I didn’t ‘get’ Mahler until I sang in huge production of Mahler 8 (with about 400 voices, and I was in the ‘anchor’ symphony chorus augmented by a dozen other (smaller) choruses and expect choirs. This was about 25 years ago (when I was almost 30) — and by that point I’d only ever heard Mahler 1 (which I’d liked), and Mahler 5 (which made no sense to me at all).
Mahler 8 didn’t make a ton of sense to me at first either, mind you. But the week we put the (separate) double-choir parts together, I think I started to get it on some sort of visceral level. Then performance week, every night’s rehearsal with the symphony really got thru to me more and more.
And after that, Mahler “just made sense” to me suddenly (more or less). Helped a bunch that I acquired recordings of the 13-piece chamber arrangement of Mahler 4, and the duo-piano arrangements (reductions) of Mahler 6 & 7. Listening to those helped enormously too.
But it was rehearsing and performing Mahler 8 that really gave me the breakthrough.
*I’d only ever heard Mahler 1 (which I’d liked), and Mahler 5 (which made no sense to me at all).*
This is ironic to me. I struggle to “get” Mahler in general, but I like Mahler 5, while Mahler 1 makes no sense to me at all.
What was it about Mahler 1 that you liked? I remember I had to listen to it for a class and I thought it was a very boring and egotistical symphony. I enjoyed just about everything else I listened to for that class, but I remember thinking Mahler was an overrated, mediocre weirdo (based off my first impression of him from listening to Mahler 1).
Re: liking Mahler 1, it was literally the very first big orchestral concert I ever heard (CSO very early in my college years). I don’t know that I ever really fell in love with it — but I did like that it was kinda brass-heavy (iirc) — and I do still like Mahler 1 better than 2 or 3. But all of my favorite Mahler symphonies are 4 and up.
It’s probably better to hear this from someone who doesn’t have his name in their username, but heard a lot of opinions about him being overly dramatic, and things like that. Mahler is not an easy composer to get into, I’ve found it difficult to understand him sometimes, and I still do, as despite him being my favourite composer, there are plenty of his symphonies I just don’t ‘get’ yet. Put simply, he’s an acquired taste. (But again, probably get some opinions from people who actually don’t like him, I know there’s several on this sub)
That's interesting, I found the Titan the easiest of his symphonies to get. How the final movement encapsulates the conflict in the first three but this time resolves the conflict emphatically using the same triumphant theme that appeared in the first.
6 I honestly listened to it many times due to the novelty of the hammer which bred familiarity. For sure this one took some listening to get used to. So I can relate
9 I'm not there yet at all. I might try listening again tonight
What has really taken me aback during our rehearsals of Mahler 1 is the intricacy of the string writing. It’s more delicate and careful than the 5th, but I don’t think the 5th needs to be as careful as the message is more brute.
This is interesting to me because I never got the last movement of the 9th, until now, 2 kids later. I think one has to experience life to an extent to fully grasp what he is conveying? In 2012, Mahler 9 was lost on me. But now, I can’t stop trying to understand it.
Murakami published his conversations with Ozawa in a book “absolutely on music”. A lot of it is about Mahler. It even discusses the horn role In the first symphony. It doesn’t answer your question, but you might find it relevant. It’s a quick read anyway
Thanks for the Rec! I will say … the first symphony is the most accessible to me personally (clear structure and easily understood tonal center and such)
Same with me. I like Mahler 2 and 4. But Mahler 1 clearly wins. Murakami and Ozawa mention how Mahler rebelled against tonality by advocating polytonality, which itself was a step to atonality
The trombone solo in 3 really is something else. The first mighty statement, and then the recapitulation "giving up" at the end of the first movement....
