More Mahler 6th Mania . . .

Two comments/observations...

This amazing piece of art expresses, reflects, "fleshes out and tells the story", with startling depth, vision, sensitivity, and power, the cultural spiritual tragedy that erupted into two world wars during the decades which followed. Forget the myriad of biographical, autobiographical, and/or psychological ruminations about the composer. They mostly do not inform and often mislead, except this: that the artist was very happy, relaxed, and at the height of his artistic powers, allowed him to create and to reflect (the world) with little to no compromise. The vision and understanding is clear and contains (but not exclusively) great devastation. Its realization into symphonic form is a triumph of courage. It is not "pessimistic" or "resigned" or a "portrait of a fallen hero", it is an honest reflection of reality, magnificently projected, by an artist willing and able to express it.

Sparing a lugubrious explanation, if you have access to the recordings, try this: play the 1980, DGG, Abado (Chicago) recording of Mvt. I (Allegro Enegico) only, followed by Mvts. III (Andante Moderato) and IV (Finale) by Bernstein, DGG, 1988 (Vienna); exclude the Scherzo. If you must hear the Scherzo, play it first as a Preclude, take a 10-minute break, and then begin the symphony.

This is a true epic, composed for a a gigantic, original instrument, by an artist of the highest magnitude.

Mahler's "Tragic" Symphony #6 --> Deep in the Finale..

THOUGHTS & NOTES on Malher's 6th Symphony - 4th Movement:
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There are 20 or more memorable thematic statements in the Finale. There are so many, in fact, that coming in a semi-amorphous form (actually a distorted/morphed Sonata Allegro) where so many themes are synthesized from certain, harmonic, rhythmic, and/or melodic motives, it is hard to pinpoint or remember one or two! This is a completely astounding composition, both in the construction of the music (e.g. most all of thematic material in the recapitulation is slapped/slammed with other material straight through it; very wild harmonically) and in the use of individual instruments and orchestral timbres--REALLY wild! I'm waiting for the much-ballyhooed late-80s live recording of Bernstein and the Weiner Philharmonic after sifting through reviews and mini music samples online . . .

Yes, Mahler removed the 3^rd Hammerschlag for fear of tempting fate with regarding his own death, but alas, this did not work for him!! Apparently, he was ready to reinsert the final hammer-stroke after conducting it and hearing it several times, but it was not published or corrected that way before he died.

So far (less than 20 listenings), I’m not the biggest fan of how the ending unfolds, or refolds, and concludes—with or without the final stroke… I am completely submerged in the allegro which follows the second fate motif in the Adagio opening of the Finale. It’s a “one-step-up, leap, one-step-up, leap-back-down while continuing one-step-up, pattern/template from which he fires off all sorts of varied theme-incarnations along the way. It also sets up one “straight” horn declaration of the most pertinent motif: Pum, pa-Pum, pa-pa-Pum pum (that’s “1 - 2 - 3” on the capitol Ps), and occurs statement—the meat of the exposition.

There is a melodic/harmonic, rhythmic, and also tonal ascent created with bits of thematic material morphed from Mvt. I and already stated differently in the only once—in the exposition. It either does not return at all in the recap (right before coda or pre-coda begins), or it’s completely slammed by a timpani fate motif and some other overlaid material. There is so much struggle and strife, and the summarizing emotional statements so power-packed and yet fleeting, that the absence of the return of that “endpoint of the struggle” horn call becomes a force in itself—like a big open wound that is not going to heal—Hammerschlag or not.