nothing else than a single idea of unheard-of length and breadth, a single idea conceived, surveyed, and mastered in the same moment--then one wonders at the power of a mind which could already trust itself for unbelievable feats in its young years but which has made real the most improbable." - Arnold Schoenberg


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## hpowders

Stravinsky Le Sacre du Printemps.


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## Avey

Mahlerian said:


> I know you won't trust me on this, and I'm pretty sure you won't trust the person I've chosen to back me up, *but it's not right because he said it, it's just something I agree with.*
> 
> "Certainly the first symphonies already display great formal perfection. But when one thinks of the tautness and compactness of the form of the Sixth, where there is no superfluous note, where even the most far-reaching extension is an essential part of the whole and is fitted in organically; when one tries to comprehend that the two movements of the Eighth are nothing else than a single idea of unheard-of length and breadth, a single idea conceived, surveyed, and mastered in the same moment--then one wonders at the power of a mind which could already trust itself for unbelievable feats in its young years but which has made real the most improbable." - Arnold Schoenberg


It is right, though. The words are *RIGHT*. The notes are *RIGHT*.


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## Aleksandar

Schumann's Piano concerto. I guess symphony no.1 and no.3 are ok, though nothing to write home about. Can't get into solo piano stuff at all. I've yet to hear his vocal music.


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## ArtMusic

I also don't like 20th century avant-garde music composer Edgard Varèse but his sounds from _Ionisation_ make interesting study of percussion interaction.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> The use of cliched material is not considered a mark against a composer; the use of standard _types_ even less. That you perceive this as a striving after gravitas is interesting; to most people of the time, Mahler's use of these forms of music was the very thing that made his works non-symphonic and detracted from their seriousness.


Lots of folks find cliches tedious, in literature, music, and speech. It's pretty universal. Concerning standard types, I think you are right in principal. But there is a point where one more waltz, march, or funeral march, is just too many. I think Mahler is way, way over the limit. Waltzes and military marches would indeed have been considered to detract from seriousness, but not funeral marches, with their precedents in Beethoven, and not the turn and leap figure.



Mahlerian said:


> But the criticism of drawing entire movements out of simple motifs is different. Is it wrong to use the full potential of a theme?


There are countless ways one could vary a theme, phrase, or motive. One must be selective, making sure each contributes something new. Wasn't it Schoenberg, (perhaps in that strange harmony book where he discusses the scale degrees as competing members of a society?) who said, by analogy to developing characters in literature, that one must not show ones themes "eating lunch?" My point is that Mahler, in the first movement of the Sixth, is not selective enough.



Mahlerian said:


> As long as one does not have to resort to simple repetition, _and Mahler never does_, and one retains formal impetus, _as Mahler always does_, there is nothing wrong with using a motif such as the one in the finale of the Ninth, which I do not consider hackneyed.


I can't agree. When a cliche, and one with a pretty standard semiotic thrust (as a symbol of aspiring, eternal questing, longing) is the main substance of a theme, and one elaborates it for 20 minutes, my ears glaze over with boredom. IMO, such thin and unoriginal material can't bear the burden Mahler puts on it



Mahlerian said:


> It is true that Mahler often quoted himself, whether his songs or his symphonic works. It is not true that the themes themselves are interchangeable between works. Themes from a single work tend to draw on common elements that lend unity.


I wasn't referring to the self quotation (songs into symphonic movements and such), but to passages from one symphony sounding like outtakes from another. I find parts of the Seventh unlistenable because of this.



Mahlerian said:


> If one progresses from the first movement of the Sixth Symphony to its Scherzo, it is immediately clear that these are part of a single work; if one progresses instead to the second movement of the Fifth or the third movement of the Ninth, there will be jarring discontinuity, *and all of these movements are in the same key*.


In the case of the Sixth's scherzo, I would have welcomed more discontinuity, since its opening so clearly derives from the principal theme of the first movement and yet, to my ears, doesn't really advance the argument. Sounds ham-fisted to me, and too much of a not very good thing.



Mahlerian said:


> Yes, and Mahler's music has all of these things. One cannot cut things out of Mahler, for everything is necessary in it. There is no "filler" in his works.


Just because one can't remove anything does not mean that everything is necessary. Sometimes it means that _something_ was necessary, but not the particular thing Mahler put there. The scherzo of the Fifth, for example, has no essential function in advancing the drama of the symphony. The first and third parts are closely tied thematically and dramatically, and in relation to those, the scherzo is indeed filler. Something needs to be where it is. Why? I think it is because the funeral march is pretty much superfluous as well, which creates an imbalance in Part One, putting the principal dramatic problem, the opposition of the principal theme and the slowly emerging chorale in the second movement (which is revisited and resolved in the finale) too late in the cycle. This imbalance is what creates the need for a Part Two. So, it turns out that one can't remove the scherzo, not because _it_ is necessary, but only because _something_ is necessary and the scherzo is what Mahler happened to have put there.[/QUOTE]

I don't have time to answer your other points today. But I do want to take up an interpretation of the Sixth Symphony at some point in the future. The problem with the symphony, as I hear it, is similar to that with the Fifth. Mahler had an excellent basis for an evolving dramatic structure, but failed to bring it into sharp focus.

Okay, one more point. As for other composers having a better command of cyclic structure in that era: Rachmaninoff wrote at least three more tightly constructed cyclic works within a decade of Mahler's Sixth: The Second Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, and the Second Piano Sonata. Any of these could be used to show how to better solve the kind of structural problems Mahler was addressing in the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.


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## hpowders

Franz Schmidt Symphony No. 4.


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## Mahlerian

But Edward, the Scherzo _is_ thematically related to the other parts of the Fifth Symphony. Its principal themes are derived directly from material in the second movement.


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## Celloman

EdwardBast said:


> Lots of folks find cliches tedious, in literature, music, and speech. It's pretty universal. Concerning standard types, I think you are right in principal. But there is a point where one more waltz, march, or funeral march, is just too many. I think Mahler is way, way over the limit. Waltzes and military marches would indeed have been considered to detract from seriousness, but not funeral marches, with their precedents in Beethoven, and not the turn and leap figure.


How much is too many? Mahler never stops at simply giving us a waltz or a march. He integrates it into the structure of his symphony and plays around with it in a variety of ways. He's not trying too hard to be serious. His symphonies embrace all aspects of life, blurring the distinction between "high" and "low" art forms.



EdwardBast said:


> Okay, one more point. As for other composers having a better command of cyclic structure in that era: Rachmaninoff wrote at least three more tightly constructed cyclic works within a decade of Mahler's Sixth: The Second Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, and the Second Piano Sonata. Any of these could be used to show how to better solve the kind of structural problems Mahler was addressing in the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.


Yes, some of Rachmaninoff's works are more "cyclical" - _per se_. But he also tends to indulge in sentimentality - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I can only take so much of it at a time. The quality of a melodic idea, in the wrong hands, can become nothing more than a gimmick. Mahler's melodic ideas may not seem profound, but it's how he articulates and varies them that keeps me interested and wanting more.


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## hpowders

Vivaldi Concerto for Two Trumpets in C Major.


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## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> My reaction to the vast majority of Shostakovich ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the *Symphony No. 4*.


This made me, as a fellow Shostakovich-allergic person, go and listen to this symphony...but no, I still hear nothing there either.

In response to the OP...I have not heard anything I liked by Milton Babbitt except for Philomel, which I like a lot.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Okay, one more point. As for other composers having a better command of cyclic structure in that era: Rachmaninoff wrote at least three more tightly constructed cyclic works within a decade of Mahler's Sixth: The Second Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, and the Second Piano Sonata. Any of these could be used to show how to better solve the kind of structural problems Mahler was addressing in the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.


I already said that cyclical structure was not Mahler's goal. No, I meant that he had a better command of large-scale structure in general than anyone else of his era.

As for Rachmaninoff, he was not addressing the same kind of structural issues as Mahler at all. That said, it is instructive to contrast the first movement of his Second with Mahler's Sixth.

Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E minor First Movement

0:00-4:35 Introduction
4:35-6:23 Exposition: Theme 1 and transition (E minor)
6:23-8:47 Theme 2 (G major)
8:47-12:47 Exposition Repeat

12:47-18:09 Development (E minor-B major)

18:09-20:58 Recapitulation: Theme 2 (E major)

20:58-22:31 Coda (-E minor)

To me, the model here seems to be the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Sixth; we have a bleak introduction, a passionate second theme, a development section that focuses on the first theme and introduction theme, a recapitulation that deals with the second theme alone, and (unlike Tchaikovsky) a coda that returns us to the minor mode. Both appearances of theme 2 serve to lessen tension, with the point of lowest tension in its appearance in the tonic major. The point of greatest tension is at the end of the development, and the entire development builds up to this point.

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor First Movement

0:00~1:48 First theme exposition (A minor)
1:48~2:28 Chorale (A minor/major)
2:28~4:42 Second theme exposition and codetta (F major)
4:42~9:04 Exposition repeat

9:04~10:44 First theme development (Undefined->E minor->A minor)
10:44~11:29 Second theme development (D major/minor)
11:29~14:41 Chorale development (D minor/major)
12:41~15:08 Pastorale (G major->E-flat major)
15:08~16:12 March returns (B major/minor->G minor)

16:12~17:38 First theme recapitulation (A major->A minor)
17:38~18:13 Chorale recapitulation (A minor/major)
18:13~19:46 Second theme recapitulation (D major)

19:46~21:49 Turbulent coda (E minor->C major)
21:49~23:04 Triumphant coda (A major)

Like the Rachmaninoff, the appearances of theme 2 serve to lessen tension. In contrast, the point of lowest tension is in the center of the development, which forms a parabola in lessening tension before building back up to the recapitulation, which restates both themes in altered form. The point of greatest tension is in the coda, and this is intentionally left unresolved by the triumphalism of the A major ending, which is replete with unresolved dissonances and does not feature the first theme.


----------



## hpowders

isorhythm said:


> This made me, as a fellow Shostakovich-allergic person, go and listen to this symphony...but no, I still hear nothing there either.
> 
> In response to the OP...I have not heard anything I liked by Milton Babbitt except for Philomel, which I like a lot.


If you are into terminal depression, then Shostakovich is your man!


----------



## hpowders

Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2. Catches him in a rare good mood.


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## Polyphemus

hpowders said:


> If you are into terminal depression, then Shostakovich is your man!


Apparently a Summer School is proposed on the subject of post traumatic stress after certain music types, including Shostakovich, Pettersson & Schnittke etc.
This will be hosted by Teddy Daniels and the Lecturers will be the Doctors Cawley and Naehring. The event will be held in the historic buildings of the famed island retreat of Shutter Island.


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> If you are into terminal depression, then Shostakovich is your man!


As a person who has struggled greatly with depression, I feel the need to distinguish between feelings here. Pettersson captures the funereal qualities... Shostakovich, when not at his best, is more reminiscent of the jaded phases of a depression. Not longing for death, but not exactly seeing the world in color either. I very much enjoy his best works, but the rest are simply...grey.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> But Edward, the Scherzo _is_ thematically related to the other parts of the Fifth Symphony. Its principal themes are derived directly from material in the second movement.


No, I followed up the same lead you did on this one. There is a prominent leap of a diminished 10th in the beginning of the scherzo which does not in fact correspond to the leap of a major 9th in the second movement. I did a complete thematic analysis of the symphony for a seminar, and I tried as hard as I could to link the scherzo convincingly to the earlier material - I was trying to make the best case I could for it. I fastened onto that opening as the best bet, but could not convince myself, because a diminished 10th is just a completely different animal than a major 9th, despite the same "real distance as the crow sings."

I haven't been over the historical background of the Fifth in ages, but wasn't the scherzo composed as an independent entity before the Fifth "was a thing," and then pressed into service somewhere well into the process?


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## Mahlerian

Well, you didn't study it hard enough, then, because in fact this motif, in addition to being contracted to a minor ninth, is also presented as a major ninth, in a section near the end of the development that seems to look forward to the mood of the scherzo quite directly.









There are other similarities as well.

The top part is from the scherzo, the bottom from the part leading up to the climax of the first movement.











EdwardBast said:


> I haven't been over the historical background of the Fifth in ages, but wasn't the scherzo composed as an independent entity before the Fifth "was a thing," and then pressed into service somewhere well into the process?


No. It was composed before the rest of the work, but always with the intent of having it be a part of the new work.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> I already said that cyclical structure was not Mahler's goal. No, I meant that he had a better command of large-scale structure in general than anyone else of his era.
> 
> As for Rachmaninoff, he was not addressing the same kind of structural issues as Mahler at all. That said, it is instructive to contrast the first movement of his Second with Mahler's Sixth.
> 
> Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E minor First Movement
> 
> 0:00-4:35 Introduction
> 4:35-6:23 Exposition: Theme 1 and transition (E minor)
> 6:23-8:47 Theme 2 (G major)
> 8:47-12:47 Exposition Repeat
> 
> 12:47-18:09 Development (E minor-B major)
> 
> 18:09-20:58 Recapitulation: Theme 2 (E major)
> 
> 20:58-22:31 Coda (-E minor)
> 
> To me, the model here seems to be the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Sixth; we have a bleak introduction, a passionate second theme, a development section that focuses on the first theme and introduction theme, a recapitulation that deals with the second theme alone, and (unlike Tchaikovsky) a coda that returns us to the minor mode. Both appearances of theme 2 serve to lessen tension, with the point of lowest tension in its appearance in the tonic major. The point of greatest tension is at the end of the development, and the entire development builds up to this point.


There are some similarities to Tchaikovsky's Sixth, but there are closer models, and they are multiple and far stranger, given the subject of this discussion: Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juiliet, Tchaikovsky 4 and 5, and last, but not necessarily least *Mahler's 5th! *Let me elaborate:

Romeo and Juliet: The motto of Rachmaninoff 2, the opening idea in the bass, is almost identical to the opening of Romeo and Juliet. All the themes of the first movement, as well as some in second movement and finale, derive from it. But Rachmaninoff was a master of variation, and listeners often miss these relationships because each of the themes has such an independent life and personality of its own.

Tchaikovsky 4/i is much closer structurally to Rachy 2 than the Tchaikovsky 6/i, since it, like Rachy 2, has a developmental coda. All three movements telescope the recap of the first theme into the end of the development, in keeping with the most standard Russian/Eastern European (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Chopin, Bartok) variant of first movement form.

Mahler 5(!): In 1905-07 (I think, going by memory), Rachmaninoff was principal conductor of the Dresden Opera, and he heard a performance, in Dresden I believe, of Mahler's Fifth! This was precisely when he was composing his Second Symphony. The end of the scherzo in Rachy 2 ends with a chorale followed by a furtivo final phrase in the strings. This is almost exactly like the end of Mahler 5/ii, where the glorious, but premature, statement of the chorale is followed by the last disruptive gusts of the storm music. In both cases the chorale is reinterpreted as the culmination of the finale. But Rachy was also thinking of Tchaikovsky 5/ii, where stormy brass settings of the symphony's motto interrupt the end of the movement. What Rachmaninoff did is sort of a hybrid of the Tchaik 5 and Mahler 5 second movements. This is a very specific instance of addressing _exactly_ the same structural problem as Mahler 5.

It is not the only instance: In all of Rachmaninoff's cyclic works of this era, the second theme in the first movement is an idyllic ideal to which the whole symphony aspires. In the Second Symphony, Second Piano Sonata, and Third Concerto, the principal theme of the finale is in each case closely based on the second theme of the first movement - in the Third Concerto, in fact, _every_ theme of the finale derives from the second theme of the first movement (in Rachy 2, there are addition sources, including the motto and ii/1). In Mahler 6, the big second theme of the first movement also serves this overall role as an ideal/idyll. This is why it appears as "dream sequence" music in the opening of the finale (Brahms, in his Third Symphony, accomplishes the same kind of dream sequence reminiscence for 1/i at the end of the finale using string tremolo, Franck in his Symphony in D minor does the same thing using harp and horns.) It is also why the second theme is consistently combined with the otherworldly and surpassing beautiful pastoral, cow bell music throughout the work. The difference, of course, is that Mahler 6 is tragic, and therefore the ideal/idyll does not have the last word, grim fate does. In all of the Rachy finales, the ideal/idyll anticipated in 1/ii _is_ realized in the finale. *They were grappling with exactly the same issues using the same themes in the same way, just with a different outcome (triumph versus tragedy).* I think Rachy's solutions are all clearer, leaner, and more logically consistent that Mahler's.



Mahlerian said:


> Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor First Movement
> 
> 0:00~1:48 First theme exposition (A minor)
> 1:48~2:28 Chorale (A minor/major)
> 2:28~4:42 Second theme exposition and codetta (F major)
> 4:42~9:04 Exposition repeat
> 
> 9:04~10:44 First theme development (Undefined->E minor->A minor)
> 10:44~11:29 Second theme development (D major/minor)
> 11:29~14:41 Chorale development (D minor/major)
> 12:41~15:08 Pastorale (G major->E-flat major)
> 15:08~16:12 March returns (B major/minor->G minor)
> 
> 16:12~17:38 First theme recapitulation (A major->A minor)
> 17:38~18:13 Chorale recapitulation (A minor/major)
> 18:13~19:46 Second theme recapitulation (D major)
> 
> 19:46~21:49 Turbulent coda (E minor->C major)
> 21:49~23:04 Triumphant coda (A major)
> 
> Like the Rachmaninoff, the appearances of theme 2 serve to lessen tension. In contrast, the point of lowest tension is in the center of the development, which forms a parabola in lessening tension before building back up to the recapitulation, which restates both themes in altered form. The point of greatest tension is in the coda, and this is intentionally left unresolved by the triumphalism of the A major ending, which is replete with unresolved dissonances and does not feature the first theme.


Which is as it should be. The end of the first movement is too early for an unalloyed triumphal statement. I think Mahler goes too far in that direction, however, and I therefore prefer Beethoven's (Op. 57/i), Chopin's, Rachmaninoff's, Tchaikovsky's, Prokofiev's, and Bartok's treatment of this situation, that is, ending the first movement with the second theme's aspirations further from realization than in their initial statement.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Well, you didn't study it hard enough, then, because in fact this motif, in addition to being contracted to a minor ninth, is also presented as a major ninth, in a section near the end of the development that seems to look forward to the mood of the scherzo quite directly.
> 
> View attachment 68208
> 
> 
> There are other similarities as well.
> 
> The top part is from the scherzo, the bottom from the part leading up to the climax of the first movement.
> 
> View attachment 68210


Those connections are not convincing to me. Those scalar descents are just too commonplace and not salient enough .



Mahlerian said:


> No. It was composed before the rest of the work, but always with the intent of having it be a part of the new work.


In any case, he did not coordinate the themes of the movements he composed later to tie organically into the scherzo.


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> In any case, he did not coordinate the themes of the movements he composed later to tie organically into the scherzo.