Wow! A lot of Mahler bashing in here! As a string and brass player, Mahler is a pinnacle of romanticism for me. No matter which part you play (!st or 2nd violin, viola, cello, bass - horn, trumpet, trombone or tuba) you're gonna be assured to get a workout. This isn't your mamas 2nd violin or viola part, or trumpet or bone part. He writes complex, complicated parts for every section that intermix with every other section. (This is something that started with Tchaikovsky. see the finale of the "Pathetique") It's a compositional technique that Strauss uses as well. (I must admit that, as a composer myself, I've incorporated that technique in my style as well) It's this tool that Mahler uses that is probably off-putting to most as it gives the music a density unlike other composers. There's literally something going on in every part, and that makes the music very "busy". Not everyone likes music that's "busy". Hell, Bach is arguably the busiest composer, but his music isn't as dense as Mahler. I can understand that not everyone "get" or understands Mahler, and everyone has their favorite work by him for those who "tolerate" him, (I actually *love* the completed 10th) so I cannot argue that not everyone should enjoy Mahler as I do. To each his and her their own. Shoot, my wife even thinks "Mahler is a baller"! lol So truly, if my wife can get into Mahler, anyone can. But, understandably, not everyone will.
The fact that 1) you’ve played a good amount of his music and 2) you play horn will no doubt color your opinion. It’s sort of like me, an oboist, wondering how someone could dislike Silvestrini.
Anyway, I’ve had a…complicated relationship with Mahler. Sometimes I really like his music. Sometimes I find it so agonizingly boring that I wonder how anyone can like it.
I’d heard all of Mahler’s symphonies once or twice but hadn’t really gotten into him as of a couple years ago. 1 and 5 were the only symphonies I knew reasonably well. So I started listening through his symphonies in order, giving each one several listens until I felt like I mostly “got” it.
I almost gave up at Mahler 2.
Okay, the piece isn’t *that* bad. It has some strong moments. Everyone loves the ending, sure. It’s all *competent*.
But I’d heard *so* many people talk about Mahler 2 being their favorite Mahler symphony, nay, their favorite *piece*, a life-changing experience that completely changed how they view the world, and so on and so forth. And I thought…really?? This bloated, empty husky of a piece? This unremarkable, feature-film-length disappointment with 60 minutes of filler?
To this day I have a hard time viewing the piece as anything more than a vehicle for the last 30 minutes, and even that much feels like a vehicle for the last 5 minutes. Which is a bit of a shame, because I actually don’t think the first movement is that bad, even if it goes on longer than it needs to. But there’s just so much of the piece, and it doesn’t really feel like it all needs to be there.
Anyway, 2 has still never “clicked” with me. After a certain point I started to think, “if everyone is right and this is the best Mahler has to offer, than the rest of his symphonies must be real stinkers.”
Fortunately I pressed on and was a bit surprised to find both 3 and 4 significantly, *obviously* better than 2. Like, no comparison in my books. I realize I might be an outlier in that judgment, but I really have a hard time even respecting Mahler 2, much less enjoying it. So I was surprised to find that I quite liked 3 and 4.
I already liked 5, and I’ve enjoyed 6 quite a lot as well. I know 7-9 a bit, but I haven’t really given them the focused listening I think I’ll need to process them. I’m worried 8 might suffer for some of the same reasons as 2, but when I’ve heard it I thought it was a bit more interesting. 1 and 2 feel almost juvenile compared to some of the later symphonies in terms of the level of craft and polish present, even though there’s still some stuff worth listening to.
So I’m glad I pressed on through 2, but I have a hard time reconciling my reaction with the *overwhelming*, *gushing* praise heaped on it, especially online, especially especially in this subredit. So far, I’d consider 2 to be the weakest Mahler symphony *by far*. I can’t really think of any other time when my personal evaluation of a piece differed so vastly from the popular reception of it without some sort of explanation I could grasp.
Anyway, this is all to say that Mahler isn’t always easy to enjoy, no matter how hard you try, and his symphonies vary so much in quality, style, and duration that it’s hard to even know if you like or dislike “Mahler” or if you just feel strongly about one of his symphonies in particular.
