It is not that I do not like Mahler:  I like him but I do not love him.

I listen Mahler for a while and am quite familiar with most of recorded performances, heard “live” in a number of occasions the Mahler’s symphonies and songs, read a lot about him. I always very much enjoyed and intellectually appreciated Mahler’s personal visions and hugely respect him as a musician. My personal preference in Mahler’ music are spread around Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth symphonies and somewhere between Hermann Scherchen and John Barbirolli. Mahler take a large amount of space on my shelves….

…but year after year I again and again come to a realization that there is something very self-destructive and I would say masochistic in my relationship with Mahler.

Mahler probably is the only composer that, while music while it being played, I feel very comfortable to interrupt in a very muddle of the phases. I mean I fully appreciate the magnificents and beauty (and in many instance the wisdom) of the Mahler expressiveness but they are not those precious values for me that we let play wishing that they should never end.  In fact I kind of like when Mahler music stops, and while I am listing it I kind of look forward to it.

I realized that I very seldom let the Mahler symphonies to be played form begging to end, I just do not see the reason and do not feel needs. However, my consciousness very readily absorbers the Mahler phraseology and I find myself very frequently to quote the Mahler music from memory.  Isn’t is strange that I have such a fascination on the “binary Mahler” but do not grasp him as whole, or at least do not find a lot of correlation between myself and the Mahler music?

I do have a very strange relationship with Mahler, very much different then with any other composer. It is not a love/hate, acceptance/rejection but rather the receiving Mahler as an avoidable “something” that can not be not-acknowledged but still “something”  that lacks a personal touch with myself. You know, it kind of as appreciation of somebody’s else children or admiration of a beautiful women but with realization that it is not something that you actual in love with and therefore you do not feel it as something that is a part of you.

Rsg,
Romy the Cat

I'm way out of my depth here, I think I know what you mean Romy; my own feeling about Mahler is that just when he's developing what could be the most haunting melody or lyrical phrase he gets bored with it and goes off on a tangent. Not always, of course, but I sometimes wish he had been a bit more willing to admit the obvious, even cheesy, at times.

OTOH, maybe it wasn't boredom but a very conscious effort on his part to avoid simplicity, or the familiar. Intrusion of the composer's left-brain where it doesn't belong?

Either way, I suppose if you take that to an extreme you end up with free jazz, which I can respect on some pretentious intellectual level but not picture anyone truly loving (well, maybe John Zorn).

Funny you mention the "absorption of his phrasing" - I often find myself whistling some of his more unorthodox lines - usually to very odd looks. And I also find that sometimes just one of the more monolithic movements from the 5th or 6th is all I need.

Incidentally, I forgot to thank you for the Scherchen recommendation for the 5th - just love that chaotic, bordering-on-the-out-of-control finale.

cheers

cv

cv wrote:

Did you find that instead of resurrecting your interest it finished it off and its now Bruckner all the way? Or did recent changes in the Macondo bass config reveal something new?

zako wrote:

I just finished a long article,,called orchestra power,,by Anthony Quin,,,Where Wagner met Bruchner,,Wagner considered Bruchner an idiot..

steverino wrote:

Over time I noticed that I preferred Mahler when he was more objective and Bruckner when he was more subjective.