No, you'll just dismiss any evidence I offer. The connections are obvious and manifold.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> No, you'll just dismiss any evidence I offer. The connections are obvious and manifold.


No, in fact I would be happy to be convinced of the connections, which I too have explored. We just seem to have different thresholds for when a similarity is statistically relevant. I'm not being perverse here. I really do like both Mahler 5 and 6 and would like to like them better still. I think the second movement of Mahler 5 and the slow movement of 6 are among the greatest single movements of the early twentieth century. Sheer genius. This is why the conclusions I have come to sincerely disappoint me.


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> No, in fact I would be happy to be convinced of the connections, which I too have explored. We just seem to have different thresholds for when a similarity is statistically relevant. I'm not being perverse here. I really do like both Mahler 5 and 6 and would like to like them better still. I think the second movement of Mahler 5 and the slow movement of 6 are among the greatest single movements of the early twentieth century. Sheer genius. This is why the conclusions I have come to sincerely disappoint me.


Okay then, can you point to another Mahler symphony in which there are motifs that are close enough to the above that they could be substituted for them? You have opined about the "interchangeability" of his material, and I cannot say I agree with you at all.

There are plenty of things which I would say are characteristic enough of Mahler's style that they cannot be said to constitute motivic connections within a work without any other evidence, such as certain dotted rhythms, upbeat fourths, and so forth. These connections do not fall into that category; they have a specific rhythmic and melodic profile that Mahler is working with for this particular piece, and they are treated as important motifs.


----------



## Albert7

I do like a few of the works of Havergal Brian except the First Symphony. That longgggggggggggg symphony never engaged me interest long enough.

When Brian stuck to shorter works, they weren't as bad honestly. I do need to hear some of the compositions again. I do like his English Suite No. 1 recorded on Naxos.



hpowders said:


> If you are into terminal depression, then Shostakovich is your man!


I hope not because I'm a happy dude and I find Shostakovich sometimes dramatic and not always sad. If you want depressing, there are heavier pieces than Shostakovich's works which are very lamenting.

For example, Faure's Requiem is quite sad to me.


----------



## Celloman

EdwardBast said:


> I think Rachy's solutions are all clearer, leaner, and more logically consistent that Mahler's.


I find your reasoning problematic because you are comparing Mahler to composers whose approach to composition was altogether different from his own. Apples to oranges, as they say. It's irrelevant whether or not you hear related motifs in all the movements of a symphony - the pertinent question is, do all of the movements form a satisfying whole?

Mahler's approach to thematic unity was very different from that of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. For him, more important than melodies or motifs was the natural progression of moods, harmonies, and key relationships. All of his symphonies forge a logical path (including, in my opinion, the 7th), albeit one that may seem very different from that of other composers - but it's still there.

Mahler doesn't have to follow the "rules" of symphonic unity because there aren't any. His music provides its own logic.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Okay then, can you point to another Mahler symphony in which there are motifs that are close enough to the above that they could be substituted for them? You have opined about the "interchangeability" of his material, and I cannot say I agree with you at all.
> 
> There are plenty of things which I would say are characteristic enough of Mahler's style that they cannot be said to constitute motivic connections within a work without any other evidence, such as certain dotted rhythms, upbeat fourths, and so forth. These connections do not fall into that category; they have a specific rhythmic and melodic profile that Mahler is working with for this particular piece, and they are treated as important motifs.


No not offhand: I should have clarified more specifically what I meant by interchangeable. I meant that his thematic types run on more similar lines than I like, with too much similarity of gesture and expression, one symphony to another - substitutes in dramatic role and function rather than literal motivic identities. For the specific passages in 7 and 6 that hew too close to 5 for my tastes, and consequently remind me of outtakes, I would have to go exploring again and make notes. I don't own a score for 7. But next time through 7, if I can force myself to do it , I'll take notes.


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## Guest

No one can claim you don't have guts, Edward. I, for one, would not have the guts to argue about Mahler with a Mahlerian


----------



## EdwardBast

Celloman said:


> I find your reasoning problematic because you are comparing Mahler to composers whose approach to composition was altogether different from his own. Apples to oranges, as they say. It's irrelevant whether or not you hear related motifs in all the movements of a symphony - the pertinent question is, do all of the movements form a satisfying whole?


All of the works I cited, including the Mahler, are unified cycles with the occasional movement being left out of the thematic web. I agree with your identification of the pertinent issue. I just come to a different conclusion. I am not satisfied by the wholes in Mahler, despite finding some of the individual movements to be wonderful and ingenious. The Russians digested more directly Beethoven's lessons in intermovement unity than Mahler did, usually by direct imitation.



Celloman said:


> Mahler's approach to thematic unity was very different from that of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. For him, more important than melodies or motifs was the natural progression of moods, harmonies, and key relationships. All of his symphonies forge a logical path (including, in my opinion, the 7th), albeit one that may seem very different from that of other composers - but it's still there.
> 
> Mahler doesn't have to follow the "rules" of symphonic unity because there aren't any. His music provides its own logic.


I demonstrated in a long post above that, in fact, the Russians and Mahler were using approaches to thematic unity that are quite similar in crucial ways and it is undoubtedly because of cross-pollination. There are not rules, there are conventional approaches passed down from one generation to the next. Different lines of influence means the conventions are not always the same and that different elements are stressed. You don't want Bruckner in your genealogy  All of these lines go back to Beethoven. The intermediaries are different.


----------



## Frei aber froh

Mahlerian said:


> My reaction to the vast majority of Shostakovich ranges from indifference to disgust, but I do love the *Symphony No. 4*.


If you're going to love one piece by Shostakovich, that really is the piece to love.

I'll post an inversion of this topic: I usually like Tchaikovsky, but I do not like his Fifth Symphony. I love a lot of the rest of his music even though it is hyper-emotional, but I feel like the Fifth transcends hyper-emotionalism to cheesiness.


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## isorhythm

hpowders said:


> If you are into terminal depression, then Shostakovich is your man!


See, I don't even feel that, because the music is so monotone. For the music to be sad or anguished or whatever it has to contrast with something. A full hour of unbroken minor key gloom just makes me feel nothing.


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> I demonstrated in a long post above that, in fact, the Russians and Mahler were using approaches to thematic unity that are quite similar in crucial ways and it is undoubtedly because of cross-pollination. There are not rules, there are conventional approaches passed down from one generation to the next. Different lines of influence means the conventions are not always the same and that different elements are stressed. *You don't want Bruckner in your genealogy*  All of these lines go back to Beethoven. The intermediaries are different.


What would you do with Sibelius, then?

I think that your approach to Mahler is wrong; you're trying to look at his works as stressing cyclical unity, which they do not, even when there are connections between the movements (the Fifth is perhaps the primary exception). Take the Fourth for a counter-example; all of the movements contain elements derived from the song that forms the finale, but none of these elements are treated as aspects of a cyclical narrative structure that requires one to recognize them in order to follow the progress of the work. Cyclical unity is neither necessary nor sufficient for large-scale coherence, and the methods that Mahler uses, while non-traditional, are justified in the coherence of the result.

As for the figure I quoted earlier and you claimed "commonplace" and thus not indicative of any kind of motivic unity, I scanned through the score of the Seventh last night, and it appears...*not even a single time*.


----------



## hpowders

Hummel Piano Concerto in A minor.


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## hpowders

D Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K 141.


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## violadude

isorhythm said:


> See, I don't even feel that, because the music is so monotone. For the music to be sad or anguished or whatever it has to contrast with something. A full hour of unbroken minor key gloom just makes me feel nothing.


Becoming literally depressed from listening to music is a reaction that I have found alien as of yet.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> What would you do with Sibelius, then?


I hear Wagner in Sibelius. Bruckner, to me, is not an entity distinct enough in any respect for his DNA to be isolated from the Wagner.



Mahlerian said:


> I think that your approach to Mahler is wrong; you're trying to look at his works as stressing cyclical unity, which they do not, even when there are connections between the movements (the Fifth is perhaps the primary exception). Take the Fourth for a counter-example; all of the movements contain elements derived from the song that forms the finale, but none of these elements are treated as aspects of a cyclical narrative structure that requires one to recognize them in order to follow the progress of the work. Cyclical unity is neither necessary nor sufficient for large-scale coherence, and the methods that Mahler uses, while non-traditional, are justified in the coherence of the result.


The Fifth, in my opinion, is one of two primary exceptions, the other being the Sixth. In both cases there is a dramatic through line and a peroration linked to the most important themes from earlier in the cycle. The finale of the Sixth revisits critical earlier material from its beginning to its end, including the fundamental opposition between first and second theme groups from the first movement. Both of these opposing elements are represented in at least three, if not all(?) movements. That is full-blown cyclic construction by any reasonable standard.

The Fourth is a wonderful piece.



Mahlerian said:


> As for the figure I quoted earlier and you claimed "commonplace" and thus not indicative of any kind of motivic unity, I scanned through the score of the Seventh last night, and it appears...*not even a single time*.


The standard I go by is the one Mahler himself sets. All of the other thematic connections in the Fifth Symphony are explicit and based on large-scale quotations or melodic parallels-those between the second movement and the finale, and between the Adagietto and the finale. He wanted these connections to be heard and he made sure they were. A relationship based on the figure you quoted earlier is orders of magnitude less salient than the others. But opinions are apt to differ wildly on how much similarity is required to hear a melodic similarity as aesthetically significant. We clearly differ on this one.


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## hpowders

Max Bruch Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> I hear Wagner in Sibelius. Bruckner, to me, is not an entity distinct enough in any respect for his DNA to be isolated from the Wagner.


That's only because you don't know Bruckner well enough to recognize his influence (which is not surprising, given your antipathy to his music). Sibelius admired Bruckner far more than Wagner, and many of his works show Brucknerian traits.



EdwardBast said:


> The standard I go by is the one Mahler himself sets.


Evidently not, given that you discount the vast majority of his oeuvre and declare him incapable of creating a large-scale work.



EdwardBast said:


> All of the other thematic connections in the Fifth Symphony are explicit and based on large-scale quotations or melodic parallels-those between the second movement and the finale, and between the Adagietto and the finale. He wanted these connections to be heard and he made sure they were. A relationship based on the figure you quoted earlier is orders of magnitude less salient than the others. But opinions are apt to differ wildly on how much similarity is required to hear a melodic similarity as aesthetically significant. We clearly differ on this one.


Yes, because for you the _absolutely identical_ appearance of a motif that is crucial and prominent throughout a later movement (which was composed first) in an earlier movement (which was composed later) is clearly not enough similarity to constitute a connection.

There are plenty of other connections between the movements, as between the climax of the first movement and that of the second movement (which reappears in the finale), with the subsidiary theme that appears in the first movement and recurs in the second, to say nothing of the key relationships which you discounted entirely the last time we discussed these matters.


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## hpowders

Schumann Symphonic Etudes.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> That's only because you don't know Bruckner well enough to recognize his influence (which is not surprising, given your antipathy to his music). Sibelius admired Bruckner far more than Wagner, and many of his works show Brucknerian traits.


Brucknerian traits that aren't also Wagnerian traits?



Mahlerian said:


> Evidently not, given that you discount the vast majority of his oeuvre and declare him incapable of creating a large-scale work.


I don't discount the vast majority. I don't at all discount the ones we have been closely discussing, the Fifth and the Sixth. I've acknowledged that each contains one of the best single movements of the early twentieth century. This alone is high praise. My criticism is that his instrumental symphonies don't wholly gel at the cyclic level. The ones that come closest, the 5th and 6th I hear as structurally flawed.



Mahlerian said:


> Yes, because for you the _absolutely identical_ appearance of a motif that is crucial and prominent throughout a later movement (which was composed first) in an earlier movement (which was composed later) is clearly not enough similarity to constitute a connection.


Okay, I will listen again to see if it works for me, that is, hearing the connection you are pointing out in the example above in the thread.



Mahlerian said:


> There are plenty of other connections between the movements, as between the climax of the first movement and that of the second movement (which reappears in the finale), with the subsidiary theme that appears in the first movement and recurs in the second, to say nothing of the key relationships which you discounted entirely the last time we discussed these matters.


Yes, I remember those connections now. My primary critique was the superfluousness of the scherzo, although there were others. Not enough dramatic tension in the finale is another big problem. The ultimate conclusion, the affirmation of the second movement chorale at the end, needs to be put in doubt somewhere in the finale, emerge against concerted resistance, otherwise the achievement is too facile and the drama falls flat.


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## Guest

Given the ratio of large scale works to small scale works in Mahler's oeuvre, he would have to be the greatest hoax in classical music if he really "couldn't write a large scale work". 

Might as well change topics to Wagner being bad with operas.


----------



## Celloman

EdwardBast said:


> Not enough dramatic tension in the finale is another big problem. The ultimate conclusion, the affirmation of the second movement chorale at the end, needs to be put in doubt somewhere in the finale, emerge against concerted resistance, otherwise the achievement is too facile and the drama falls flat.


I recall somewhere that you used Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony as a positive example. Excuse me for asking, but where do you find this dramatic tension in the final movement? *It isn't there.* Neither do I see a need for tension in the final movement of the 5th - or for that matter, the 4th. Dozens of composers have written symphonies with a finale in which everything is bright and sunny. Take Haydn for example. Why not criticize him?

A symphony is a work of art. It isn't a scientific analysis or mathematical problem. There aren't any "rules" about dramatic tension or otherwise. The question is, as I stated earlier, does it satisfy? The drama in the preceding movements have prepared me for the finale, and when it comes, I'm ready for it. Nothing more is needed.


----------



## Avey

EdwardBast said:


> *Not enough dramatic tension in the finale is another big problem. *The ultimate conclusion, the affirmation of the second movement chorale at the end, needs to be put in doubt somewhere in the finale, emerge against concerted resistance, otherwise the achievement is too facile and the drama falls flat.


Granted, I do not have the _technical_ or _theoretical_ expertise either of you have. Thus, I would not dare cut in and say, "Hey, excuse me, this statement is incorrect for X, Y, and Z."

But I will nonetheless say that your statement is entirely subjective here. And maybe the muddling of subjective versus objective opinions has complicated this discussion.

Anyways, given that, I *will in fact* disagree with your point. But on purely aural grounds, based upon some Mahler addict's perspective of the work.

You don't feel resistance through that movement? A build up? You honestly do not hear or see (within the pages) some sort of growing tension or foreshadowing of the goal? I find this hard to believe.

I hear the music foreshadow (and fail to reach) the chorale multiple times throughout this movement. And not necessarily in the same format each time. (I apologize for not being more specific in my describing below.)

1. First, there is a point where the horns are playing staccato, rising strings, key moves from D flat to D. The _grazioso_ notation stuns the momentum.

2. Then, again, shortly later, which repeats this rising tension but with a more optimistic ending. We are in C, strings and winds playing A to F# ... A to G ... A to A, timpani rolling, then things just spiral out of control with fanfare and -- notation: _Again, just as Anfang_.

3. Moments later, the momentum again stalls at _unmerklich einhaltend_. Then, repeating above, the strings and winds move from A step-by-step up, capping out where the horns hammer at C, then crawl down in quarters to ...

*THE CHORALE.* The real thing.

I am truly amazed someone who apparently studied this work (and movement) so closely can say it is without "dramatic tension" or "concerted resistance" -- an ending without any "drama" and is "facile" and "flat." That is stunning to me.

But again, think this is all subjective.


----------



## EdwardBast

Celloman said:


> I recall somewhere that you used Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony as a positive example. Excuse me for asking, but where do you find this dramatic tension in the final movement? *It isn't there.* Neither do I see a need for tension in the final movement of the 5th - or for that matter, the 4th. Dozens of composers have written symphonies with a finale in which everything is bright and sunny. Take Haydn for example. Why not criticize him?


The reason I don't criticize Haydn and others of that era is that their conception of the symphony and its relation to human life was completely different than that of their romantic and post-romantic counterparts. They did not conceive music as an expression of personal emotion nor did they attempt to organize their symphonic structures according to a comprehensive expressive or psychological logic. That (pretty much) began with Beethoven. What makes the glorious statement of the chorale at the end of Mahler 5 so effective, for me, is that the whole first part of the symphony is about that very music's ultimately failed struggle out of the depths against great resistance. The second movement is essentially an alternation between melodic elements prefiguring the chorale and the stormy principal material. These elements are at cross-purposes and the rift between them intensifies as the movement progresses. At the end of the second movement, those anticipatory elements finally produce the chorale, but the unsettled storm element swallows it in the end and has the finale word. The finale sets this right by making an even more glorious version of the chorale the peroration. My criticism of the finale is that Mahler doesn't doesn't bring back the dark elements from the beginning - doesn't introduce any credible impediment to this peroration by reminding us of the conflict that motivated the whole of Part One.

By contrast, the return and revitalization of his Second Symphony's fundamental conflict is precisely what Rachmaninoff does with meticulous logic in his finale. The first movement is a depressive catastrophe in which all of the lighter elements are drowned, the scherzo is a quasi-heroic counteraction to the first movement but the conclusion (just as in the Mahler 5th) ends in doubt. The slow movement is the embodiment of contentment, except for a single, dark element, the minor-mode duet theme shared between oboe and English Horn. It is this single unresolved issue Rachmaninoff uses to reopen conflict when an anxious version of it begins the development section of the finale. After that, themes from the second and first movements return in precise reverse chronological order until that depressive harbinger of catastrophe, the motto from the first movement, reemerges to put the outcome on a knife's edge. In effect, he is working backward from a problem in the present to its roots in the past, ratcheting up expressive tension in a psychologically natural way. Now, I don't think this finale is perfect. The tension is allowed to slacken in the recapitulation. Strangely, the cut version of the finale that was sometimes recorded up through the 1960s solves this problem, and this cut is one I would still favor if modern sensibilities allowed it.

So, to sum up, the reason I criticize Mahler and not Haydn is that Mahler was making this grand scheme of struggle and transcendence the basis of overall direction in his symphony but did not, to my ears, quite pull it off. Such thoughts never entered Haydn's mind, so it would be ridiculous to fault him for not having realized them.



Celloman said:


> A symphony is a work of art. It isn't a scientific analysis or mathematical problem. There aren't any "rules" about dramatic tension or otherwise. The question is, as I stated earlier, does it satisfy? The drama in the preceding movements have prepared me for the finale, and when it comes, I'm ready for it. Nothing more is needed.


I agree with all of this - except the part about being satisfied. I don't quite get what I need.