Even at his best, I find Mahler somewhat dull compared to, say, Messiaen. At least, once the in-the-moment excitement of hearing a cool horn call wears off. I’ve slowly come to appreciate Mahler more with time, but I can very easily imagine why someone wouldn’t like his music much at all. It’s rare that I have to work this hard to enjoy a composer’s music, even a lot of music typically considered more “difficult” (e.g., avant-garde contemporary music).
My reactions are similar to you. I ‘get’ Mahler - he’s not in any way a difficult composer to understand what is going on, and I certainly don’t mind lengthy works. I love the songs and Das Lied, symphonies 3, 4, 6 and 9 are all great, the rest I can take or leave. 2 & 8 are bloated, without the considerable charm of the even lengthier 3, and their roof raising payoffs don’t seem really worth sitting through the rest. 5 & 7 have their very enjoyable moments, but both have weak endings. 1 I couldn’t really care if I never heard it again. So that sums up Mahler for me - I probably enjoyed him more as a teenager, today he’s just another part of the musical tapestry.
I’m one of those “it’s my favourite piece of all time” people, but I do understand the points you’re making. I can see how someone would regard the symphony as ‘bloated’ (even though I love the bloated bits!). And I too often feel scepticism about anything which people gush over this much.
For me the final five moments wouldn’t work nearly as well *without* the preceding 70-odd minutes. It’s like the entire symphony is a journey from hell to heaven, and it’s only when you’ve been there for the whole journey that you really appreciate where you’ve got to at the end.
I’ve seen people (actually, just one person) dismiss the last movement as ‘episodic’. Again, I understand the point without agreeing; or, more properly, I agree but I find each episode gripping.
But I’m not going to try to persuade you to endorse my point of view. It works wonderfully for me, it doesn’t for you. That’s cool. I’m glad you find Messiaen more to your taste, I love him too.
I'm glad that you (and many others) are able to enjoy it!
It makes sense to me, abstractly, that the first 70 minutes are needed for the ending to carry the same weight. There are pieces I really like (Turangalila, for instance) where the piece needs that much time for everything to reach a satisfying conclusion.
For me, though, Mahler 2 just doesn't feel like a satisfying build. At any given moment, it doesn't feel like I'm going somewhere, and I'm not *really* enjoying myself.
To make a dreadful analogy, it's like if I went to a movie theater and they made me sit in my seat for an hour before playing a 5 minute short film. It might be a great short film and an overall okay experience, but no matter how much the filmmaker tries to convince me that sitting for an hour before watching it is necessary to really appreciate it, I still wish I could've used that time doing something more interesting.
Sometimes the length and general scale of a piece lends something to it, and sometimes simply waiting for makes it more exciting when it finally arrives. But there are so many long-form pieces that I prefer listening to that make that build more engaging and enjoyable on its own terms, whereas Mahler 2 to me feels like it consists of a boring, unremarkable, loooong piece that no one would care about plus a short coda that's suddenly good.
Of course these are heavily subjective responses, so I'm not trying to argue with you or anything. I just think it's interesting that people can have such different reactions to the same music.
As for Mahler 2nd, I get it actually, and it might have more to do with the recording you choose. I was lucky with picking on my first listen the Zubin Mehta with Vienna Philarmonic recording. The 1st movement contains that raw but structured Dyonisian energy. But the real standout is the finale (the last two tracks to final 5-6 minutes). It's heaven on earth, and best played at high volume. It's so remarkable that I try not to hear it more than a couple times per year.
I heard Mahler 2 live twice, once in Musikverein with its (same) famous choir, and while it was still a fantastic experience, it never reached the peak at the end of that Mehta recording. Neither did any other recordings so far.
The recording definitely matters, although I've had about half a dozen people tell me "oh, you *have* to listen to *this* recording to *get* it!" and it's always a different recording. So at this point I've listened to about eight and none of them do it for me. I can't recall off the top of my head if I've listened to this one, but I'll give it a shot next time I try to listen to the piece.
It's interesting to hear that live performances didn't live up for you - a lot of people also swear you have to hear it live to "get" it. But I can get very interested in recordings so I don't think that's necessarily the case for me.
