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Posted: |
Aug 2, 2015 - 7:09 PM
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By: |
Ray Worley
(Member)
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Mahler is among my favorite composers. Currently, I do not listen to his music all that often often; it is intensely personal music, emotionally and spiritually provoking... you have to be willing (and have the time to spare) to attentively listen to a single piece of music for an hour or more; you can't really enjoy Mahler "on the side".
Yet it is a fascinating musical universe to explore. In fact, if you like any single Mahler symphony, chances are you will like the others as well. Conversely, if you do not like your first Mahler symphony, you're unlikely to enjoy anything else he composed. Basically, Mahler composed not so much different symphonies and song cycles, but one continuous work. It is highly interconnected.
I completely agree with this. Mahler is my absolute favorite classical composer. I did not discover him until shortly after I graduated university. I took a chance on a budget classical LP of the First Symphony without knowing his work...simply having heard the name. It took a couple of listens but I was hooked and it immediately became one of my favorite symphonies. I sought every other Mahler symphony, song cycle,etc. and they are all great.
Perhaps it's just from personal experience, but I think the First Symphony may be the easiest way to begin an exploration of Mahler. It's accessible while still being complex and grand.
And Nicolai is so on the mark about Mahler's work being almost one long continuous piece...but certainly not in any repetitious way. Also correct, you cannot listen to Mahler while surfing the internet, reading, or doing anything else. It requires full attention.
My personal faves (besides #1) are the Third, Fifth and Ninth, but all are good. "Revelge (Reveille)" from the song cycle "Das Knaben Wunderhorn" is a personal favorite lieder, especially when sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
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That Neil Guy:
In Richard Matheson's novel Bid Time Return, which was filmed as Somewhere in Time, it was Mahler's ninth that the Christopher Reeve character loved and listened to rather than the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody.
Just fyi.
Neil
As I understand it, it was John Barry who recommended the Rachmaninoff "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" instead of the Mahler for the film. Why? I suspect that he thought it would match the film, and his score, better.
I also understand that, never-the-less, Mahler was one of Barry's favourite composers.
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Let me add a word for Mahler's final work, the Tenth Symphony.
Yes, agreed. Ironically, Mahler's 10th was more finished at the time of Mahler's death than was Mozart's Requiem at the time of Mozart's death.
The first movement was pretty much finished and that is the one section of the Mahler's 10th that most conductors including Bernstein would play.
I think the hesitance to perform Mahler's 10th stems from the fact that Mahler's music was so intensely personal, that some conductors reject the idea of performing a piece of Mahler where others have chimed in.
In any case, the 10th is certainly worth listening to.
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Perhaps it's just from personal experience, but I think the First Symphony may be the easiest way to begin an exploration of Mahler. It's accessible while still being complex and grand.
That would be my first choice as well. The first symphony was also my first real encounter with Mahler. The low murmering beginning of the first movement feels like the dawn to Mahler's entire musical world.
I started with the first, then came the fifth, then the ninth.
Often overlooked but quite worth listening to is also "Das klagende Lied", a cantata and among the earliest known works by Mahler.
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