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## EdwardBast

Avey said:


> Granted, I do not have the _technical_ or _theoretical_ expertise either of you have. Thus, I would not dare cut in and say, "Hey, excuse me, this statement is incorrect for X, Y, and Z."
> 
> But I will nonetheless say that your statement is entirely subjective here. And maybe the muddling of subjective versus objective opinions has complicated this discussion.
> 
> Anyways, given that, I *will in fact* disagree with your point. But on purely aural grounds, based upon some Mahler addict's perspective of the work.
> 
> You don't feel resistance through that movement? A build up? You honestly do not hear or see (within the pages) some sort of growing tension or foreshadowing of the goal? I find this hard to believe.
> 
> I hear the music foreshadow (and fail to reach) the chorale multiple times throughout this movement. And not necessarily in the same format each time. (I apologize for not being more specific in my describing below.)
> 
> 1. First, there is a point where the horns are playing staccato, rising strings, key moves from D flat to D. The _grazioso_ notation stuns the momentum.
> 
> 2. Then, again, shortly later, which repeats this rising tension but with a more optimistic ending. We are in C, strings and winds playing A to F# ... A to G ... A to A, timpani rolling, then things just spiral out of control with fanfare and -- notation: _Again, just as Anfang_.
> 
> 3. Moments later, the momentum again stalls at _unmerklich einhaltend_. Then, repeating above, the strings and winds move from A step-by-step up, capping out where the horns hammer at C, then crawl down in quarters to ...
> 
> *THE CHORALE.* The real thing.
> 
> I am truly amazed someone who apparently studied this work (and movement) so closely can say it is without "dramatic tension" or "concerted resistance" -- an ending without any "drama" and is "facile" and "flat." That is stunning to me.
> 
> But again, think this is all subjective.


You are right in pointing out that there is a significant build up of tension in the finale. Your points are well taken. But I feel the tension should be tied to specific problematic elements from earlier in the cycle - that the tension should be more sharply focused. But, as I said to Mahlerian, and given intelligent commentary from you and other contributors, I will give it another go to see if I feel differently about it now.


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## hpowders

Vivaldi Concerto for Four Violins in B minor.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> The reason I don't criticize Haydn and others of that era is that their conception of the symphony and its relation to human life was completely different than that of their romantic and post-romantic counterparts. They did not conceive music as an expression of personal emotion nor did they attempt to organize their symphonic structures according to a comprehensive expressive or psychological logic. That (pretty much) began with Beethoven. What makes the glorious statement of the chorale at the end of Mahler 5 so effective, for me, is that the whole first part of the symphony is about that very music's ultimately failed struggle out of the depths against great resistance. The second movement is essentially an alternation between melodic elements prefiguring the chorale and the stormy principal material. These elements are at cross-purposes and the rift between them intensifies as the movement progresses. At the end of the second movement, those anticipatory elements finally produce the chorale, but the unsettled storm element swallows it in the end and has the finale word. The finale sets this right by making an even more glorious version of the chorale the peroration. My criticism of the finale is that Mahler doesn't doesn't bring back the dark elements from the beginning - doesn't introduce any credible impediment to this peroration by reminding us of the conflict that motivated the whole of Part One.


The problem with your interpretation is that you have thrown the scherzo out as superfluous.

It was the first movement Mahler wrote. It is the only one of his scherzos that is the longest movement of a symphony, and the only one of such length, weight, and depth. To say that it is clearly not a part of the symphony's progression is simply wrong. In many of Mahler's symphonies, the dramatic weight is tilted towards the outer movements. The Fifth is different (the Eighth, too). Its weight is in the center, around this scherzo.

The work is, from the beginning, headed towards D major. Part 1 can be said to be in A minor, while parts 2 and 3 are both firmly in D major; both parts 1 and 3 begin with a movement that is not in their key, but emphasizes the primary key of its part. When Part 1 reaches the chorale, it is already in D major, but as you say, this is swept away by the storm music. But the storm is _already weakened_. The dazzling D major of the scherzo seems to dispel it entirely at first, but the movement is filled with conflict between tonally less stable sections in the minor mode and frequent interruptions of the momentum which the main themes and horn obbligato seem to overcome by sheer force. When the adagietto begins, it hints at A minor, and in fact the first section comes to rest for a moment in this key before returning to F. During the middle section, in which it progresses through a number of keys, it spends the most time in D.

If the finale, after all of these conflicts, seems to have nothing to do with them, that is because they have already been surmounted.


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## clavichorder

Hermioneviolageek said:


> If you're going to love one piece by Shostakovich, that really is the piece to love.


Hmmm, I don't see what's not to like about Shostakovich's 6th myself. That to me is his most likable symphony.


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## clavichorder

hpowders said:


> Vivaldi Concerto for Four Violins in B minor.


What have you got against Scarlatti and Vivaldi?


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## clavichorder

hpowders said:


> Hummel Piano Concerto in A minor.


Look further than that, my man! Hummel wrote some excellent piano sonatas and chamber works.


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## KenOC

clavichorder said:


> Hmmm, I don't see what's not to like about Shostakovich's 6th myself. That to me is his most likable symphony.


Yes, that and the 9th. But given the thread title, my comments probably don't belong here.


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## violadude

KenOC said:


> Yes, that and the 9th. But given the thread title, my comments probably don't belong here.


I'm partial to 8, 10 and 13 myself. 4 is among my favorites, but I don't fully understand it yet I think...

14 is really good too.


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## hpowders

Sinfonia Domestica, Richard Strauss.


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## Pimlicopiano

hpowders said:


> Sinfonia Domestica, Richard Strauss.


And R. Strauss, Schubert and Schumann. Really? All confined to one acceptable piece.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> If the finale, after all of these conflicts, seems to have nothing to do with them, that is because they have already been surmounted.


Drama 101: Put the denouement in the last act.
Novel writing 101: Resolve major plot points in the last chapters.
Cyclic structure 101: Save the surmounting for the finale.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Drama 101: Put the denouement in the last act.
> Novel writing 101: Resolve major plot points in the last chapters.
> Cyclic structure 101: Save the surmounting for the finale.


Thankfully, Mahler didn't need to compose in a textbook manner to form his ideas coherently.


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## Becca

EdwardBast said:


> Drama 101: Put the denouement in the last act.
> Novel writing 101: Resolve major plot points in the last chapters.
> Cyclic structure 101: Save the surmounting for the finale.


Ohh dear, there goes half the symphonies that I most like!


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## Woodduck

_Das Lied von der Erde._ It isn't the only Mahler work I like, but it's the only big one I like without qualification.

I've enjoyed the argument between Mahlerian and EdwardBast and wished I had the intimate acquaintance with the scores of the symphonies to contribute something on the same level. I can only observe that our perceptions of musical structure and our opinions of its effectiveness are unavoidably colored by our subjective responses, and that what "works" for one person looking at a score may not "work" for another person looking at the same score. Sometimes a piece looks perfectly coherent or interesting on paper, and even sounds in performance interesting or "significant," but if it fails to move us or irritates us we're left feeling that the composer hasn't quite succeeded in accomplishing what he set out to - or that what he set out to accomplish wasn't worth the effort expended. That's pretty much where I am with a lot of Mahler's symphonies, which by and large impress me, and at times move me deeply, but on some very personal level rub me the wrong way, and whose basic materials - the themes and rhythms - often seem not to bear the weight of significance the composer clearly wants them to and therefore often wear out their welcome some time before they've finished working themselves out.

But _Das Lied?_ Have had no problem with that from day one. It seems free of those trite rum-ti-tum tum tum march rhythms and yahoo football cheers and sentimental tunes that make me think of "Darling I am Growing Older" and all the shrieking and breast-heaving by which such banalities are presumably given deeper significance (and apparently for many people indeed are) in the symphonies. _Das Lied_ seems to me not to indulge in such stylistic slumming and such strenuous efforts to make it profound, and to express the meaning of its text with the most admirable conciseness and sensitivity. It seems to contain everything I like about Mahler and to omit almost everything I don't. I wish he'd lived longer and done more things like it.


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## hpowders

Shostakovich Symphony No. 4. The most Mahler-like of his symphonies. Devastating.


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> But _Das Lied?_ Have had no problem with that from day one. It seems free of those trite rum-ti-tum tum tum march rhythms and yahoo football cheers and sentimental tunes that make me think of "Darling I am Growing Older" and all the shrieking and breast-heaving by which such banalities are presumably given deeper significance (and apparently for many people indeed are) in the symphonies. _Das Lied_ seems to me not to indulge in such stylistic slumming and such strenuous efforts to make it profound, and to express the meaning of its text with the most admirable conciseness and sensitivity. It seems to contain everything I like about Mahler and to omit almost everything I don't. I wish he'd lived longer and done more things like it.


"Here I confess that I, too, at first considered Mahler's themes banal. I consider it important to admit that I was Saul before I became Paul, since it may thence be deduced that those 'fine discriminations' of which certain opponents are so proud were not foreign to me. _But they are foreign to me now,_ ever since my increasingly intense perception of the beauty and magnificence of Mahler's work has brought me to admit that it is not fine discrimination, but, on the contrary, the most blatant lack of the power of discrimination, which produces such judgements.[...]And if I now maintain that I can no longer find these themes banal, they can never have been so; for a banal idea, an idea which appears obsolete and worn-out to me, can only appear more banal on closer acquaintance--but in no case noble. But if I now discover that the oftener I look at these ideas the more new beauties and noble traits are added to them, doubt is no longer possible: the idea is the opposite of banal."

- Arnold Schoenberg (italics in original)


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## violadude

I'm generally not a huge fan of Elgar, but I think Sea Pictures is a beautiful piece. I also really like Introduction and Allegro for String Orchestra, the Enigma Variations and the Piano Quintet.

I used to really like his Cello Concerto but I heard it too many times. Maybe I'll start liking it again someday.


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## Woodduck

violadude said:


> I'm generally not a huge fan of Elgar, but I think Sea Pictures is a beautiful piece. I also really like Introduction and Allegro for String Orchestra, the Enigma Variations and the Piano Quintet.
> 
> I used to really like his Cello Concerto but I heard it too many times. Maybe I'll start liking it again someday.


Though I may like Elgar more than you, I too would've chosen those pieces as especially fine. They avoid the bombast and sentimentality that can make some of his other work seem overextended, cloying or dated. The Piano Quintet is really remarkable and should be better known, and if the "Nimrod" variation in the Enigmas is sentimental it's sentimentality of the most sublime sort.


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## Albert7

I am still very paralyzed that there exists Homo sapiens who aren't enthused about Mahler. I think that next month I promise to give Havergal Brian another listen again. And tackle again that Symphony No. 1.


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> "Here I confess that* I, too, at first considered Mahler's themes banal.* I consider it important to admit that I was Saul before I became Paul, since it may thence be deduced that those 'fine discriminations' of which certain opponents are so proud were not foreign to me. _But they are foreign to me now,_ ever since my increasingly intense perception of the beauty and magnificence of Mahler's work has brought me to admit that* it is not fine discrimination, but, on **the contrary, the most blatant lack of the power of discrimination, which produces such judgements.*[...]*And if I now maintain that I can no longer find these themes banal, they can never have been so; for a banal idea, an idea which appears obsolete and worn-out to me, can only appear more banal on closer acquaintance--but in no case noble.* But if I now discover that the oftener I look at these ideas the more new beauties and noble traits are added to them, doubt is no longer possible: the idea is the opposite of banal."
> 
> - Arnold Schoenberg (italics in original)


The difference between Schoenberg's statement and mine is that He (oops! actual Freudian slip) wants to universalize his judgments, while I'm content to offer mine as subjective reactions (I also wonder who those "certain opponents" were of whom he speaks with undisguised contempt). If my subjective reactions do in fact arise from "the most blatant lack of the power of discrimination," I can only hope that He will not keep me in Purgatory for too long.

I must find fallacious his contention that anything actually banal can only seem increasingly banal with greater familiarity. In the music of Mahler the banalities are embedded in contexts of great technical, aural and expressive sophistication and complexity, and make their effect by being so embedded. One may come to find the whole more satisfying with deeper acquaintance, and find the meanings one attaches to the banal elements which once stood out so vividly now altered by one's perception of that whole and of its larger meaning.

This transformation of perception may work for some listeners and not for others. Evidently it worked for Schoenberg, and I have to say that it has to some (generally slight) extent worked for me with repeated hearings. I used to find much of Mahler's music truly repellent. Now, with a much broader context of experience as a music listener, I can enjoy (or at least tolerate) pieces I couldn't before.

But I still hear that rum-ti-TUMM-tumm, rum-ti-TUMM-ti-TUMM (that's from #6; recognize it?) and cringe.


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## hpowders

R. Strauss Oboe Concerto. Autumnally beautiful.


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## Dim7

I've never understood the "Mahler's themes are banal" criticism. I've always found Mahler to be rather good melodist. Perhaps his melodies on their own out of context aren't quite as good as Mozart's or Tchaikovsky's, but at the very least all of his movements seem to always have proper melodies instead of just dull simplistic motifs with the excuse "I'm going to do interesting things with them even though they're dull by themselves" (Beethoven, Brahms), or worse use dull themes and just repeat them bombastically for no reason (Bruckner sometimes, even though I like him).


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> The difference between Schoenberg's statement and mine is that He (oops! actual Freudian slip) wants to universalize his judgments, while I'm content to offer mine as subjective reactions. If my subjective reactions do in fact arise from "the most blatant lack of the power of discrimination," I can only hope that He will not keep me in Purgatory for too long.
> 
> I must find fallacious his contention that anything actually banal can only seem increasingly banal with greater familiarity. In the music of Mahler the banalities are embedded in contexts of great technical, aural and expressive sophistication and complexity, and make their effect by being so embedded. One may come to find the whole more satisfying with deeper acquaintance, and find the meanings which thereby accrue to the banal elements which once stood out so vividly now altered by one's perception of that whole and of its larger meaning.
> 
> This transformation of perception may work for some listeners and not for others. Evidently it worked for Schoenberg, and I have to say that it has to some (generally slight) extent worked for me with repeated hearings. I used to find much of Mahler's music truly repellent. Now, with a much broader context of experience as a music listener, I can enjoy (or at least tolerate) pieces I couldn't before.
> 
> But I still hear that rum-ti-TUM-tum, rum-ti-TUM-ti-TUM (that's from #6; recognize it?) and cringe.


First of all, no, I don't know what rhythm that is.

Secondly, I only responded to you because your post was filled with your own disparaging comments on the music. You did not say "the themes repel me," but "they are banal." You accuse him of "shrieking and breast-heaving." You went so far as to say they evoke "yahoo football cheers" and sentimental songs and all other manner of things. You called this "stylistic slumming." You criticize the "strenuous efforts" of the composer to try to draw meaning out of the meaningless.

Well, I am sorry that I left out more of the quote, because he actually responds to your contention in the part I left out.

"I had found Mahler's themes banal, *although the whole work had always made a profound impression on me*. Today, with the worst will in the world, I could not react this way."

He is not saying that the themes and ideas are given meaning by their context, which had always affected him, but that the ideas themselves are not actually banal. I have studied Mahler's works in depth, and I can tell you that I feel similarly. On first hearing, the first movement of the Third had struck me as disjointed and bizarre, a stylistic mish-mash. I remember thinking that it was changing styles every few bars.

Today, not only do I not hear this, I *cannot tell you where I might have heard it before*. Simply understanding the work has led to my not being able to hear what I thought were problems.

I can tell you that this is not always true. When I encountered Bruckner for the first time, I enjoyed his works with their innate power, their harmonic depth and structural solidity. And today I have come to admire most of them all the more as I gain a greater understanding of these things. All the same, some of the themes and passages struck me as problematic then and I am still uncomfortable with them now. I recognize their purpose in the work, and so excuse them, but I cannot fail to see them as weaknesses simply for this reason.


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## DiesIraeCX

Dim7 said:


> I've never understood the "Mahler's themes are banal" criticism. I've always found Mahler to be rather good melodist. Perhaps his melodies on their own out of context aren't quite as good as Mozart's or Tchaikovsky's, but at the very least all of his movements seem to always have proper melodies instead of just dull simplistic motifs with the excuse "I'm going to do interesting things with them even though they're dull by themselves" (Beethoven, Brahms), or worse use dull themes and just repeat them bombastically for now reason (Bruckner sometimes, even though I like him).


By the same token, I've never understood the "Beethoven didn't write (proper) melodies". Couldn't be further from the truth, my STI buddy! That sounded very inappropriate, by the way. I'm always humming Beethoven melodies, they all over the 7th symphony, (like the otherworldly melody of the "Allegretto"), listen to the first movement of piano sonata #28 (one of my very favorites), the 1st movement of the 4th Piano Concerto (another favorite), the Rondo of the Pathetique, the infectiously witty "Classical" melody of the 8th symphony's 2nd movement, the 6th symphony, the list is unending!

Adorno said, with regards to Beethoven's melody, "Serious music, according to Adorno, achieves excellence when its whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The example he gives is that of Beethoven's symphonies: "[his] greatness shows itself in the complete subordination of the accidentally private melodic elements to the form as a whole". It's true, the melodies aren't at the forefront like they are with Schubert or Brahms, but that's that doesn't mean they aren't there. And _proper _melodies at that!  I consider melodies to be one of Beethoven's most *subtle *strong points.


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## Dim7

Obviously Beethoven did write proper melodies as well. But take the first movements of 3th and 5th symphony. The first's is just a banal major arpeggio theme and the second one is the (in)famous Duh-duh-duh-duuuuh! Now they are indeed great movements (the first movement of Eroica is one of my all-time favorites), but the main motifs/themes are rather... underwhelming. I think Mahler never bases entire movements around something so simplistic.


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## DiesIraeCX

Dim7 said:


> Obviously Beethoven did write proper melodies as well. But take the first movements of 3th and 5th symphony. The first's is just a banal major arpeggio theme and the second one is the (in)famous Duh-duh-duh-duuuuh! Now they are indeed great movements (the first movement of Eroica is one of my all-time favorites), but the main motifs/themes are rather... underwhelming. I think Mahler never bases entire movements around something so simplistic.


Yeah, but that's Beethoven, he took that simple duh-duh-duh-DUUUH and created one of the most unique movements in the entire symphonic repertoire, something entirely memorable and electrifying out of seemingly thin air. Not mention that he subtly uses the motif throughout the entire symphony (well, I guess I _did_ mention it), for that trademark Beethoven unity. Ditto on the 1st Mvt of the "Eroica". But yeah, I do understand what you mean. Personally, I just can't help appreciating what and just how much he did with those simple ideas, how far he took them.


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## Woodduck

Dim7 said:


> Obviously Beethoven did write proper melodies as well. But take the first movements of 3th and 5th symphony. The first's is just a banal major arpeggio theme and the second one is the (in)famous Duh-duh-duh-duuuuh! Now they are indeed great movements (the first movement of Eroica is one of my all-time favorites), but the main motifs/themes are rather... underwhelming. I think Mahler never bases entire movements around something so simplistic.


Simplicity is not banality. Whether a simple idea strikes us as banal depends on what comes before it, what comes after it, whether it's made to stand alone or is part of a continuity, what accompanies it, etc. Two simple pistol cracks, and that bare-bones, triadic first theme of the _Eroica_ is barely out of the gate when that D-flat on the tenth note takes the race into another dimension. That melody could have been trite, but Beethoven knew how to avoid that. This is economy, not banality, and the Fifth Symphony is the epitome of it.