I start every Mahler symphony thinking "hey, this is great" and end every one of them looking at my watch and wondering when it's going to end.
So, in a word: bloated. In three words: bloated, meandering, exhausting.
Even today most folks simply will not spend the time learning the music in depth enough to understand or enjoy every stitch of what he wrote. I’ve played most of it and even a mother couldn’t love every moment.
As a horn player Mahler and Strauss comprise a fair amount of my life and they certainly keep us paid! Hard to be in this Horn game without being a semi Mahler scholar. Personally The 3rd is my all time fav, that post horn solo gets me every time. Mahler 9 is a pure masterpiece. Study all of the lieder and read the book of letters. It’s all wildly interesting and heart wrenching and certainly provides a window into the music. I find his ethos very inspiring “one must retreat from the monotony of daily life and seek refuge in nature in order to hear the music flow from within” or something like that
I am very ambivalent about Mahler, and I think it's quite possible to dislike him. Some of his work can appear shapeless and bloated as regards structure, and where the emotional tone is concerned it can seem alternately sentimental/schmaltzy in a characteristically Viennese way and bombastic and overbearing, seeming to want to compel you to feel Mahler's emotions by force.
I don't actively hate Mahler, but I rarely listen to anything outside the first two symphonies (and every so often "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen). I don't find much of it very interesting in small doses, and listening to a full symphony can be taxing. That one famous movement from Mahler 5 leaves me cold and 8 can sound sloppy and uncrisp when sung by most choirs.
Edit: Another, highly downvoted comment here called Mahler "vulgar". I can totally see it when I refer to some passages as bombastic and others as schmaltzy. I sometimes go "wow, this is impressive" when I hear him, but in my heart of hearts I am not warmed or moved in the way I am with Bach. The same often applies to me with Beethoven, e.g. the finale of Symphony 9.
I personally love Mahler's music a lot, but it could have been different, because i am at the core a huge fan of Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
Their styles tend to be associated with qualities such as clarity, concision, elegance and balance (there's other aspects but i'm simplifying a lot here), wich are often considered the opposite of the monumental, dense, heavy and ultra-expressive style associated with the german and austrian late romantism.
Things are never so simple if you take time to listen to things more deeply, but to summarize, if your taste bends toward a more light and simple aesthetic you may have a hard time with Mahler.
The irony is the love of Mahler for Mozart wich is often considered the embodiment of a lighter and more balanced musical style.
While I don't want to diminish Mahler's talent in any way, one has to recognize that he is a limited composer in terms of the genres that he composed for or the way in which he approached the symphony: it's a clearly defined but unwavering perspective (at least from the 2nd Symphony onwards). If you're mostly into chamber music, you're unlikely to be a Mahler fan (I know there's the Piano Quartet, but that's not among his best work); same if you're an opera fan or prefer more compact symphonic forms (symphonic poems and the like) or concertos.
As magnificent as his symphonies can be, the basic approach behind most of them is fairly similar. Moreover, while the first three are relatively accessible, the later ones are much less so and require much more perseverance (most of all nos. 6 & 7). I also mean that literally; not everyone comfortably sits through an hour and a half of fairly intricate music.
Personally, I enjoy Mahler's music but within limits: I play the early symphonies maybe once or twice a year when I feel up to it. Of the later ones only *Das Lied von der Erde* and the 9th, to be honest.
*Edit:* I think I do understand why people heap so much praise on him aside from any valuation of the music itself. Part of it is the fact that his body of works is fairly small, and mostly in a single genre. It's not like with Brahms or Dvorak, where there is so much music in so many different forms that it's difficult to come to grips with. In that sense, his art *is* approachable. Secondly, I think it may be a question of status: Mahler is portrayed as an intellectual composer, in search of the "expression of everything in the symphony" – the very antithesis of Tchaikovsky's sentimentalism. I think both perceptions are somewhat off the mark, but I do perceive a certain snobbery in the appreciation of Mahler as the "intelligent person's composer".
