Spinning Mahler No. 1

Posted by user510 on June 23, 2016 at 15:54:33

From Left background:
Horenstein / LSO on Nonesuch
Walter / PSONY on Columbia (pre RIAA)
Solti / LSO on London
Leinsdorf / BSO on RCA (Dynagroove)
Abravanel / USO on Vanguard Everyman

Today it is the Thorens TD150 (R7-2) that gets the record spinning duties.

Sometimes I wonder why it is that people even listen to this music. At times, when hearing the worst of performances I might have considered that the composer was simply working a copy/paste blocks of music approach. And then I picked up a book on Mahler and his Symphonies in hopes of understanding just what it is/was that keeps people returning to Mahler.

The book has much factual history based on letters to and from Mahler by the people he associated with in his professional lifetime. One quote from a letter Mahler wrote to Natalie Bauer-Lechner goes like this:..."composing is like playing with building blocks. Indeed, these blocks have been there, ready to be used, since childhood, the only time that it is designed for gathering"

Comfirmation! He's composing or deriving his music into blocks and then plugging the blocks into place to make his symphonies.

He uses a combination of original composition and also traditional folk melodies and songs of his era and environment. For instance, the 3rd movt. in Symphony No. 1 is derived from a song titled "Brother Martin Are You Sleeping". A French version of the same tune is titled Frere Jacques. Only Mahler puts it into a minor key, then paces it to play like a funeral procession part way to make it seem grim and foreboding.

So he is saying that he feels it ok to make use of popular melodies by plugging them into larger works when he feels that it fits. Yup.

But....but what does it all mean? Well....Mahler doesn't want his music to be categorized into the same genre as was "Impressionism" in the Paris art world of the time. Yet, he does mean to provide the listener / audience with an auditory impression that they might interpret into a visual experience.

-Steve
reference: Gustav Mahler "The Symphonies". by Constantin Floros.
ISBN: 1-57467-025-5

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Topic - Spinning Mahler No. 1 - user510 15:54:33 06/23/16 (7)

Lived with this symphony for years, would recommend Kubelick on Audite - jdaniel@jps.net 23:08:26 06/24/16 (0)

No. 1 - hifitommy 15:41:46 06/24/16 (0)

RE: Spinning Mahler No. 1 - Alex M 09:01:05 06/24/16 (2)

RE: Spinning Mahler No. 1 - user510 11:31:32 06/24/16 (0)

nicely put - TGR 10:45:42 06/24/16 (0)

RE: Spinning Mahler No. 1 - jennconducts 22:28:11 06/23/16 (0)

RE: Spinning Mahler No. 1 - Travis 16:50:40 06/23/16 (0)

Spinning Mahler No. 1

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