Spun off from today's main post: All of Mahler 5!

Today's main post, "We hear the kinship between the Adagietto of Mahler 5 and 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,' right? How about the differences?," is here.




The legendary Adolf Herseth, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's trumpet principal for an amazing 53 years (1948-2001, plus three more in "emeritus" status!), launches the opening "Funeral March" of Mahler 5 in recordings made near the beginning and end of Georg Solti's 22-year tenure as music director -- the first in Chicago's Medinah Temple in March 1970, the second a CSO-on-tour performance recorded live in Vienna's Sofiensaal Nov. 30, 1990 (where you'll note that Sir Georg, as he'd been since 1972, is much more attentive to Mahler's dynamic marking of p [soft] for the first two bars, with sudden sf attacks just on the downbeats).

"Those closest to Mahler found the Fifth Symphony a particularly speaking likeness of his personality, and he too may therefore have wanted to make it as accurate as possible a self-portrait of himself in a particularly happy period of his life."

-- William Mann, from a booklet note on Mahler 5 (©1969)

by Ken

As I wrote in today's main post, "We hear the kinship between the Adagietto of Mahler 5 and 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,' right? How about the differences?":

DON'T TELL ANYONE, BUT REMEMBER HOW I SAID
THAT WE REALLY NEED TO HEAR ALL OF MAHLER 5?

I've already made up audio clips for two complete performances. I may yet spin this off into a separate post, or postlet, with some added comment. But for now, here it is.

No, here it is, all spun off!

We're not going to attempt anything fancy here. The idea is just to be able to hear the whole of Mahler 5. As I noted in today's main post, as quoted above, the audio clips were all made and ready to roll: of two performances, a 2002 live one by Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the 1947 recording by Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic that features in today's earlier post. We're just going to hear them part by part, each part prefaced by some helpful guidance from critic William Mann (from the same booklet note on the symphony which is quoted from above).


WE'LL START WITH A QUICK OVERVIEW FROM W.M.

Mahler's division of the Fifth Symphony into three parts but five movements is not one of convenience alone: the first and second movements are materially connected, and the finale takes some of its subordinate themes from the Adagietto; the central Scherzo stands alone, longer than the rest, effectively carrying the main symphonic weight of the piece. This Scherzo is in D major, so is the Finale, and it would be right, I think, to feel the whole symphony as being in D major. Part I of the symphony begins in C-sharp minor and ends in A minor: its two movements form a sort of prologue to the rest of the symphony, in which Mahler postulates a series of pessimistic ideas and argues them symphonically until they seem to be conquered by the bright, clean light of D major which is glimpsed in the second movement and emerges with the scherzo. -- W.M.

NOW LET'S HEAR THE SYMPHONY!

MAHLER: Symphony No. 5: Part I

i. Trauermarsch (Funeral March):
In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt
(In measured step. Stern. Like a funeral procession)
ii. Stürmisch bewegt, mit grösster Vehemenz
(Stormily animated, with the greatest vehemence)

The Funeral March begins, in fact, with a trumpet call that had appeared momentarily in the Fourth Symphony (at the end of the first movement's development section). This alternates, in the present movement, with a long, poignantly melancholy tune (it has a close relation in the song "Der Tambourg'sell" which Mahler wrote at the same time, about a deserter being marched to execution) that changes shape at each appearance. The march has two contrasted trio sections, the first quicker and hectic in B-flat minor, the second quiet with a touch of swagger in A minor (it enters just after the quotation of a phrase from the Kindertotenlieder). The march dies away into the distance at the end -- its last phrase is a whisper on the flute.

In the second movement the main, stormy material develops out of the B-flat miinor music from the march and is contrasted with sad march-like interludes on the lines of the march's principal section -- so that this time the thematic scales are tipped in the other direction. The predominance of energy and animal vitality dispels the brooding; twice the brass burst into life-asserting fanfares, the first time soon interrumpted, the second time achieving a sort of chorale à la Bruckner. Again the bitter music is resumed but less menacingly than before -- the movement ends curiously, in a ghostly mood. -- W.M.