These are motifs, not tunes; they are raw material, and as such they they are not underwhelming as what they are not but overwhelmingly powerful as what they are. I don't think any composer was so successful at coming up with this sort of material - at being able to build music up from its elementary particles. His only rivals were Bach before him and Wagner after him. Think of the opening of _Das Rheingold_ and the immense canvas of the _Ring_, built up as motif spawns motif, transmuting and fragmenting and combining until a whole cosmos is created and destroyed in the flames of _Gotterdammerung._ Wagner knew what Beethoven had done and learned from the master how to make the most out of the least.


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## hpowders

Wagner Götterdämmerung. Simply on another level from Wagner's other operas. An extraordinary achievement!

I can't wait to get up early in the Norn-ing to play it!!


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## Itullian

Please...


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> First of all, no, I don't know what rhythm that is.
> 
> Secondly, I only responded to you because your post was filled with your own disparaging comments on the music. You did not say "the themes repel me," but "they are banal." You accuse him of "shrieking and breast-heaving." You went so far as to say they evoke "yahoo football cheers" and sentimental songs and all other manner of things. You called this "stylistic slumming." You criticize the "strenuous efforts" of the composer to try to draw meaning out of the meaningless.
> 
> Well, I am sorry that I left out more of the quote, because he actually responds to your contention in the part I left out.
> 
> "I had found Mahler's themes banal, *although the whole work had always made a profound impression on me*. Today, with the worst will in the world, I could not react this way."
> 
> He is not saying that the themes and ideas are given meaning by their context, which had always affected him, but that the ideas themselves are not actually banal. I have studied Mahler's works in depth, and I can tell you that I feel similarly. On first hearing, the first movement of the Third had struck me as disjointed and bizarre, a stylistic mish-mash. I remember thinking that it was changing styles every few bars.
> 
> Today, not only do I not hear this, I *cannot tell you where I might have heard it before*. Simply understanding the work has led to my not being able to hear what I thought were problems.
> 
> I can tell you that this is not always true. When I encountered Bruckner for the first time, I enjoyed his works with their innate power, their harmonic depth and structural solidity. And today I have come to admire most of them all the more as I gain a greater understanding of these things. All the same, some of the themes and passages struck me as problematic then and I am still uncomfortable with them now. I recognize their purpose in the work, and so excuse them, but I cannot fail to see them as weaknesses simply for this reason.


I only expess what the music makes me feel. It has made me feel these things for decades. I merely report this. I don't expect everyone to feel the same way.

Schoenberg, on the other hand, believes that he, unlike his unnamed "opponents," knows precisely how Mahler's music should be perceived, and that anyone who doesn't feel about it the way he does exhibits "the most blatant lack of the power of discrimination." Only Schoenberg can have any idea why Schoenberg had a change of heart about whatever music Schoenberg had a change of heart about. (And, Arnie, I find my power of discrimination to be quite healthy - but thank you for your concern.)

I suppose that sort of dogmatic arrogance is not unusual in the builders of systems, musical or philosophical. A superiority complex is part of the job description.


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> I only expess what the music makes me feel. It has made me feel these things for decades. I merely report this. I don't expect everyone to feel the same way.
> 
> Schoenberg, on the other hand, believes that he, unlike his unnamed "opponents," knows precisely how Mahler's music should be perceived, and that anyone who doesn't feel about it the way he does exhibits "the most blatant lack of the power of discrimination." Only Schoenberg can have any idea why Schoenberg had a change of heart about whatever music Schoenberg had a change of heart about. (And, Arnie, I find my power of discrimination to be quite healthy - but thank you for your concern.)
> 
> I suppose that sort of dogmatic arrogance is not unusual in the builders of systems, musical or philosophical. A superiority complex is part of the job description.


Schoenberg is referring to those who opposed Mahler and his music; that both of these things encountered fierce resistance is undeniable. If he comes across as dogmatic, it is likely in response to the unreasonable and unreasoned criticism he faced.

Schoenberg is saying that in his own experience resistance to Mahler was due to his own lack of understanding, and that likewise those who opposed Mahler were unable to understand his works. If you have read any of the contemporary criticisms of his works, it is obvious that this is true. Your assertion of solipsism regarding Schoenberg's opinions is intriguing, but you could just read his whole essay on Mahler (if you can secure a copy of Style and Idea from a local university library, for instance). He goes into great depth as to his feelings on Mahler's music.

My problem remains that you continue to express your feelings as if they describe something about the music, without any reference to the music itself. If you want to express your feelings, that is fine. If you want to discuss the music, that is also fine. But you must not confuse the two and posit the subjective as objective fact.

Schoenberg knew Mahler's works better than anyone in this room at a time when they were disdained by critics and fellow musicians alike. While you lecture others on the difference between simplicity and banality in Beethoven, _without having produced a single counter-example in Mahler for us to compare_, you still do nothing to support your accusations regarding Mahler's music.


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Schoenberg is referring to those who opposed Mahler and his music; that both of these things encountered fierce resistance is undeniable. If he comes across as dogmatic, it is likely in response to the unreasonable and unreasoned criticism he faced.
> 
> Schoenberg is saying that in his own experience resistance to Mahler was due to his own lack of understanding, and that likewise those who opposed Mahler were unable to understand his works. If you have read any of the contemporary criticisms of his works, it is obvious that this is true. Your assertion of solipsism regarding Schoenberg's opinions is intriguing, but you could just read his whole essay on Mahler (if you can secure a copy of Style and Idea from a local university library, for instance). He goes into great depth as to his feelings on Mahler's music.
> 
> My problem remains that you continue to express your feelings as if they describe something about the music, without any reference to the music itself. If you want to express your feelings, that is fine. If you want to discuss the music, that is also fine. But you must not confuse the two and posit the subjective as objective fact.
> 
> Schoenberg knew Mahler's works better than anyone in this room at a time when they were disdained by critics and fellow musicians alike. While you lecture others on the difference between simplicity and banality in Beethoven, _without having produced a single counter-example in Mahler for us to compare_, you still do nothing to support your accusations regarding Mahler's music.


If I were making accusations, I would try to support them. I am just reporting personal feelings. But, if you must have a citation: Why, for example, do the jaunty, quasi-military march rhythms in certain Mahler movements, such as the first movements of his 6th and 3rd, in conjunction with certain melodic figures and instrumentations, have for me an irritating air of triteness, and why are they something I would rather hear coming out of a band shell or down Main Street on the 4th of July (or, really, rather not hear at all)? Do you know the old Yale march tune "Boola Boola"? 



 Or did you ever hear the Ideal Toys "Mr. Machine" commercial from the 1960s? 




Maybe you're laughing and maybe you aren't. 

Now I'm willing to concede that I'm in the minority here, but the affinities here are just too much for my peculiar sensibilities to overlook. For me there's a corniness or a vulgarity to certain musical traits which, when featured conspicuously in a serious and profound symphonic work, have a disturbing effect for me and compromise the whole experience. This incongruity happens a lot in Mahler for me; it also happens a lot in Shostakovich. It rarely happens in other composers. I should add that this incorporation of such elements and qualities as I perceive is noticed by others (even if we are a minority); it was a fervent Mahler-lover who many years ago referred me to Mr. Machine, and I seem to recall Bernstein liking exactly the incongruities I dislike. Mahler did, after all, want his symphonies to contain the world, and the world isn't always a dignified place.

I don't have a need to convince anyone to feel as I do about any music, or persuade anyone that their contrary feelings are incorrect. Unlike Schoenberg, I've never said that others' feelings are proof of their arrested musical development.

Really, what else is there to say? We feel differently about some aspects of Mahler, and no one here needs to have the eternal truth. That's all right, isn't it?


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## Mahlerian

It's hardly Mahler's fault if his music reminds you of dumb commercial jingles and school songs. It's hardly Dvorak's fault if you're reminded of "Three Blind Mice" during his Eighth Symphony, either.

March elements in serious music are hardly rare.
What about Wagner's Rienzi Overture? 



The "Turkish March" episode from Beethoven's Ninth?
The second movement of Schubert's Ninth?
The Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream incidental music?

In the context of the Third Symphony, the march theme is a transformation of the horn music of the opening, and it is not simply a concatenation of stereotyped rhythmic and melodic figures, but filled with counterpoint and harmonic nuance. Additionally, these things are not merely "added" to the music for effects, but rather grow out of the symphonic development of the movement.


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> It's hardly Mahler's fault if his music reminds you of dumb commercial jingles and school songs. It's hardly Dvorak's fault if you're reminded of "Three Blind Mice" during his Eighth Symphony, either.


Are you saying that Mahler and Dvorak didn't know what they were doing? They knew perfectly well! I, for one, find it difficult to forgive them for their cruel japes. :scold:


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> It's hardly Mahler's fault if his music reminds you of dumb commercial jingles and school songs. It's hardly Dvorak's fault if you're reminded of "Three Blind Mice" during his Eighth Symphony, either.
> 
> March elements in serious music are hardly rare.
> What about Wagner's Rienzi Overture?
> 
> 
> 
> The "Turkish March" episode from Beethoven's Ninth?
> The second movement of Schubert's Ninth?
> The Wedding March from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream incidental music?
> 
> In the context of the Third Symphony, the march theme is a transformation of the horn music of the opening, and it is not simply a concatenation of stereotyped rhythmic and melodic figures, but filled with counterpoint and harmonic nuance. Additionally, these things are not merely "added" to the music for effects, but rather grow out of the symphonic development of the movement.


There are all sorts of marches, with all sorts of moods, used in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of music. Some marches are majestic, some are exhilarating, some are mournful, some are frightening. I wasn't generalizing about marches. For that matter, sometimes a little vulgarity is just the thing. And sometimes it isn't. In toy commercials I'm fine with it.


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## hpowders

Richard Strauss Salome. Captivating melodrama, great music with a helluva ending.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Thankfully, Mahler didn't need to compose in a textbook manner to form his ideas coherently.


Well, obviously, I would say that remains to be seen


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## EdwardBast

Becca said:


> Ohh dear, there goes half the symphonies that I most like!


I doubt this is the case. "Cyclic structure" used in this way has a specific meaning in the theory of form, referring to thematically unified multi-movement structures in which important themes or motives recur from one movement to another (and, in almost every case, in which material from the first movement returns in the finale.) So, if any of the favorite symphonies to which you refer are by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (other than 3 and 9), Brahms (except for 3), Mendelssohn, Schubert, etc., then "cyclic structure 101" does not apply; it is normal for classical symphonies that anything weighty or problematic should be "surmounted" in the first movement. It is only in compositions in which there is an attempt to unify the whole cycle by dramatic reprises from the early movements to the last, that the principle "leave the resolution until near the end" becomes an imperative - works like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Sonata op. 57, Schumann's 2nd and 4th Symphonies, Franck's Symphony and Violin Sonata, Liszt's symphonies and piano concertos, Tchaikovsky's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, several of Bruckner's symphonies, nearly every multi-movement cycle Rachmaninoff composed, and yes, Mahler's 5th and 6th.


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## EdwardBast

hpowders said:


> Richard Strauss Salome. Captivating melodrama, great music with a helluva ending.


And you don't like Elektra? That one is brilliant and with scary psychological depth. Klytemnestra's nightmare is worth the price of admission alone.


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> There are all sorts of marches, with all sorts of moods, used in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of music. Some marches are majestic, some are exhilarating, some are mournful, some are frightening. I wasn't generalizing about marches. For that matter, sometimes a little vulgarity is just the thing. And sometimes it isn't. In toy commercials I'm fine with it.


We weren't arguing about vulgarity, though, we were arguing about banality. First you say that Mahler is not able to escape banality, despite defining simplicity and banality as separated by the context. I disagree.

Now, on the other hand, the march in the Third _is_ somewhat vulgar. It is brash, swaggering, and portrayed in garish colors. The point, though, is that this is not present as cheap splashy effect, but rather as a contrast both to the material that precedes it (and from which it is developed) and to the rest of the symphony. It is music of nature, in all of its roughness and rudeness, but also in all of its complexity and majesty.

So vulgar it may be, but banal it is not.


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## Avey

Woodduck said:


> "[Those pieces] avoid the bombast and *sentimentality* that can make some of his other work seem overextended, cloying or dated ... and if the "Nimrod" variation in the Enigmas is *sentimental* it's *sentimentality *of the most sublime sort."


Wait, what? I do not understand.


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> We weren't arguing about vulgarity, though, we were arguing about banality. First you say that Mahler is not able to escape banality, despite defining simplicity and banality as separated by the context. I disagree.
> 
> Now, on the other hand, the march in the Third _is_ somewhat vulgar. It is brash, swaggering, and portrayed in garish colors. The point, though, is that this is not present as cheap splashy effect, but rather as a contrast both to the material that precedes it (and from which it is developed) and to the rest of the symphony. It is music of nature, in all of its roughness and rudeness, but also in all of its complexity and majesty.
> 
> So vulgar it may be, but banal it is not.


That march doesn't suggest nature to me. Mahler called it "Summer marches in," but the very idea of using a literal, strutting, jaunty march that contains tunes that sound strikingly like traditional college songs or football cheers and evokes the gaudy festivities of a holiday parade is an anthropomorphic conceit which in no way speaks to me of the reality of nature. The movement as a whole is certainly not banal, it is fascinating and brilliant, there are many things in it that I admire, and I'm in no way disparaging it as a piece of music. But the sensibility that could ever imagine summer's blossoming in terms of a gigantic marching band is quite remote from mine.

If I want the feel of nature in music I'll go to Sibelius, whose music doesn't try to "contain the world" but sees nature more subtly, starkly, and impersonally, without the complex overlay of pathos and sentiment through which Mahler seems to experience everything, or the need to inflate grandeur to grandiosity.


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## Woodduck

Avey said:


> Wait, what? I do not understand.


You don't ever find Elgar sentimental? It _is_ a word whose connotations have changed over time, and I was actually playing a bit with that ambiguity. The idea that sentimentality might be sublime struck my fancy. Actually I don't know what I think of "Nimrod" in that respect, but I know I adore it.


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> That march doesn't suggest nature to me. Mahler called it "Summer marches in," but the very idea of using a literal, strutting, jaunty march that contains tunes that sound strikingly like traditional college songs or football cheers and evokes the gaudy festivities of a holiday parade is an anthropomorphic conceit which in no way speaks to me of the reality of nature. The movement as a whole is certainly not banal, it is fascinating and brilliant, there are many things in it that I admire, and I'm in no way disparaging it as a piece of music. But the sensibility that could ever imagine summer's blossoming in terms of a gigantic marching band is quite remote from mine.
> 
> If I want the feel of nature in music I'll go to Sibelius, whose music doesn't try to "contain the world" but sees nature more subtly, starkly, and impersonally, without the complex overlay of pathos and sentiment through which Mahler seems to experience everything, or the need to inflate grandeur to grandiosity.


The march is _not_ literal. No element of it could be used in "real" march music. The harmony and counterpoint too complex, the phrasing isn't square enough, the melody is not repetitive enough, and so forth.

Sibelius's music has very different aims from Mahler's. One is not inherently better than the other, and I would say that they reflect different elements of nature. I also disagree that "everything" in Mahler is overlaid with "pathos and sentiment" or that he inflates things. Sibelius's music may be shorter than Mahler's, but it is no more concise (on the contrary, I think it is often far less so); he limits his materials considerably.


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## hpowders

Rossini Barber of Seville. Opera buffa at its finest.


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## 20centrfuge

hpowders said:


> Rossini Barber of Seville. Opera buffa at its finest.


For me it's La Gazza Ladra Overture


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## EdwardBast

Woodduck said:


> The movement as a whole is certainly not banal, it is fascinating and brilliant, there are many things in it that I admire, and I'm in no way disparaging it as a piece of music. But the sensibility that could ever imagine summer's blossoming in terms of a gigantic marching band is quite remote from mine.
> 
> If I want the feel of nature in music I'll go to Sibelius, whose music doesn't try to "contain the world" but sees nature more subtly, starkly, and impersonally, without the complex overlay of pathos and sentiment through which Mahler seems to experience everything, or the need to inflate grandeur to grandiosity.


Sorry man, but I find nothing fascinating or brilliant in that first movement. There are a couple of good ideas that get drowned in the overwhelming sea of cheese and bombast. I cannot listen to this movement in public because I can't stop myself from laughing out loud about two thirds of the way through (throughout the couple of minutes before the long military tattoo on the snare).


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Sorry man, but I find nothing fascinating or brilliant in that first movement. There are a couple of good ideas that get drowned in the overwhelming sea of cheese and bombast. I cannot listen to this movement in public because I can't stop myself from laughing out loud about two thirds of the way through (throughout the couple of minutes before the long military tattoo on the snare).


I'm sorry for your condition. I'm sure you pity me just as much for being unable to restrain myself at the absurd silliness of the orchestra shouting D-S-C-H in the middle of the finale of the 10th Symphony.


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## Guest

DiesIraeVIX said:


> I dislike most of Beethoven, but I find his _Wellington's Victory_ to be the greatest work of art since Michelangelo's David.


You are forgetting the _*Dressler*_ Variations, DiesIrae59. I voted for Beethoven.


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## Dim7

TalkingHead said:


> You are forgetting the _*Dressler*_ Variations, DiesIrae59. I voted for Beethoven.


Who is this composer you dislike who composed Beethoven?


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> I'm sorry for your condition. I'm sure you pity me just as much for being unable to restrain myself at the absurd silliness of the orchestra shouting D-S-C-H in the middle of the finale of the 10th Symphony.


Oh, it isn't exclusively a Mahler thing. The same thing happens when I try to listen to the first movement of Shostakovich's 7th.

It is possible that if you knew why D-S-C-H sounds as it does in the 10th, you might not find it quite as silly. But then you still might …


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> It is possible that if you knew why D-S-C-H sounds as it does in the 10th, you might not find it quite as silly. But then you still might …


As it happens, I know all about the programmatic elements of the Tenth Symphony, both actual and as imagined by others such as Volkov.

Doesn't make that moment, or that movement, into good music.


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## clavichorder

Mahlerian said:


> Sibelius's music has very different aims from Mahler's. One is not inherently better than the other, and I would say that they reflect different elements of nature. I also disagree that "everything" in Mahler is overlaid with "pathos and sentiment" or that he inflates things. Sibelius's music may be shorter than Mahler's, but it is no more concise (on the contrary, I think it is often far less so); he limits his materials considerably.


Likewise, I would say that neither of them are inherently better than Shostakovich, who was in fact, a great composer. You have this bias against him that I really hope you recognize, is just a personal bias, not a factual statement about the quality of the music.


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## dgee

clavichorder said:


> Likewise, I would say that neither of them are inherently better than Shostakovich, who was in fact, a great composer. You have this bias against him that I really hope you recognize, is just a personal bias, not a factual statement about the quality of the music.