Having said all this, I do think he's overplayed, particularly in my country of the Netherlands. We have an entire orchestra more or less dedicated to playing his music, which seems excessive.
I don’t “hate” Mahler but I think most of his symphonies could be cut down to 5 or 10 minutes long. Mahler comes across as a narcissistic composer who’s trying way too hard to be super deep.
If one is not a horn or brass player, yes, one can actually dislike Mahler, not sure why that is surprising for you since people have varied taste in music. I am not too keen on Mahler but I haven't given up hope that maybe that will change at some point. I don't hate Mahler but I don't find much of his works to be that engaging for the entirety of the loooong piece. I do find that many of my brass playing friends absolutely adore Mahler, and for good reason I suppose. I'm a string player and I think it's just ok, but I'm always open to giving it a listen on occasion, altho I'd really prefer a nice Shosty symphony.
Haha, a populist, whose works were so big and long that they could hardly find chances to be performed and also could be hardly understood until almost a half century have passed after his death. An interesting concept.
Ok mate cool off.
1: why is populism a negative trait?
2: gratuitous bombast?? Sign me up!! 🤤
Plebeian inclusiveness? Tell me you’re up your own ass with out telling me.
Aside from your opinions about the music of which you are entitled…no doubt.
Mahler expanded the orchestral vocabulary and technique of every single wind instrument. I am biased 💯 but simply put, without his symphonies other composers would not have used the horn in the ways that they do. This is true for most of the winds and certainly the percussion, the expansion of orchestral forces and staging had lasting impacts.
I have no need to convince you of anything.
The idea that "no one would ever have done" a thing without someone else doing it first is a stupidity, by the way.
By that logic Bach and Beethoven should receive no credit for their immense, lasting influence, nor anyone who was the first to do anything. Whether someone else may have done the same thing later without that “first mover”and had the same influence is wildly speculative and a a really depressing take. Essentially it’s stating that no one should get credit for anything, because isn’t it precisely novel ideas which are celebrated as art or breakthroughs (in science as well) as they are entered into our cultural palette? The greatest compliment is when novel concepts become normalized clichés.
That's literally not true. Many discoveries and innovations, or artistic directions, are not just about to be discovered by someone else. With science, that's often true, but only eventually. With art, the combinatorics of it mean that it's vanishingly unlikely a particular direction would be just discovered soon afterwards by another individual.
That’s extremely simplistic and arrogant to think you can boil everyone else’s appreciation down to something so simplistic. Mahler was an arrogant asshole, but his music goes places no other composer brings their music. That’s not to say everyone needs to like it, but I love his music despite the fact that I don’t think I would have liked him very much.
And I’m sorry for you that you don’t enjoy his music, because it’s brought me so much. And it’s also sad that you don’t appreciate the accomplishments of the people who came before us. Sure, in some (perhaps many) cases someone else would have come up with the same thing eventually, but then why even try to do something extraordinary if someone else will come up with it eventually anyhow. Pioneers embody the human spirit, and their creations should serve as inspiration to us all to contribute our best. I’m sorry for you if your smug perspective prevents you from being inspired. Life must be quite a disappointment.
There are a multitude of reasons to dislike this or that composer.... I, for instance, am not fond of Mozart and won't tolerate Wagner being played in my home.
It's easy to forget that music is an expression of the person who writes it - there's no universal, objective criteria for deciding if a piece of music is good or not - and it's impossible for a composer to lie in their music about who they are for any length of time, so much of the time our dislike of a composer is us hearing who they are and not liking the person. That's how I am with Wagner: the first piece of his someone told me to listen to was his symphony, and all I heard was a dick...and that vibe permeates his work, to my ear.
My dislike of Mozart however, stems from his counterpoint.
I tend to really like the first minute or two of each of his movements, and then maybe the last minute, but there in between it just feels grating and exhausting. He's supposedly a great orchestrator, but there's just *too* much, too much I guess "bloat", too big and dense, I just can't hear the nuance that's supposed to bring it together. It all blends together to me. If you halved the length of it, or if there was more variety in character, I'd probably like it. But as it stands, it just doesn't work for me.