[2nd movement at 11:41] New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Feb. 10, 1947

[2nd movement at 13:26] Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond. Live performance, March 6, 2002


Part II

iii. Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell
(Powerful, not too quick)

Part II, the Scherzo, has a concertante part for principal horn as soloist with the whole orchestra and as leader of his own section. The main group of themes asserts the joie de vivre of D major in waltz-time. Now and then the waltz-lilt relaxes (and even enters the sensuous territory of Brahms's Liebeslieder), and at one stage the horns turn melancholy, as if calling to one another across expanses of twilit forest -- this passage, when it returns, seems unwilling to go away. However, the cheerful main idea always manages to find its way back and to dominate the movement. -- W.M.

New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Feb. 10, 1947

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond. Live performance, March 6, 2002


Part III

iv. Adagietto. Sehr langsam (Very slow)
v. Rondo-Finale: Allegro

The third part consists, in effect, of the D major Rondo-Finale prefaced by the F major Adagietto. After high spirits Mahler, in this fourth movement, proposes serenity, repose. The long, marvellous melody, set for strings only, with harp accompaniment, springs from the same well of invention as the Rückert song "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"; and the mood of the Adagietto recalls the last sentence of the Rückert poem: "I live alone in my heaven, in my love, in my song."

The Adagietto dies away to nothing. The solo horn blows a long-held A, and the Rondo begins, at first, as if seeking its theme from an assortment of phrases (the bassoon's solo comes from the song "Lob des hohen Verstandes") which, however, all turn out to have relevance in the movement. The theme arrives as a duet for two horns over bassoons and cellos, a contented, rather rustic tune. A fugal exposition gets the music going more busily, and new ideas are stirred into the argument. Fragments from the Adagietto creep back, now at a vigorous tempo. Towards the end of the movement the brass take up a chorale into which the rondo theme is worked. -- W.M.

[5th movement at 7:35] New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Feb. 10, 1947

[5th movement at 11:22] Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond. Live performance, March 6, 2002


A PARTING THOUGHT, FROM SIR JOHN BARBIROLLI

The William Mann booklet note on the Mahler Fifth we've been reading comes from the original EMI LP issue of Sir John Barbirolli's recording of the symphony with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, on three LP sides, with Janet Baker joining Sir John and the orchestra in Mahler's Rückert Songs on Side 4 -- the original source, by the way, of the beautiful Baker-Barbirolli performance of Mahler's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" we heard at the top of today's main post.

Come to think of it, there's no reason why -- thanks to the miracle of cut-and-paste technology -- we can't hear it again.

MAHLER: "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"
("I have lost track of the world")

Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. EMI, recorded May 4, 1967

That Mahler Fifth is also a beautiful performance. Sir John was a terrific conductor, and while he didn't come to Mahler until mid-career, he embraced him with passion. In an interview that's also included in that album booklet, he credits the much-respected long-time music critic of what was then still The Manchester Guardian, Neville Cardus, for planting and nourishing the seed of his passion for Mahler. Happily we have a slew of live performances in circulation to supplement the too-few Mahler recordings he made. That interview includes an observation about Mahler that has stuck in my head, and I hope may interest you as well:

There were people who laughed at me when I told them that I spent two years studying a Mahler symphony. Of course it does not take me two years to read these scores, but if you prepare for a journey through such immeasurably wide musical spaces, you must know exactly where the musical ideas begin and where they end, and how each fits into the pattern of the whole. In Mahler's symphonies there are many highlights but only one real climax, which one must discover. To do so needs less a simple study of the score than an all-embracing aesthetic reflection -- which, incidentally, was also peculiar to Bruno Walter.

A LAST NOTE: BAKER AND BARBIROLLI DOING MAHLER

The Baker-Barbirolli Mahler Rückert Songs have been issued on this CD, handily coupled with Baker-Barbirolli performances (from a separate LP) of the Wayfarer Songs and Kindertotenlieder. Again, I'm not the world's biggest Janet Baker fan, but still, I wouldn't be without this disc! Buy it!

"OH NO!" UPDATE: I just took a peek on Amazon, thinking to maybe add a link-for-convenience, and this CD seems to be out of print, as witness the extortionate prices sellers are asking. The cheapest copy I saw was a "good" used one for $12.01 (plus tax and shipping); I also noticed a new copy for a mere $57.71 (again, plus tax and shipping). You can download the contents in mp3 form, but then all you've got is mp3s -- and for 14 songs (for once, we're actually talking about "songs"!), even at 99 cents apiece, that adds up. Suddenly that $12.01-plus-plus price is looking less pricey, right? What do do, what to do?

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