I have that "bias" against Shostakovich too! I don't like the music and I don't think of him as a great composer. But I have to admit the first couple of movements of the 13th symphony are great fun and I hold soft spot for the 5th too. The rest of his stuff doesn't do much for me

I guess when you don't like something and don't think it is of high quality that's a bias? Is that right?


----------



## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> Sorry man, but I find nothing fascinating or brilliant in that first movement [Mahler's Symphony #3]. There are a couple of good ideas that get drowned in the overwhelming sea of cheese and bombast. I cannot listen to this movement in public because I can't stop myself from laughing out loud about two thirds of the way through (throughout the couple of minutes before the long military tattoo on the snare).


WELL!!! (Visualize Jack Benny, if you're old enough to remember him.)

This is as over-the-top as Mahler himself! I am beaten and I admit it! In my worst moments of Mahlerphobia, some of which do occur during the march in question, I have never been moved to laughter (though I can't keep from smiling when the Mr. Machine tune starts). I suppose it's good that you could get through two thirds of it with an appropriately serious demeanor. But surely you could try a little harder? I mean, honestly, you don't believe this movement is actually _horrible,_ do you? Cheese is certainly in the ear of the beholder, and though I confess to detecting a whiff of Limburger in this music I've always found almost enough freshness, strength and atmosphere in the surrounding material to make me at least consider hearing it again before I decide not to.

Hey, whose side am I on anyway? 

The dormouse will now retreat back into his teapot.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> As it happens, I know all about the programmatic elements of the Tenth Symphony, both actual and as imagined by others such as Volkov.
> 
> Doesn't make that moment, or that movement, into good music.


No one knows all about the programmatic elements in the Tenth. There really isn't a good treatment of the subject anywhere.

The finale of the 10th isn't a particularly strong movement in my opinion. Did you assume I thought otherwise?


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## Guest

EdwardBast, I really should've said this days ago, but this doesn't particularly seem like the kind of argument that is beneficial for you to keep up. Some of the logical disconnects just aren't doing you any favors. 

Best Regards, 

Nathan


----------



## EdwardBast

Woodduck said:


> WELL!!! (Visualize Jack Benny, if you're old enough to remember him.)
> 
> This is as over the top as Mahler himself! I am beaten and I admit it! In my worst moments of Mahlerphobia, some of which do occur during the march in question, I have never been moved to laughter (though I can't keep from smiling when the Mr. Machine tune starts). I suppose it's good that you could get through two thirds of it with an appropriately serious demeanor. But surely you could try a little harder? I mean, honestly, you don't believe this movement is actually _horrible,_ do you? Cheese is certainly in the ear of the beholder, and though I confess to detecting a whiff of Limburger in this music I've always found almost enough freshness, strength and atmosphere in the surrounding material to make me at least consider hearing it again before I decide not to.
> 
> Hey, whose side am I on anyway?
> 
> The dormouse will now retreat back into his teapot.


Until today I had mostly discussed the Mahler I like in this thread. But yes, I do think the first movement of the 3rd is appallingly bad. I wish he had skipped it and composed another beautiful song cycle instead.


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## EdwardBast

nathanb said:


> EdwardBast, I really should've said this days ago, but this doesn't particularly seem like the kind of argument that is beneficial for you to keep up. Some of the logical disconnects just aren't doing you any favors.
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Nathan


I'll answer if you actually point out a logical disconnect.


----------



## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> I'll answer if you actually point out a logical disconnect.


Well, on this page alone, you implied that Mahlerian only disliked a specific moment of Shostakovich's 10th because he was unaware of a programmatic element of it. You then pointed out that said programmatic element is entirely unknowable, which raises an eyebrow or two, I daresay.


----------



## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> Until today I had mostly discussed the Mahler I like in this thread. But yes, I do think the first movement of the 3rd is appallingly bad. *I wish he had skipped it and composed another beautiful song cycle instead.*


OK. You got me again. Songs. Mahler's songs. Some gorgeous stuff. "Ich bin der Welt abhanden..." I feel tears coming. Wonderful. Yes, I would trade a lot of orchestral _Sturm und Drang_, not to mention Doktor Marianus and angels baking bread, for more such.

However, it's Jack Benny I was really interested in...


----------



## SeptimalTritone

EdwardBast said:


> Until today I had mostly discussed the Mahler I like in this thread. But yes, I do think the first movement of the 3rd is appallingly bad. I wish he had skipped it and composed another beautiful song cycle instead.


Hmm... that movement is actually one of my favorite symphonic movements ever. Guess we have really varied tastes.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> However, it's Jack Benny I was really interested in...


There's a Shostakovich Petrenko cover with the conductor in his finest "WELL!!!" pose. For some reason I can't find it right now...


----------



## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> There's a Shostakovich Petrenko cover with the conductor in his finest "WELL!!!" pose. For some reason I can't find it right now...


One of these? http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...=popular&field-keywords=shostakovich+petrenko


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> One of these? http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...=popular&field-keywords=shostakovich+petrenko


Naw, looked there. Don't know where it's got off to!  Here it is!


----------



## EdwardBast

nathanb said:


> Well, on this page alone, you implied that Mahlerian only disliked a specific moment of Shostakovich's 10th because he was unaware of a programmatic element of it. You then pointed out that said programmatic element is entirely unknowable, which raises an eyebrow or two, I daresay.


You have not read carefully and your paraphrase is grossly inaccurate. I said nothing at all about why Mahlerian might or might not like a specific moment. I only suggested that he might find the D-S-C-H less silly if he knew why it was there - I then demured by writing: then again, he might not. I did not say the reason for it being there is a programmatic one. Mahlerian only assumed that was what I meant, as did you. There are certainly arguments to be made in favor of that kind of explanation. And there are formal arguments for its presence as well. And I didn't say the assumed program is unknowable. I only said no one has yet treated the subject with the thoroughness it deserves. Numerous writers have gotten bits and pieces but, to my knowledge, no one has yet tied them together into a coherent account. Must put that on my to-do list.


----------



## EdwardBast

SeptimalTritone said:


> Hmm... that movement is actually one of my favorite symphonic movements ever. Guess we have really varied tastes.


I'm not sure it's tastes exactly. More like an allergy for me


----------



## KenOC

Without getting involved in the wrangle, I'll say only that I find DSCH's music more enjoyable without the political programs. When it comes to his music, that's all some people seem interested in. A shame.

It's the music that counts.


----------



## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> You have not read carefully and your paraphrase is grossly inaccurate. I said nothing at all about why Mahlerian _*might or might not like*_ a specific moment. You made that up. I only suggested that he _*might find the D-S-C-H less silly*_ if he knew why it was there - I then demured by writing: then again, he might not. I did not say the reason for it being there is a programmatic one. Mahlerian only assumed that was what I meant, as did you. There are certainly arguments to be made in favor of that kind of explanation. And there are formal arguments for its presence as well. And I didn't say the assumed program is unknowable. I only said no one has yet treated the subject with the thoroughness it deserves. Numerous writers have gotten bits and pieces but, to my knowledge, no one has yet tied them together into a coherent account. Perhaps I will do it?


Splitting hairs for sure.

As for the rest, you have yet to reveal your secret knowledge of the *non-programmatic* (Is that what we're going with now?) reasoning for the presentation of the motif, so it's all just argument for the sake of being argumentative.

Let's not even start on the Mahler discussion.


----------



## EdwardBast

nathanb said:


> Splitting hairs for sure.
> 
> As for the rest, you have yet to reveal your secret knowledge of the *non-programmatic* (Is that what we're going with now?) reasoning for the presentation of the motif, so it's all just argument for the sake of being argumentative.
> 
> Let's not even start on the Mahler discussion.


It is not splitting hairs. Those statements are not remotely similar in content or intention. And I'm not sure what to make of "splitting hairs" following so closely on the heels of your attributing three ideas to me, none of which I expressed.

Moving on: Might I respectfully suggest you read what I actually wrote? I didn't say the explanation was formal. I said good arguments can be made for a formal explanation and for a programmatic one. I could make either. I _have_ made both at various times in the past. The non-programmatic one is that in the 3rd movement, the D-S-C-H motive is developed in opposition to material related to both the symphony's motto and the theme of the second movement. So, its return in the finale to displace the reanimated theme of the second movement, which is the idea with which the development section culminates, is perfectly logical on formal grounds.


----------



## EdwardBast

KenOC said:


> Without getting involved in the wrangle, I'll say only that I find DSCH's music more enjoyable without the political programs. When it comes to his music, that's all some people seem interested in. A shame.
> 
> It's the music that counts.


For me it isn't the (assumed) political program per se that bothers me, but the autobiographical element. That is why the 8th is among my least favorite of the quartets. One thing I find fascinating about the Tenth Symphony is that every element to which a political interpretation is commonly applied also has a fairly obvious formal/historical explanation as well. And Shostakovich seems purposely to have left contradictory hints about the extramusical referents for his themes. The horn call from the third movement, for example, he has linked both to the name of one of his former students (Elmira Nazirova) and to a similar horn motive from the first movement of Mahler's _Das Lied von der Erde_. And then he said this will make a good subject for musicologists, more or less challenging us to sort it out. I think it's a fun puzzle, but one that doesn't distract me from the music itself.


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Moving on: Might I respectfully suggest you read what I actually wrote? I didn't say the explanation was formal. I said good arguments can be made for a formal explanation and for a programmatic one. I could make either. I _have_ made both at various times in the past. The non-programmatic one is that in the 3rd movement, the D-S-C-H motive is developed in opposition to material related to both the symphony's motto and the theme of the second movement. So, its return in the finale to displace the reanimated theme of the second movement, which is the idea with which the development section culminates, is perfectly logical on formal grounds.


So you assumed that I didn't know that? I am aware of the motif's purpose in the work as a whole, like I said. That moment still strikes me as blatant, cartoonish, and silly, regardless of the programmatic and formal aspects. The fact that the motif is brought up in opposition to the theme of the second movement is clear, but I don't see why Shostakovich has to underline it, put it in bold, and stick on a series of exclamation marks (the tam-tam is the clincher here).


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> So you assumed that I didn't know that? I am aware of the motif's purpose in the work as a whole, like I said. That moment still strikes me as blatant, cartoonish, and silly, regardless of the programmatic and formal aspects. The fact that the motif is brought up in opposition to the theme of the second movement is clear, but I don't see why Shostakovich has to underline it, put it in bold, and stick on a series of exclamation marks (the tam-tam is the clincher here).


Well, naturally, I was unsure about the state of your knowledge. No slight intended!

As for "the moment:" of course it is blatant and excessive - maybe even "cartoonish" and "silly." But in a movement that is largely comic in tone (after the introduction), I'm not sure this is a bad thing. If one takes seriously the programmatic reading suggested by Galina Vishnevskaya (in her memoir, _Galina_), then the symphony is Shostakovich's "indictment of Stalin, which he signed with his monogram" (quoting from memory). Given that Stalin put his initials to death warrants for several of Shostakovich's friends and collaborators, it is hardly surprising that the composer might have wanted to return the favor and to do it in just such an excessive way. After all, and I repeat: the movement is a comedy.

It is the comic bent of the finale that has always put me off and left me vaguely unsatisfied, especially given the harrowing and brilliant first movement. But I'm not sure it is wrong. It might even be exactly right - it is certainly tightly structured (after the introduction); and I'm not sure what else would have worked in its place. Still, it rubs me the wrong way.

Edit: I should have added: The Tenth is better constructed than any symphony Mahler ever composed, and has more to say at half the length.


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## clavichorder

dgee said:


> I have that "bias" against Shostakovich too! I don't like the music and I don't think of him as a great composer. But I have to admit the first couple of movements of the 13th symphony are great fun and I hold soft spot for the 5th too. The rest of his stuff doesn't do much for me
> 
> I guess when you don't like something and don't think it is of high quality that's a bias? Is that right?


 Remove the quotes and then we can talk reasonably. Shostakovich is widely regarded as a great composer and I love his music. I don't know why so many people in a certain pocket of tc be trippin.


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## EdwardBast

I should have added to my last post: Shostakovich's Tenth is better constructed than any symphony Mahler ever composed, and has more to say at half the length.


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## dgee

clavichorder said:


> Remove the quotes and then we can talk reasonably. Shostakovich is widely regarded as a great composer and I love his music. I don't know why so many people in a certain pocket of tc be trippin.


I don't love Shostakovich and therefore I "be trippin"? Hmmmmm - if only I could shake that damn "bias" of following my own responses and assessments of music I hear and just go with what's widely regarded and what clavichorder thinks... Then I'd get out of the "certain pocket"


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## Avey

EdwardBast said:


> I should have added to my last post: Shostakovich's Tenth is better constructed than any symphony Mahler ever composed, and has more to say at half the length.


Well, with that, this argument seems settled. Can't continue the back-and-forth following this, right?


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## clavichorder

dgee said:


> I don't love Shostakovich and therefore I "be trippin"? Hmmmmm - if only I could shake that damn "bias" of following my own responses and assessments of music I hear and just go with what's widely regarded and what clavichorder thinks... Then I'd get out of the "certain pocket"


I'm not trying to be a taste tyrant, that's not at all my position. I wasn't saying that if you don't like his music, you be trippin'. I am speaking on this because it seems to be fairly popular on tc right now to downplay Shostakovich as an important 20th century composer; those who are trippin'(which was just a jest) are those who band together and claim that he is some kind of lesser composer.

It is perfectly reasonable to dislike a great composer, but one truly is better served by acknowledging their importance on the wider scale (to many people who truly love classical music) with a liberal attitude, whatever one's private opinions may be.

But if you really don't think he's a great composer, maybe we can just accept that that is neutral territory that need not be quarreled over by calling it in the realm of opinion that he is "great."

Fact is, you don't like him and I do. Opinion is, I think he's great and you don't. Further opinion on both of our parts is likely that what does great even mean?


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## EdwardBast

Avey said:


> Well, with that, this argument seems settled. Can't continue the back-and-forth following this, right?


You didn't think there was enough back and forth on this subject above? It became practically a thread unto itself. Anyway, this was just a final poke, since the last part of the discussion had been altogether too congenial.


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## Mahlerian

clavichorder said:


> I'm not trying to be a taste tyrant, that's not at all my position. I wasn't saying that if you don't like his music, you be trippin'. I am speaking on this because it seems to be fairly popular on tc right now to downplay Shostakovich as an important 20th century composer; those who are trippin'(which was just a jest) are those who band together and claim that he is some kind of lesser composer.
> 
> It is perfectly reasonable to dislike a great composer, but one truly is better served by acknowledging their importance on the wider scale (to many people who truly love classical music) with a liberal attitude, whatever one's private opinions may be.
> 
> But if you really don't think he's a great composer, maybe we can just accept that that is neutral territory that need not be quarreled over by calling it in the realm of opinion that he is "great."
> 
> Fact is, you don't like him and I do. Opinion is, I think he's great and you don't. Further opinion on both of our parts is likely that what does great even mean?


Regardless of what you may think, I don't like trashing Shostakovich. I would love to experience what others clearly do in this music.

His relative conservatism is not an issue for me.
His writing in the old forms is not an issue for me.
The disputed political content of his works is not an issue for me.

I'm frustrated, not by the fact that he's a bad composer, but that he's obviously a fine, talented composer who seems to be preventing himself from doing as much as he can musically.

So my reaction is more confusion than anything else. I am confused as to how he is one of the greats of the 20th century, let alone of all time. I'm confused as to how anyone could think that any of his symphonies surpasses Mahler in concision, to say nothing of form.

As someone who loves the music of the 20th century, I find it irritating that so much of what I love is disparaged as completely unlovable. That's in part why I avoid discussing Shostakovich for the most part; I try to have respect for others' views, no matter how much they differ from my own.


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## clavichorder

I appreciate the clarification Mahlerian. 

This perhaps doesn't belong in this thread, but I feel that Shostakovich has strongly his own voice that, in the works I am familiar with, on the larger scale seem to obey some more cut and dried aspects of form(while also being as you say, long winded, which isn't necessarily a bad thing). The voice is a voice that is immediately distinct as Shostakovich, which is also true of composers like Hindemith and Martinu(who also often obey a more cut and dried sense of form, compared to say, Sibelius), but what perhaps elevates the best of Shostakovich's work in some respects are his themes. Martinu and Hindemith often function like neoclassicists to my ear, and the craft always lovely to get to know(and very often there's more to it than just a craft). I have the same pleasure distinguishing between the multitude of their works that I do with Haydn, which is a very enjoyable thing for me. With Shostakovich, its more like Beethoven in that the individuality of each work is less subtle. This can be regarded as a merit.

Comparing Shostakovich to an earlier romantically culminated composer that deals with slightly larger forms like Mahler: Its difficult when there is a 20th century composer who can be heard with the set of expectations we might hear something earlier like Mahler, but in order to really hear Shostakovich, you have to aurally disregard expectations set up by Mahler. I often notice this phenomenon of these 'aural expectations' having the effect of either enhancing or diminishing the work to which such expectations are not actually suited for. Mozart to Beethoven can seem like a come down and Beethoven to Mozart can seem like a come down, and both vice versa, can seem like an improvement depending on the mindset. I'm not trying to patronize, you probably understand all this, so I'm just saying it really applies here too.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> So my reaction is more confusion than anything else. I am confused as to how he is one of the greats of the 20th century, let alone of all time. I'm confused as to how anyone could think that any of his symphonies surpasses Mahler in concision, to say nothing of form.


Your confusion confuses me. Nearly everyone's symphonies surpass those of Mahler in concision of form and dramatic continuity. It isn't a hard mark to hit.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Your confusion confuses me. Nearly everyone's symphonies surpass those of Mahler in concision of form and dramatic continuity. It isn't a hard mark to hit.


A wonder that no one since has manged to do it, then.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> A wonder that no one since has manged to do it, then.


Scnittke 7, Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, Rachmaninoff 3, Sibelius 7, Myaskovsky 9, 17, 21. How long a list do you want?

Whatever sterling qualities Mahler symphonies possess, concision and formal clarity are not among them. Are there even Mahler scholars who believe this?


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Whatever sterling qualities Mahler symphonies possess, concision and formal clarity are not among them. Are there even Mahler scholars who believe this?


On the contrary, the fact that in Mahler's symphonies nothing is superfluous is part of their primary attraction. Likewise their forms, which always arise directly from the material rather than existing as containers for it.

As for scholars, La Grange, Boulez, and Schoenberg have all praised Mahler's command of form as exemplary.


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## musicrom

I'm not as big a fan of Haydn as many are, but I do really like his first two cello concertos, as well as his 39th symphony and a couple of his other symphonies.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> On the contrary, the fact that in Mahler's symphonies nothing is superfluous is part of their primary attraction. Likewise their forms, which always arise directly from the material rather than existing as containers for it.
> 
> As for scholars, La Grange, Boulez, and Schoenberg have all praised Mahler's command of form as exemplary.


Large scale forms don't emerge from material like plants from seeds. That's nineteenth-century organicist claptrap. They are created and imposed by the conscious decisions of composers.

Developing ones material in accordance with well-understood patterns and expressive progressions is not to treat form as a choice of prefab containers-it merely demonstrates a comprehension and mastery of musical processes.

To judge whether or not a passage or movement is superfluous requires that one has determined an overall purpose or unifying strategy for the whole. Without a convincing account of this kind such judgments are without foundation.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Large scale forms don't emerge from material like plants from seeds. That's nineteenth-century organicist claptrap. They are created and imposed by the conscious decisions of composers.


Yes, and it helps when those forms are related to and guided by their material.



EdwardBast said:


> Developing ones material in accordance with well-understood patterns and expressive progressions is not to treat form as a choice of prefab containers-it merely demonstrates a comprehension and mastery of musical processes.


Sure, but this isn't what we were talking about. I was defending the validity of Mahler's forms. I think it shows significant formal mastery to be able to create ten works with significantly different designs that all function effectively.



EdwardBast said:


> To judge whether or not a passage or movement is superfluous requires that one has determined an overall purpose or unifying strategy for the whole. Without a convincing account of this kind such judgments are without foundation.


Of course. And as one who has studied all of Mahler's symphonies, I can tell you that nothing in them is useless.


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Sure, but this isn't what we were talking about. I was defending the validity of Mahler's forms. I think it shows significant formal mastery to be able to create ten works with significantly different designs that all function effectively.


I very much admire Mahler's willingness to experiment with new formal ideas and processes. When he gets it right the results are wonderful.


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## Woodduck

The proof of the musical pudding is in the hearing. A composition can look well-thought-out, its materials arresting, nicely interrelated, and worked out with great inventiveness, its forms carefully plotted, the whole exhibiting much ingenuity - and still bore the living daylights out of you.

I just finished listening to movement one of Mahler's Ninth and after about ten minutes was ready for movement two (and movement one still had fifteen minutes to go). Yes, this is widely considered a masterpiece, and I'm sure that no detail is superfluous - _if_ you think that the material is interesting enough to justify the lengthy treatment to which it's subjected, and _if_ the succession of buildups and letdowns that constitute its form create an emotional arc that's compelling enough to make you want to hear that material over and over again in guise after guise, and _if_ you feel while listening that it's all going somewhere that it and you need to go...

I have to say that for me the piece meets none of the above criteria. I've never looked at the score and so have never seen what the composer's big plan looks like on paper. But to my ear it sounds overwrought, long-winded, and bombastic - anything but concise - and it didn't take long for my earnest interest and desire to be moved by the music to be deflated by its prolixity. However ingenious this piece is, and however essential you may say its every detail is to Mahler's conception, I feel that its basic material is not interesting enough to justify its enormous length, and that its episodes of strenuous buildups alternating with collapses into dark mutterings and noodlings fail to give me the sense of moving toward a destination. Yet, I don't doubt that someone who loves this music could relish every last iteration of that obsessive two-note motif which long before the end had me thinking about what to make for dinner.

It's interesting to read these knowledgeable discussions about musical form and whether such-and-such a work is successful in its construction, but I rather doubt that studying a score is the best way to determine that. Listening to this work again after not hearing it for a long time leaves me no more convinced by it than previously, and feeling no need to examine the score.

Now, _Das Lied von der Erde_ - that's a different matter. The same two-note motif returns - _"ewig, ewig"_ - sounding not one time too many, and I wander blissfully over the blue hills of autumn.


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## EdwardBast

Woodduck said:


> I just finished listening to movement one of Mahler's Ninth and after about ten minutes was ready for movement two (and movement one still had fifteen minutes to go). Yes, this is widely considered a masterpiece, and I'm sure that no detail is superfluous - _if_ you think that the material is interesting enough to justify the lengthy treatment to which it's subjected, and _if_ the succession of buildups and letdowns that constitute its form create an emotional arc that's compelling enough to make you want to hear that material over and over again in guise after guise, and _if_ you feel while listening that it's all going somewhere that it and you need to go...


There are several composers of that era-and I'll not name names for fear of igniting another debate-who would have greatly benefited from a composition teacher with the sense to say: "Why don't you write a single well-constructed string quartet (or sonata or whatever) less than 20 minutes in length before you try to compose monumental symphonies?" Would have saved us all a lot of time and tedium.

Oh, and Woodduck? You're it!


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## Avey

Woodduck said:


> I just finished listening to movement one of Mahler's Ninth and after about ten minutes was ready for movement two (and movement one still had fifteen minutes to go).
> 
> I've never looked at the score and so have never seen what the composer's big plan looks like on paper. But to my ear it sounds overwrought, long-winded, and bombastic - anything but concise - and it didn't take long for my earnest interest and desire to be moved by the music to be deflated by its prolixity. However ingenious this piece is, and however essential you may say its every detail is to Mahler's conception, I feel that its basic material is not interesting enough to justify its enormous length.
> 
> ...I rather doubt that studying a score is the best way to determine that. Listening to this work again after not hearing it for a long time leaves me no more convinced by it than previously, and feeling no need to examine the score.


I can agree that what we _hear_ is most important -- at least for the non-academics here. But if you take that position, you can't then come in and doubt another individual's opinion that "every detail" in Mahler's composition is essential by declaring yourself that the Ninth's "basic material" does not justify its enormous length. How do you call it _basic_? By your standards? What the hell is _basic _in the movement, that opening, or that entire work?

Unless your aural skills are the preeminent standard of the 21st Century, I also question how, with your "hearing" the work, you so quickly doubt those opinions -- from people who _study_ the scores -- that even the minute details in Mahler's works are necessary. Instead, you call the music "overwrought, long-winded" and "anything but concise." Quite the talent you have, with your ears alone.

Or, we can just say you don't like the music. To say nothing about its actual _substantive content_.



EdwardBast said:


> "Why don't you write a single well-constructed string quartet (or sonata or whatever) less than 20 minutes in length before you try to compose monumental symphonies?" Would have saved us all a lot of time and tedium.


And this is just absurd. The time is arbitrary. You can find at a string quartet, sonata, other chamber material just as complex as a symphony. Seems like you just want shorter pieces.

This is nothing but one person's subjective impression of the music. You clearly don't like it. So we may benefit from stopping the arguments over "form" and "cyclic material" and "concision," etc., because those appear to be a proxy for your innate, and totally fair, position that Mahler's music does not please you. Let us move past these pseudo-substantive arguments.


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## Celloman

Woodduck said:


> I feel that its basic material is not interesting enough to justify its enormous length, and that its episodes of strenuous buildups alternating with collapses into dark mutterings and noodlings fail to give me the sense of moving toward a destination. Yet, I don't doubt that someone who loves this music could relish every last iteration of that obsessive two-note motif which long before the end had me thinking about what to make for dinner.


Most of the great composers use finely-wrought melodic seeds with which to construct their art. Mahler prefers to use quite ordinary seeds that he happens to pick up by the wayside. Is this any criticism on his part? I agree that his motivic ideas are often entirely banal and commonplace, and yet he takes these ordinary ideas and, like an alchemist, turns them to gold. What is he trying to say through this? That no musical idea, no matter how simple, is worthless. This, I think, is really the heart of what Mahler is trying to express - and he does it magnificently.

It's a celebration of simplicity, yes - but, ironically, his music is anything but simple.


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## Dim7

Celloman said:


> Most of the great composers use finely-wrought melodic seeds with which to construct their art. Mahler prefers to use quite ordinary seeds that he happens to pick up by the wayside. Is this any criticism on his part? I agree that his motivic ideas are often entirely banal and commonplace, and yet he takes these ordinary ideas and, like an alchemist, turns them to gold. What is he trying to say through this? That no musical idea, no matter how simple, is worthless. This, I think, is really the heart of what Mahler is trying to express - and he does it magnificently.
> 
> It's a celebration of simplicity, yes - but, ironically, his music is anything but simple.


This is Beethoven, not Mahler! Mahler's themes are not simplistic or banal.


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## EdwardBast

Avey said:


> And this is just absurd. The time is arbitrary. You can find at a string quartet, sonata, other chamber material just as complex as a symphony. Seems like you just want shorter pieces.


No, what I want is long pieces in which the material is tightly controlled and organized according to coherent principles. I do think it is pedagogically sound for composition students to begin with smaller and more easily manageable projects before taking on monumental ones.



Avey said:


> This is nothing but one person's subjective impression of the music. You clearly don't like it. So we may benefit from stopping the arguments over "form" and "cyclic material" and "concision," etc., because those appear to be a proxy for your innate, and totally fair, position that Mahler's music does not please you. Let us move past these pseudo-substantive arguments.


I have made a careful study of how composers from CPE Bach through Shostakovich organize cyclically unified multimovement structures. Certain general principles governing how and why interconnections among movements are made emerge when one does this; One gets a feel for what seems to work and what doesn't. Trying to reconcile what Mahler does in works of his I like (the 5th and 6th symphonies) but find disappointing on the grand scale with those of others I think are more successful (but which I don't necessarily like more) seems a natural thing to do. The discussion I have had with Mahlerian on these issues has, I believe, been _actually_ substantive, and I have learned from it.


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## DiesIraeCX

Dim7 said:


> This is Beethoven, not Mahler! Mahler's themes are not simplistic or banal.


This is curious, I'm reading a musical analysis-heavy Beethoven biography (Jan Swafford), he never calls his themes simplistic, much less banal. Do you have any evidence or analysis that would suggest otherwise. In fact, even the "simple" first movement of the Eroica symphony isn't simplistic at all, it's one of the most complex movements in the repertoire. He goes into great depth on this symphony. I also want to establish a difference between what's "simple" and what's "simplistic". Diabelli's Waltz is simplistic, the 1st mvt of Beethoven's Fifth is "simple" (and even then, extra emphasis on the quotations on "simple").


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## Woodduck

"There are several composers of that era-and I'll not name names for fear of igniting another debate-who would have greatly benefited from a composition teacher with the sense to say: 'Why don't you write a single well-constructed string quartet (or sonata or whatever) less than 20 minutes in length before you try to compose monumental symphonies?' Would have saved us all a lot of time and tedium."

How are we to have fun here, Edward, if we decline to name names? (Whisper them in my ear. I can keep a secret.)

"I can agree that what we hear is most important -- at least for the non-academics here. But if you take that position, you can't then come in and doubt another individual's opinion that 'every detail' in Mahler's composition is essential by declaring yourself that the Ninth's 'basic material' does not justify its enormous length...Unless your aural skills are the preeminent standard of the 21st Century, I also question how, with your 'hearing' the work, you so quickly doubt those opinions -- from people who study the scores -- that even the minute details in Mahler's works are necessary. Instead, you call the music 'overwrought, long-winded' and 'anything but concise.' Quite the talent you have, with your ears alone." 


What I came in and declared, Avey, is that _I hear_ the first movement of Mahler's 9th as overlong and overwrought, that _for__ me_ the thematic material wears out its welcome well before the piece is over, and that _I do not feel_ an adequate sense of goal-directedness in its form. If you look again, you will see such expressions of subjectivity sprinkled throughout my post. And they are there to reinforce my main point, which is contained in my first two sentences: _"The proof of the musical pudding is in the hearing. A composition can look well-thought-out, its materials arresting, nicely interrelated, and worked out with great inventiveness, its forms carefully plotted, the whole exhibiting much ingenuity - and still bore the living daylights out of you." _

The _point_ of making this point is precisely to counter the notion that having studied a score of a work - knowing what the music looks like on paper and being able to visualize every detail of it in its place - is a sufficient test of the effectiveness of that work as _music_ - as a specimen of that art form which exists specifically to be _heard,_ not seen. It would be perfectly possible to compose a symphonic movement twice or three times the length of the one in question which was magnificently wrought in every "indispensable" detail, on paper - but no one would be able to tolerate listening to it. Every composer who has revised a work after its first performance knows this.

"This is nothing but one person's subjective impression of the music. You clearly don't like it. So we may benefit from stopping the arguments over 'form' and 'cyclic material' and 'concision,' etc., because those appear to be a proxy for your innate, and totally fair, position that Mahler's music does not please you. Let us move past these pseudo-substantive arguments."


With the phrase "nothing but," you are raining contempt on the whole point of listening to music. In a way, you make my very point by saying "we may benefit from stopping the arguments over 'form' and 'cyclic material' and 'concision,' etc.," except that I think such arguments do have value in directing our attention to what there is in music to listen for. There's no implication that we need to take any opinion or observation, no matter how well-informed, as definitive. Such arguments are not to be taken as proxies for our subjective impressions but rather as guides and tests of them. They are not pseudo-substantive; they are perfectly substantive, but the primary substance - the meaning music has for us when we hear it - is as elusive as quicksilver and can only be spoken of in terms of other substances more objective and graspable. A problem arises only if we forget the difference between the substances - which it was precisely my purpose to point out.

Intimate acquaintance with the score is of great value in understanding a piece of music. I wouldn't dispute that; I've studied scores myself. A musically trained person can even "hear" a score entire in his head while looking at it. But music is made to sound through air and space and time and to enter the ear in sensuous glory and, through the ear, the soul. We are all entitled to speak about what happens - or fails to happen - when it does.


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## Avey

Woodduck said:


> The _point_ of making this point is precisely *to counter the notion that having studied a score of a work - knowing what the music looks like on paper and being able to visualize every detail of it in its place - is a sufficient test of the effectiveness of that work as music - as a specimen of that art form which exists specifically to be heard, not seen*.
> 
> Intimate acquaintance with the score is of great value in understanding a piece of music. I wouldn't dispute that; I've studied scores myself. A musically trained person can even "hear" a score entire in his head while looking at it. *But music is made to sound through air and space and time and to enter the ear in sensuous glory and, through the ear, the soul. We are all entitled to speak about what happens* - or fails to happen - when it does.


No doubt. We all can speak to what we hear, and that is all personal.

But again, like I said, I find it difficult for one to take a stand based upon that *aural* standard (i.e., what you hear) against a technical one that focuses on structure and form and themes and motifs, or all that "basic material" you heard etc. etc. That is, for structural discussion and commentary, there is a necessary place for strict analysis of the *page*, *notes*, and *compositional framework*.

So often here, people have readily discounted well-researched and respected analysis based upon the *page* (from within the forums and beyond) that refutes their opinions on form and structure. And yet rarely is this disagreement ever backed by actual references, sources, or citations to the notes! I think there is something to be said when discussing compositional structure that goes beyond one person's hearing a piece.

Thus, if we're talking _aural preferences_, why can't one just say "I don't like how this music sounds..." or "I find this piece too long and I opt for shorter works." Instead, all these subjective opinions tack on another clause, like "...because the 'basic material' that creates this main theme just does not develop into a more nuanced structure that permeates and evolves throughout the work...", or something of the sort.

Let's stop acting like form and structure are so readily apparent from _only_ listening to a work that anyone can speak to how they operate within a piece. Or, if you do so, please back it up with something objective, something beyond your own aural preferences.


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## Woodduck

DiesIraeVIX said:


> This is curious, I'm reading a musical analysis-heavy Beethoven biography (Jan Swafford), he never calls his themes simplistic, much less banal. Do you have any evidence or analysis that would suggest otherwise. In fact, even the "simple" first movement of the Eroica symphony isn't simplistic at all, it's one of the most complex movements in the repertoire. He goes into great depth on this symphony. I also want to establish a difference between what's "simple" and what's "simplistic". Diabelli's Waltz is simplistic, the 1st mvt of Beethoven's Fifth is "simple" (and even then, extra emphasis on the quotations on "simple").


Though I don't like the term "simplistic" applied to music - it really characterizes only propositions, statements, or arguments that fail to do justice to the complexities they address - the question of whether a musical idea is _interesting_ enough, intrinsically, to justify it's use in a composition seems legitimate. A complex symphony, or a set of variations, might be based on ideas which impress us as too trivial to support the work's ambitions. This "accusation" has been leveled at Beethoven in particular, who often bases substantial chunks of music on motifs that are quite abrubt, elemental, and unpromising. Were we to hand the famous four-note opening idea of the Symphony #5 to another composer and ask him to make something out of it, what would we expect to get? A symphony that would become a virtual archetype of the form? Another example would be the bare skeleton of a theme that serves as the basis of the "Eroica" Variations and the related movement of the Symphony #3. What would our anoymous composer make of that? A comic opera overture, maybe.

Is ths a fault or weakness in Beethoven, a limitation on his creative powers? I think the answer is obvious. Beethoven simply reveled in the challenge of making the most out of the least, and chose material like this in the jubilant awareness that it afforded him the widest possible latitude for demonstrating his incomparable creative powers. He loved the fact that a musical idea which is itself a virtual empty vessel can be the most capacious vessel imaginable for one who has the imagination to fill it to the brim. He looked around him at the music others were creating, shook his head, smiled to himself, and said "Signor Diabelli, give me the silliest, dinkiest, emptiest little waltz tune you can come up with. I'm in a mood to create the most startling and epic set of variations since Herr Bach conferred immortality on Herr Goldberg."

Someone defined light music as music in which the tune is more important than what you do with it.
Beethoven epitomizes the other end of the spectrum. He could create incommensurable greatness out of virtually no tune at all. I think that when he did it his habitual scowl broke into laughter.


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## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> There are several composers of that era-and I'll not name names for fear of igniting another debate-who would have greatly benefited from a composition teacher with the sense to say: "Why don't you write a single well-constructed string quartet (or sonata or whatever) less than 20 minutes in length before you try to compose monumental symphonies?" Would have saved us all a lot of time and tedium.












btw -- I don't see why length of a work is any real issue. I love the "shorter" orchestral works of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov just as much as as the "monumental" stuff by Mahler and Bruckner.

If we were to take length of a piece so seriously, I doubt we would be listening to classical music at all.


----------



## Woodduck

Avey said:


> No doubt. We all can speak to what we hear, and that is all personal.
> 
> But again, like I said, I find it difficult for one to take a stand based upon that *aural* standard (i.e., what you hear) against a technical one that focuses on structure and form and themes and motifs, or all that "basic material" you heard etc. etc. That is, for structural discussion and commentary, there is a necessary place for strict analysis of the *page*, *notes*, and *compositional framework*.
> 
> So often here, people have readily discounted well-researched and respected analysis based upon the *page* (from within the forums and beyond) that refutes their opinions on form and structure. And yet rarely is this disagreement ever backed by actual references, sources, or citations to the notes! I think there is something to be said when discussing compositional structure that goes beyond one person's hearing a piece.
> 
> Thus, if we're talking _aural preferences_, *why can't one just say "I don't like how this music sounds..." or "I find this piece too long and I opt for shorter works." Instead, all these subjective opinions tack on another clause, like "...because the 'basic material' that creates this main theme just does not develop into a more nuanced structure that permeates and evolves throughout the work...", or something of the sort. *
> 
> Let's stop acting like form and structure are so readily apparent from _only_ listening to a work that anyone can speak to how they operate within a piece. Or, if you do so, *please back it up with something objective, something beyond your own aural preferences.*


I can't be sure of this, but it appears to me that the two statements I've highlighted from your post contradict each other. It causes me to wonder just what it is you think people should and should not be doing on this forum.

When you say that it should be enough for people to say "I don't like how this music sounds" without elaborating, but then you suggest that they should should back up their opinions with "something objective," what are you asking for? Are you asking for detailed structural analyses of scores, together with "references, sources, and citations," which you seem to regard as the only legitimate evidence that anyone really comprehends the music they are hearing? If so, has it occurred to you that you are arguing that most people who have listened to, enjoyed, and deeply appreciated music throughout the history of the world have not understood what they were hearing? What is your authority for that view? On what basis to you judge the level of perceptiveness and comprehension of those who listen to music?

Music is not an exact science, and this is an internet chat forum, not a composition class at Juilliard or the Sorbonne. There are many serious, lifelong classical music lovers here who are keenly perceptive listeners of refined intuition who have little or no technical knowledge of music. I count some of these among my best friends. Making a statement on a computer screen that "the return of the second subject in the tonic at bar 187 of the recapitulation seems premature and upsets the balance of the movement by necessitating further development in the coda, which really needs to be more terse and decisive" might be, but in a context such as this would probably not be, very helpful or interesting to most people reading it. Saying simply "I feel that the movement lacks balance and needs to end more brusquely" may sound less "objective," but it is in fact neither more nor less demonstrable than the previous statement, and is a good deal less likely to cause the eyes of the untutored to glaze over. Moreover, not one reader in a hundred is likely to have access to a score or any interest in poring over it in order to search for the "objective proof" that the piece of music is indeed structurally unbalanced. And this is as it should be. If a piece of music is structurally satisfying, it should _sound_ structurally satisfying. And if someone says that he does not find it to be so, others may compare his impressions of the piece to theirs and take his statement for whatever it's worth to them.

In stating my personally acquired perceptions of music, I don't pretend to greater authority to rate any music objectively and definitively than I actually have. In fact, I have no such authority - but neither does anyone else. I throw my perceptions into the arena with the sole expectation that others will do likewise, whether in agreement or disagreement. I welcome any and all responses - except a response that tells me I am out of bounds in saying what I think. I hope that's not what you're saying.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> I can't be sure of this, but it appears to me that the two statements I've highlighted from your post contradict each other. It causes me to wonder just what it is you think people should and should not be doing on this forum.
> 
> When you say that it should be enough for people to say "I don't like how this music sounds" without elaborating, but then you suggest that they should should back up their opinions with "something objective," what are you asking for? Are you asking for detailed structural analyses of scores, together with "references, sources, and citations," which you seem to regard as the only legitimate evidence that anyone really comprehends the music they are hearing? If so, has it occurred to you that you are arguing that most people who have listened to, enjoyed, and deeply appreciated music throughout the history of the world have not understood what they were hearing? What is your authority for that view? On what basis to you judge the level of perceptiveness and comprehension of those who listen to music?
> 
> Music is not an exact science, and this is an internet chat forum, not a composition class at Juilliard or the Sorbonne. There are many serious, lifelong classical music lovers here who are keenly perceptive listeners of refined intuition who have little or no technical knowledge of music. I count some of these among my best friends. Making a statement on a computer screen that "the return of the second subject in the tonic at bar 187 of the recapitulation seems premature and upsets the balance of the movement by necessitating further development in the coda, which really needs to be more terse and decisive" might be, but in a context such as this would probably not be, very helpful or interesting to most people reading it. Saying simply "I feel that the movement lacks balance and needs to end more brusquely" may sound less "objective," but it is in fact neither more nor less demonstrable than the previous statement, and is a good deal less likely to cause the eyes of the untutored to glaze over. Moreover, not one reader in a hundred is likely to have access to a score or any interest in poring over it in order to search for the "objective proof" that the piece of music is indeed structurally unbalanced. And this is as it should be. If a piece of music is structurally satisfying, it should _sound_ structurally satisfying. And if someone says that he does not find it to be so, others may compare his impressions of the piece to theirs and take his statement for whatever it's worth to them.
> 
> In stating my personally acquired perceptions of music, I don't pretend to greater authority to rate any music objectively and definitively than I actually have. In fact, I have no such authority - but neither does anyone else. I throw my perceptions into the arena with the sole expectation that others will do likewise, whether in agreement or disagreement. I welcome any and all responses - except a response that tells me I am out of bounds in saying what I think. I hope that's not what you're saying.


Saying that one must have a thorough theoretical grounding in music theory to aesthetically appraise music is like saying one must first understand Newton's _Opticks_ in order to truly appreciate a Vermeer painting- which of course is as dismissable as its is risible.


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## MagneticGhost

Deleted Post: Attached myself to wrong part of thread and now I'm completely lost
Ignore my irrelevent ramblings


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## EdwardBast

Skilmarilion said:


> btw -- I don't see why length of a work is any real issue. I love the "shorter" orchestral works of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov just as much as as the "monumental" stuff by Mahler and Bruckner.
> 
> If we were to take length of a piece so seriously, I doubt we would be listening to classical music at all.


Okay, so those were both early student works, right? Not bad for first tries. But I guess one attempt was not going to be enough in either case.

I don't have any problem with length in principle. There are many composers I would have welcomed longer works from. And many who tried to extend meager material past all reason. I was just advocating a pedagogical principle: accomplishing something in the mastery of small forms before moving on to grandiose ones.


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## EdwardBast

Avey said:


> Let's stop acting like form and structure are so readily apparent from _only_ listening to a work that anyone can speak to how they operate within a piece. Or, if you do so, please back it up with something objective, something beyond your own aural preferences.


What do you mean by _only_ listening to a work? Of course the general features and divisions of a work should be apparent from just listening. That is the medium for which the works are created. The essential comprehension of a work _should_ happen aurally.

Woodduck defined the terms and basis of his disquisition on Mahler 9 quite clearly. Anyone who wishes to check their opinion against his with respect to the quality of the thematic material, its viability for extended elaboration and repetition, and so on, has been given enough information to do so. This is ample basis for discussion at a level appropriate to this venue. So, perhaps we could either have that discussion - if that is what you want to do. Or not, if you insist on talking at a more technical level. But I think that is your issue, not his.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Woodduck defined the terms and basis of his disquisition on Mahler 9 quite clearly. Anyone who wishes to check their opinion against his with respect to the quality of the thematic material, its viability for extended elaboration and repetition, and so on, has been given enough information to do so.


No, they haven't.

It is not simply that Woodduck's view as expressed here is something that I disagree with, nor that I disagree with the basis he gives, but that he is _dead wrong_.

The movement is not based on a two note motif alone, although that two note motif forms the basis of much of its material. As with other Mahler works, the motifs are the basis of melodies which are extended and developed over the course of the movement (and in some ways further in the succeeding movements).

He has not said a single word against the quality of the thematic material, because *he never even discussed it to begin with*. As it happens, there is no literal repetition of these themes at any point, and what he disparages as "mutterings" and "noodlings" are actually part of the symphonic argument.

On a side note, how could anyone possibly expect to understand a work as complex as Mahler's Ninth on a single hearing (assuming that it hadn't been understood or much retained all those years ago)? I know that I didn't understand the work the first time, or the second. Probably not the third or fourth, either. The first movement doesn't fit into the standard sonata form mold perfectly for any number of reasons, but incoherence and prolixity are not among them. Once one gets an intuitive sense of how the music works, then the reasons for its form and content are clear. This can be done by listening, *but certainly not a single time*.


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## Skilmarilion

Woodduck said:


> ... _I hear_ the first movement of Mahler's 9th as overlong and overwrought, that _for__ me_ the thematic material wears out its welcome well before the piece is over...


This is the genius of the _andante comodo_ -- the 'thematic material' is so bare, and yet he sustains a near half-hour movement by having that thematic material undergo constant development. For that reason, the music feels like it is always moving forward, not looking back for a moment.

Berg called the first movement of the 9th -- _*"The most glorious thing he ever wrote".*_

It is quite different to, say, the _Feierlich, Misterioso_ movement of Bruckner's 9th -- which I love equally -- where there is in fact a reliance upon repetition towards sustaining such a large-scale movement.

I think that comparisons of Mahler's large-scale, monumental movements to shorter, "concise" movements of other composers is a redundant one -- he may just be the only big deal symphonist to have even attempted to write such things. Even Bruckner has nothing in scale and organic construct akin to the first movement of the 3rd, the finale of the 6th or the first movement of the 9th ...

btw, there's some nice commentary here on the 9th:

http://mahlerfest.org/mfXVIII/notes_symphony9.htm


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> No, they haven't.
> 
> It is not simply that Woodduck's view as expressed here is something that I disagree with, nor that I disagree with the basis he gives, but that he is _dead wrong_.
> 
> The movement is not based on a two note motif alone, although that two note motif forms the basis of much of its material. As with other Mahler works, the motifs are the basis of melodies which are extended and developed over the course of the movement (and in some ways further in the succeeding movements)


I don't find the discussion of a two-note motive above. Perhaps it was edited out? Do you mean he is dead wrong that the material is uninteresting? Hard to falsify such a subjective statement, don't you think?



Mahlerian said:


> He has not said a single word against the quality of the thematic material, because *he never even discussed it to begin with*. As it happens, there is no literal repetition of these themes at any point, and what he disparages as "mutterings" and "noodlings" are actually part of the symphonic argument.


I think he has. He said he found it boring and repetitive. Did he specify literal repetition?



Mahlerian said:


> On a side note, how could anyone possibly expect to understand a work as complex as Mahler's Ninth on a single hearing (assuming that it hadn't been understood or much retained all those years ago)? I know that I didn't understand the work the first time, or the second. Probably not the third or fourth, either. The first movement doesn't fit into the standard sonata form mold perfectly for any number of reasons, but incoherence and prolixity are not among them. Once one gets an intuitive sense of how the music works, then the reasons for its form and content are clear. This can be done by listening, *but certainly not a single time*.


I agree about understanding complex works upon first hearing. My experience with Mahler has tended to be initial attraction in early hearings and increasing disaffection as I parsed the music more closely. I would always recommend giving complex works multiple chances.


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## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> I was just advocating a pedagogical principle: *accomplishing something in the mastery of small forms before moving on to grandiose ones.*


What examples do you have in mind of composers who had achieved "mastery of small forms" beforehand?

If I am not mistaken, you are quite warm towards the music of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov. In the case of all three, their first symphony is among their most early works. Now, of course all of these were preceded by "student works", but you seemed to disregard these in the case of Bruckner and Mahler.

And what is a "small form" anyway? You gave the example of a quartet or sonata -- both forms that are only "small" in a relative sense, in that they require fewer musicians to perform than a symphony. We all know that the late works of Beethoven catapulted the sonata and quartet among the most "grandiose" of all genres.


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## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Okay, so those were both early student works, right? Not bad for first tries. But I guess one attempt was not going to be enough in either case.
> 
> I don't have any problem with length in principle. There are many composers I would have welcomed longer works from. And many who tried to extend meager material past all reason. I was just advocating a pedagogical principle: accomplishing something in the mastery of small forms before moving on to grandiose ones.


Bruckner and Mahler both wrote plenty of student works. In the case of Mahler, though, the vast majority of them are lost, many of them in the bombing of Dresden during WWII.

And Mahler _did_ master a smaller form: the lied.



EdwardBast said:


> I don't find the discussion of a two-note motive above. Perhaps it was edited out? Do you mean he is dead wrong that the material is uninteresting? Hard to falsify such a subjective statement, don't you think?


Here you go:


Woodduck said:


> Yet, I don't doubt that someone who loves this music could relish every last iteration of that obsessive two-note motif which long before the end had me thinking about what to make for dinner.


It is the only thematic material he mentions; not a word about the other major motifs, not a word about the melodies Mahler creates out of them. You really think this constitutes any kind of argument whatsoever?



EdwardBast said:


> I think he has. He said he found it boring and repetitive. Did he specify literal repetition?


Like I said, he hasn't proven that he even took notice of any of the thematic content. How could he possibly judge it if he didn't take it in at all?


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## EdwardBast

Skilmarilion said:


> What examples do you have in mind of composers who had achieved "mastery of small forms" beforehand?
> 
> If I am not mistaken, you are quite warm towards the music of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov. In the case of all three, their first symphony is among their most early works. Now, of course all of these were preceded by "student works", but you seemed to disregard these in the case of Bruckner and Mahler.
> 
> And what is a "small form" anyway? You gave the example of a quartet or sonata -- both forms that are only "small" in a relative sense, in that they require fewer musicians to perform than a symphony. We all know that the late works of Beethoven catapulted the sonata and quartet among the most "grandiose" of all genres.


By small I meant something of modest size and complexity. I probably shouldn't have used "small forms," since that tends to put folks in mind of piano miniatures and such. But remember, we were talking about small in relation to symphonies over an hour and a half long. Virtually any sonata or chamber work is going to qualify by that standard. Those student works of Bruckner and Mahler are precisely what I had in mind. I don't at all disregard them. Like I said, good first attempts to master compositional craft. But neither of them was anywhere near mastery. The Bruckner wasn't even particularly promising, so I hope it was quite early.

Shostakovich is a special case because, like Prokofiev, he was a prodigy of the first order. He had been composing for years before his First Symphony, including many small forms (in the literal sense). But consider his First String Quartet, which he composed in 1955, after his Tenth Symphony(!) He approached it like a student work. Its traditional four movements together run less than 15:00. Only after hearing this simple work in C major and getting feedback from players and peers did he attempt more ambitious quartets.

Prokofiev wrote a small opera at the age of nine. He had probably written 100 or more works before the first ones to receive opus numbers.


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## hpowders

Elgar Violin Concerto.


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## 20centrfuge

hpowders said:


> Elgar Violin Concerto.


Really?! How can you not adore Enigma Vars?


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## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Bruckner and Mahler both wrote plenty of student works. In the case of Mahler, though, the vast majority of them are lost, many of them in the bombing of Dresden during WWII.
> 
> And Mahler _did_ master a smaller form: the lied.


I should have specified: instrumental form. Songs are a cakewalk.



Mahlerian said:


> It is the only thematic material he mentions; not a word about the other major motifs, not a word about the melodies Mahler creates out of them. You really think this constitutes any kind of argument whatsoever?
> 
> Like I said, he hasn't proven that he even took notice of any of the thematic content. How could he possibly judge it if he didn't take it in at all?


So you are going to criticize a post on this forum because it expresses a judgment of personal taste without detailed analysis? At least he was clear about it being a subjective impression and wasn't offering it as universal truth. And I think it is perfectly valid in any case to come to the decision that a work isn't worth ones time and effort on the strength of one hearing. Mind you, I don't do this. I think the first movement of the 9th has some wonderful ideas in it … and you probably know how I would end that sentence if I wanted to stir up more debate. I am currently listening to it a couple of times a day for the usual reason: I have figured out the overall shape, the critical climactic moments, and the material that is indispensable because it is just too good to cut, and I'm now working hard to figure out what the rest of it is doing there.


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> It is not simply that Woodduck's view as expressed here is something that I disagree with, nor that I disagree with the basis he gives, but that he is _*dead wrong[*/i].
> 
> *The movement is not based on a two note motif alone*, although that two note motif forms the basis of much of its material. As with other Mahler works, the motifs are the basis of melodies which are extended and developed over the course of the movement (and in some ways further in the succeeding movements).
> 
> He has not said a single word against the quality of the thematic material, because *he never even discussed it to begin with*. As it happens, there is no literal repetition of these themes at any point, and *what he disparages as "mutterings" and "noodlings" are actually part of the symphonic argument.*
> 
> On a side note, *how could anyone possibly expect to understand a work as complex as Mahler's Ninth on a single hearing* (assuming that it hadn't been understood or much retained all those years ago)? I know that I didn't understand the work the first time, or the second. Probably not the third or fourth, either. The first movement doesn't fit into the standard sonata form mold perfectly for any number of reasons, but incoherence and prolixity are not among them. Once one gets an intuitive sense of how the music works, then the reasons for its form and content are clear. This can be done by listening, *but certainly not a single time*._


_

The assumption has been made that I have never heard Mahler's 9th symphony before. I don't think I said anything to create that impression. In fact I've probably heard the entire symphony four or five times, and its finale more often than that. I check in with this composer from time to time. I generally hope to overcome my aversions to reputable music I dislike by returning to it occasionally after time has passed and I've seen more of life.

I certainly do not think that the first movement is based on the two-note motif alone. My ears are better than that, thank you! I have analyzed the development of leitmotivs in several Wagner operas, and know what the extension and transformation of thematic material sounds like. I did not intend to offer, or feel that I needed to offer - or feel that it was necessary to be able to offer - a thematic analysis of the Mahler in order to justify reporting that I found it overlong and tiresome. I mentioned the two-note motif because I just got tired of hearing the danged thing, and because I wanted to contrast it with the beautifully economical use of it at the end of Das Lied von der Erde.

I didn't call the movement incoherent, but I did call it prolix. As I said in my opening paragraph, a work can be ingeniously and cleverly wrought, with all sorts of developments and devices and unities and diversities, and still be unconvincing or boring. I hear plenty of good material and interesting composing going on here. But I find the overall structure unconvincing, and I don't find that the material successfully fills half an hour - or, to put it the other way around, I don't think a half-hour is needed to say everything it has to say.

And those dark mutterings and noodlings? They could be the most ingenious developments of the movement's main materials (though I don't find their ingenuity, such as it is, captivating) and still sound like mutterings and noodlings to a listener unconvinced by the overall symphonic argument.

I must reject the idea, maybe more implicit than explicit in what you've said, that a work of art has to be thoroughly understood before one can judge it. What is a thorough understanding, in this context? Perhaps to you, as a composer, one must have studied the score of a piece and virtually memorized it in order to have reached the proper level of understanding. A conductor performing the work would rightly feel that way. But a listener? In how much detail does a listener need to know a work before he can, for his own purposes, legitimately say "I don't feel that this piece works"? I think that's a matter that's largely up to the listener to decide. But I will say that it's a composer's job to put forth something that will strike an experienced and intelligent listener as fundamentally well-wrought after a few hearings, if not on the first. I have heard many a work (including works by Mahler) that I didn't much care for but still thought tightly constructed and effective. Your belief that with a thorough study of the music one will come to understand why it's made the way it is may well be true, but that begs the question of whether the composer's fulfillment of his or your criteria of "well-made" actually results in a satisfying work of art. The fact is, it may not. In this matter, perfect objectivity is forever beyond reach.

It's certainly possible that I have a blind spot - maybe a permanent one - regarding Mahler. However, my esteem for Das Lied and a number of his movements and songs assures me that my general dislike for his temperament and style does not make me entirely incapable of appreciating his genius. I've made it clear that my response to the 9th is a subjective response to a piece that no doubt has some people hanging on every note. How can an avowedly personal feeling about a work be "dead wrong"?_


----------



## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> By small I meant something of modest size and complexity. I probably shouldn't have used "small forms," since that tends to put folks in mind of piano miniatures and such. But remember, we were talking about small in relation to symphonies over an hour and a half long. Virtually any sonata or chamber work is going to qualify by that standard. Those student works of Bruckner and Mahler are precisely what I had in mind. I don't at all disregard them. Like I said, good first attempts to master compositional craft. But neither of them was anywhere near mastery. The Bruckner wasn't even particularly promising, so I hope it was quite early.


The impression that I got was that you think that Mahler's (and perhaps others') music is somehow flawed because they jumped straight into writing in "grandiose" forms before mastering smaller ones. You have not named a composer who, in your view, had mastered the smaller forms and then 'moved up the ranks', so to speak.

Like I said, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich wrote their first symphonies in their early twenties -- they were younger than Mahler when he completed his first. As Mahlerian has said, Mahler wrote many works before his first symphony -- many don't survive, yet a fair amount do. I'd bet that Mahler had composed more music before his 1st symphony, than Tchaikovsky had before his. What's the issue -- that Mahler's is 15 mins longer?

btw -- this is a period where composers honed their craft as they completed each individual work, unlike the Haydn/Mozart-era where you could write a dozen or so throwaway symphonies towards developing your skills.



> Shostakovich is a special case because, like Prokofiev, he was a prodigy of the first order. He had been composing for years before his First Symphony, including many small forms (in the literal sense). But consider his First String Quartet, which he composed in 1955, after his Tenth Symphony(!) He approached it like a student work. Its traditional four movements together run less than 15:00. Only after hearing this simple work in C major and getting feedback from players and peers did he attempt more ambitious quartets.


Firstly, you seem to have just disproved the point you made by highlighting that Shostakovich had written many symphonies before he sat down to write his first quartet.

Second, wasn't the first quartet written in 1938, between the 5th and 6th symphonies?


----------



## EdwardBast

Skilmarilion said:


> The impression that I got was that you think that Mahler's (and perhaps others') music is somehow flawed because they jumped straight into writing in "grandiose" forms before mastering smaller ones.


I'm not sure I had that right. I am starting to believe he was just not capable of creating well-formed instrumental symphonies on the scale he attempted, which is pretty much what I said to start this whole kerfuffle: "The man just had no clue about large-scale structure." Some of the long movements I hear as botched and borderline incoherent (3/i), and others as having strong bones but being in need of editing and clarification (6/i, 9/i). The problems in the 5th, as I indicated, are more complex. Inside 9/i I think there is a really good 17 or 18 minute movement trying to get out. (Sounds like a weight loss clinic, which is not really that far off I guess.) In both 6/i and 9/i, I think the problem can be summed up by citing the old writers' adage: "You have to be ready to kill your darlings." Mahler seems to have been unwilling to kill their second cousins. That is, too many variations on the same material that are not distinctly different enough and hybrid forms that tend to dilute oppositions rather than develop them: _Choose those few that clarify an overall design and to the wall with the rest!_. The other writer's quip that is apropos is Mark Twain's: "I would have written you a shorter [symphony] but I didn't have [or take] the time."



Skilmarilion said:


> You have not named a composer who, in your view, had mastered the smaller forms and then 'moved up the ranks', so to speak.
> 
> Like I said, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich wrote their first symphonies in their early twenties -- they were younger than Mahler when he completed his first. As Mahlerian has said, Mahler wrote many works before his first symphony -- many don't survive, yet a fair amount do. I'd bet that Mahler had composed more music before his 1st symphony, than Tchaikovsky had before his. What's the issue -- that Mahler's is 15 mins longer?
> 
> btw -- this is a period where composers honed their craft as they completed each individual work, unlike the Haydn/Mozart-era where you could write a dozen or so throwaway symphonies towards developing your skills.


I think the last of the three statements quoted above applies to Tchaikovsky. The first three symphonies were the ones in which he honed his craft before adopting a new and more ambitious agenda for his symphonies. Only in the late ones did he go for coherent dramatic integration at the cyclic level. As for Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, what can I say?: Some composers just have a better grasp of structure intuitively and more or less innately. Rachmaninoff simply nailed it first time out - one of the most ambitious, systematic, and well-conceived overall designs in the symphonic literature. The work has flaws, but they are not in the bones of the work. Shostakovich in his first also went for a thematically integrated grand design which is fairly successful. It too has flaws, but the overall structure is excellent.

Beethoven is probably the quintessential example of a composer who began with less ambitious and more traditional works before going for the grand.



Skilmarilion said:


> Firstly, you seem to have just disproved the point you made by highlighting that Shostakovich had written many symphonies before he sat down to write his first quartet.


I think quartets are probably harder in some ways and that perhaps they need independent study.



Skilmarilion said:


> Second, wasn't the first quartet written in 1938, between the 5th and 6th symphonies?


Yes, this is true. I think this is that rare case in which he did a revision(?)


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## KenOC

I can't find the source right now, but Beethoven was requested to prepare a song setting for a new music periodical. He sent instead three settings, explaining that he didn't have the time to write one good one.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Composer I don't like: Elgar
Works I like: Cello Concerto, Introduction and Allegro for strings


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## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> Inside 9/i I think there is a really good 17 or 18 minute movement trying to get out. (Sounds like a weight loss clinic, which is not really that far off I guess.) In both 6/i and 9/i, I think the problem can be summed up by citing the old writers' adage: *"You have to be ready to kill your darlings."* Mahler seems to have been unwilling to kill their second cousins. That is, *too many variations on the same material that are not distinctly different enough and hybrid forms that tend to dilute oppositions rather than develop them*: *Choose those few that clarify an overall design and to the wall with the rest!.* The other writer's quip that is apropos is Mark Twain's: "I would have written you a shorter [symphony] but I didn't have [or take] the time."
> 
> As for Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, what can I say?: Some composers just have a better grasp of structure intuitively and more or less innately. *Rachmaninoff simply nailed it first time out - one of the most ambitious, systematic, and well-conceived overall designs in the symphonic literature. The work has flaws, but they are not in the bones of the work. *Shostakovich in his first also went for a thematically integrated grand design which is fairly successful. It too has flaws, but the overall structure is excellent.


Re Mahler, all I can say is, "I wish I'd thought of that."

I also appreciate someone standing up for Rachmaninoff as a builder of concise structures. His expansive melodic style and emotional nature have created rather the opposite image of him, or at least led to a general silence about his craftsmanship. I find his works to be with few exceptions impeccably wrought and among the finest of their time in their respective genres.


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## Avey

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Composer I don't like: Elgar
> Works I like: Cello Concerto, Introduction and Allegro for strings


Always surprised, when I hear from those who dislike Elgar -- generally, at least -- the _Serenade_ never gets mentioned as an exception. It has Elgar's protypical wistful, longing sentiment, the sound that yearns for something lost, almost ethereal. Specifically, that piece, the Serenade, is like, the adagio from the Cello Concerto stretched out into a multi-movement scape.

Truly, the whole piece acts like his orchestral adagios in chamber form. A magnificent work.

To the point, though: Always surprised this piece does not get mentioned in his more "accepted" and appreciated works, even from those who dislike his repertoire.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I don't dislike his serenade, but I'm not enthusiastic about it like I am about the other two works I mentioned.


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## EdwardBast

Woodduck said:


> I also appreciate someone standing up for Rachmaninoff as a builder of concise structures. His expansive melodic style and emotional nature have created rather the opposite image of him, or at least led to a general silence about his craftsmanship. I find his works to be with few exceptions impeccably wrought and among the finest of their time in their respective genres.


His melodic gift and skill at melodic variation might have distracted from his craftsmanship. There are cases in which all of the themes of a movement by Rachmaninoff are intimately related or derived from the same idea, but because the themes have such individual character and integrity, one is not inclined to look for outside sources or even to suspect they have them. My favorite example is the finale of the Third Piano Concerto, in which every theme of the finale derives from the second theme group in the first movement.


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## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not sure I had that right. I am starting to believe he was just not capable of creating well-formed instrumental symphonies on the scale he attempted, which is pretty much what I said to start this whole kerfuffle: "The man just had no clue about large-scale structure." Some of the long movements I hear as botched and borderline incoherent (3/i), and others as having strong bones but being in need of editing and clarification (6/i, 9/i). The problems in the 5th, as I indicated, are more complex. Inside 9/i I think there is a really good 17 or 18 minute movement trying to get out. (Sounds like a weight loss clinic, which is not really that far off I guess.) In both 6/i and 9/i, I think the problem can be summed up by citing the old writers' adage: "You have to be ready to kill your darlings." Mahler seems to have been unwilling to kill their second cousins. That is, too many variations on the same material that are not distinctly different enough and hybrid forms that tend to dilute oppositions rather than develop them: _Choose those few that clarify an overall design and to the wall with the rest!_. The other writer's quip that is apropos is Mark Twain's: "I would have written you a shorter [symphony] but I didn't have [or take] the time."


Well, fair enough. I do think there's a case to be made for tighter symphonic movements, some of my absolute favourites being Tchaikovsky 5/i., Bruckner 8/i., Mahler 5/i., Brahms 4/i., Mendelssohn 3/i., etc.

What I reckon is that, clearly the longer a movement/work and the greater the number of ideas, the more challenging it is to create something wholly satisfying. But then, is it easy to lose the distinction between structure and simple aesthetic appeal?

To me, for a near 35-minute movement, 3/i is crafted brilliantly. All those ideas feel like they're developed effectively, and the recapitulation onwards is still spontaneous, with new passages blended in with subtle variations of music we've heard before (one of my favourite moments is when the strings join in with the trombone during its solo).

... but all of that is kind of redundant if one just plainly doesn't like the ideas and themes of such a movement. And so its structure can seem disjointed, "incoherent", etc.

btw, there isn't much Mahler that I dislike, but I never really understood the purpose of 3/v and also feel that 4/iv. is just a bizarre way to end a symphony, as much as I like that song. The Rondo-finales of 5 and 7 are also relatively weak for me, especially in the case of the former and its kind of trivial quotation of the adagietto. Most of 8 doesn't do a lot for me either, and given the sublime adagio opening of part ii., I wonder whether that work might have been better off as a quasi-choral effort akin to the 2nd.

But the 9th ... I mean ... I find every moment of it to be bloody sensational. 

Also, lets keep the Rachmaninov love coming, because I really can't tire of it. :tiphat:


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## EdwardBast

Skilmarilion said:


> Well, fair enough. I do think there's a case to be made for tighter symphonic movements, some of my absolute favourites being Tchaikovsky 5/i., Bruckner 8/i., Mahler 5/i., Brahms 4/i., Mendelssohn 3/i., etc.
> 
> What I reckon is that, clearly the longer a movement/work and the greater the number of ideas, the more challenging it is to create something wholly satisfying. But then, is it easy to lose the distinction between structure and simple aesthetic appeal?
> 
> To me, for a near 35-minute movement, 3/i is crafted brilliantly. All those ideas feel like they're developed effectively, and the recapitulation onwards is still spontaneous, with new passages blended in with subtle variations of music we've heard before (one of my favourite moments is when the strings join in with the trombone during its solo).
> 
> ... but all of that is kind of redundant if one just plainly doesn't like the ideas and themes of such a movement. And so its structure can seem disjointed, "incoherent", etc.
> 
> btw, there isn't much Mahler that I dislike, but I never really understood the purpose of 3/v and also feel that 4/iv. is just a bizarre way to end a symphony, as much as I like that song. The Rondo-finales of 5 and 7 are also relatively weak for me, especially in the case of the former and its kind of trivial quotation of the adagietto. Most of 8 doesn't do a lot for me either, and given the sublime adagio opening of part ii., I wonder whether that work might have been better off as a quasi-choral effort akin to the 2nd.
> 
> But the 9th ... I mean ... I find every moment of it to be bloody sensational.
> 
> Also, lets keep the Rachmaninov love coming, because I really can't tire of it. :tiphat:


Well, if it makes you feel better, I have printed out a score for the first movement of the 9th and I am currently marking it up to make sure I am understanding how everything interrelates and to challenge my own preliminary judgment. I find a lot of attractive material in the movement and would like to get a better handle on the source and nature of my discontent with the whole. Back at ya :tiphat:


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## Kelt

Elgar's uh, wait ... no.


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## 20centrfuge

I didn't know there were so many Elgar haters!


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## Woodduck

20centrfuge said:


> I didn't know there were so many Elgar haters!


Elgar seems to be a matter of taste and temper, more than a lot of composers. I'm not one of those haters. Actually, I'm nearly in sympathy with Hans Richter, conductor of the premiere of Elgar's first symphony, who said to the orchestra "Gentlemen, let us now rehearse the greatest symphony of modern times, written by the greatest modern composer - and not only in this country." Of the adagio, he's reported to have spoken almost with the sound of tears in his voice, saying: "Ah! this is a real Adagio - such an Adagio as Beethoven would have written." I find the coda of that adagio one of the most indescribably poignant things in music. Jolly chap, Elgar.


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## 20centrfuge

I'm in agreement Woodduck. Honestly, Enigma Variations has a near sacred place for me in my listening library. I don't know all of Elgar's music but I love what I know.


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## Avey

20centrfuge said:


> I didn't know there were so many Elgar haters!


I recall a previous post of mine from his guestbook...If I may be so forward...



Avey said:


> Certain music hits you at certain times in your life, and the impact etches in your mind -- your mien, your perspective, your situation, all elements residing at that specific moment in your life remain conjoined with the sound. Elgar's First Symphony was like that for me. I will not rehash my sentiments on the subject, to spare the sappiness.
> 
> *Random comment, however: I have noticed substantial Elgar bashing on this forum, generally (not here in his guestbook). I stay silent most of the time.
> *
> So, for posterity's sake, even if written for his fans here in his personal thread, here is one more post _commending _ him for his magnificent (and *distinct*) sound. And especially, why anyone ignores or shrugs off his symphonies is so beyond my comprehension that my sole recourse is to relisten, rehabilitate, and recollect my composure so I may carry on communicating here civilly and respectfully.


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## 20centrfuge

This is off topic, but which recording of Symphony no.1 do you (plural) recommend?


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## KenOC

20centrfuge said:


> This is off topic, but which recording of Symphony no.1 do you (plural) recommend?


There are quite a few, but the 1st really sparkles with good sound. I like the Petrenko.










Oh, Elgar? Never mind. But DSCH is a lot more fun than Elgar. :lol:


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## violadude

I don't really hate Elgar. His music just doesn't excite me very much except for the few pieces I mentioned and maybe a couple others.


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## Woodduck

_Certain music hits you at certain times in your life, and the impact etches in your mind -- your mien, your perspective, your situation, all elements residing at that specific moment in your life remain conjoined with the sound. Elgar's First Symphony was like that for me._

_I don't know all of Elgar's music but I love what I know._

_Jolly chap, Elgar._

We lovers of Elgar, apostles of Nimrod, enigmatic variants of music makers, fellow travelers on the starlight express, dream children of Gerontius, bewitched by the wand of youth...

Salut d'amour! :cheers: :kiss:


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## Woodduck

20centrfuge said:


> This is off topic, but which recording of Symphony no.1 do you (plural) recommend?


I have not heard many, but my affection for Barbirolli's Elgar - his deeply affectionate Elgar - is undimmed after 40 years. Boult is always reliable, there are many fine ones in more modern sound, I gather. I'm happy with Sir John.


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## Avey

Of course you would put up DSCH's No. 1 instead!

Anyways, onto the RELEVANT answer:

I love Solti/LSO on Decca. It has both symphonies, with Alassio and Cockaigne. An amazing recording all around. Sounds so fantastic. Boult's recording is also terrific quality. And while older, Barbirolli/HO is still readily moving. I like most recorded versions, but Solti's without a doubt I play the most.


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## KenOC

Avey said:


> Of course you would put up DSCH's No. 1 instead!


It was an honest mistake! But it really is more fun.


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## Autocrat

There is a performance of *An der schönen blauen Donau* in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey that I find sublime, not least because it matches so perfectly with the visuals, but also it is underplayed in a way that seems to me to be unique. I think it was Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic but stand to be corrected on that.

In any case, it's the only version of any of the works of J. Strauss II that I can bear to listen to.


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## Skilmarilion

Speaking of Elgar, does anyone have any opinions on his (unfinished) 3rd symphony, brought to us via Anthony Payne?

I heard this for the first time quite recently -- and was impressed. 

Now I don't know the intricate details re: the extent of original sketches left behind by Eddy, but there's a lot of grand, evocative and really poignant music in there, with a really brilliant fade-away ending...


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## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> Well, if it makes you feel better, I have printed out a score for the first movement of the 9th and I am currently marking it up to make sure I am understanding how everything interrelates and to challenge my own preliminary judgment.


Not sure I do feel better actually, since I envy pretty much anyone who can follow, understand and make sense of such a score!


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## Woodduck

Skilmarilion said:


> Speaking of Elgar, does anyone have any opinions on his (unfinished) 3rd symphony, brought to us via Anthony Payne?
> 
> I heard this for the first time quite recently -- and was impressed.
> 
> Now I don't know the intricate details re: the extent of original sketches left behind by Eddy, but there's a lot of grand, evocative and really poignant music in there, with a really brilliant fade-away ending...


Though I haven't heard it for a few years, I too was impressed. How much of it is Anthony Payne I don't know, not having seen the sketches, but according to him most of it is substantially Elgar's. The very opening is arresting and original, with its strange parallel fourths. The slow movement is dark and profound, Elgar himself saying that he was doing something extraordinary at the beginning of it - stepping into a black void, or something like that. Now you've got me wanting to hear it again.


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## Skilmarilion

Woodduck said:


> Though I haven't heard it for a few years, I too was impressed. How much of it is Anthony Payne I don't know, not having seen the sketches, but according to him most of it is substantially Elgar's. The very opening is arresting and original, with its strange parallel fourths. The slow movement is dark and profound, Elgar himself saying that he was doing something extraordinary at the beginning of it - stepping into a black void, or something like that. Now you've got me wanting to hear it again.


Completely agreed on that opening!

I have to say, the movement I enjoyed the most was actually the scherzo -- unexpectedly quiet, gentle and melancholic.

I just checked the wiki page (there's a lot there actually), and it seems that the fade-away coda was Payne's invention:



> His (Payne's) greatest difficulty was in completing the finale, as Elgar had left few clues about its structure and none about how it would end. Payne wrote the whole of the development section and the coda, deciding to end the work quietly, following the model of "The Wagon Passes" in Elgar's late work the Nursery Suite.


Payne be da man. :tiphat:


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## hpowders

Glazunov Violin Concerto.


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