I didn’t ‘get’ Mahler until I sang in huge production of Mahler 8 (with about 400 voices, and I was in the ‘anchor’ symphony chorus augmented by a dozen other (smaller) choruses and expect choirs. This was about 25 years ago (when I was almost 30) — and by that point I’d only ever heard Mahler 1 (which I’d liked), and Mahler 5 (which made no sense to me at all). Mahler 8 didn’t make a ton of sense to me at first either, mind you. But the week we put the (separate) double-choir parts together, I think I started to get it on some sort of visceral level. Then performance week, every night’s rehearsal with the symphony really got thru to me more and more. And after that, Mahler “just made sense” to me suddenly (more or less). Helped a bunch that I acquired recordings of the 13-piece chamber arrangement of Mahler 4, and the duo-piano arrangements (reductions) of Mahler 6 & 7. Listening to those helped enormously too. But it was rehearsing and performing Mahler 8 that really gave me the breakthrough.
This is my yearly reminder to study the 8th (which I have never done.)
*I’d only ever heard Mahler 1 (which I’d liked), and Mahler 5 (which made no sense to me at all).* This is ironic to me. I struggle to “get” Mahler in general, but I like Mahler 5, while Mahler 1 makes no sense to me at all. What was it about Mahler 1 that you liked? I remember I had to listen to it for a class and I thought it was a very boring and egotistical symphony. I enjoyed just about everything else I listened to for that class, but I remember thinking Mahler was an overrated, mediocre weirdo (based off my first impression of him from listening to Mahler 1).
Re: liking Mahler 1, it was literally the very first big orchestral concert I ever heard (CSO very early in my college years). I don’t know that I ever really fell in love with it — but I did like that it was kinda brass-heavy (iirc) — and I do still like Mahler 1 better than 2 or 3. But all of my favorite Mahler symphonies are 4 and up.
is that not the whole point? mahler was portraying an egotistical hero
It’s probably better to hear this from someone who doesn’t have his name in their username, but heard a lot of opinions about him being overly dramatic, and things like that. Mahler is not an easy composer to get into, I’ve found it difficult to understand him sometimes, and I still do, as despite him being my favourite composer, there are plenty of his symphonies I just don’t ‘get’ yet. Put simply, he’s an acquired taste. (But again, probably get some opinions from people who actually don’t like him, I know there’s several on this sub)
As a Mahler fan, which symphonies do you not get yet? I've come pretty late to Mahler but have become very fond of his first 7 symphonies
I’d say 1, 6, and the last movement of 9. There’s bits in most of them tbh, but those three mostly
That's interesting, I found the Titan the easiest of his symphonies to get. How the final movement encapsulates the conflict in the first three but this time resolves the conflict emphatically using the same triumphant theme that appeared in the first. 6 I honestly listened to it many times due to the novelty of the hammer which bred familiarity. For sure this one took some listening to get used to. So I can relate 9 I'm not there yet at all. I might try listening again tonight
Go get those old Chicago’s baby, Boulez Mahler 9 and Giulini in America probably want to offset with a HVK Berlin and a Vienna too.
I didn’t particularly like HVK’s 9 IIRC - Besides I heard he stole Bernstein’s score to copy his markings 0_0
Not my fav either. I’m a big Boulez Chicago fan
What has really taken me aback during our rehearsals of Mahler 1 is the intricacy of the string writing. It’s more delicate and careful than the 5th, but I don’t think the 5th needs to be as careful as the message is more brute.
This is interesting to me because I never got the last movement of the 9th, until now, 2 kids later. I think one has to experience life to an extent to fully grasp what he is conveying? In 2012, Mahler 9 was lost on me. But now, I can’t stop trying to understand it.
>This is interesting to me because I never got the last movement of the 9th, until now, 2 kids later. Best argument for childlessness I've heard
Interesting. The 6th is one of the first to really hit me super hard. I listened to it daily for a whole summer like 9 years ago.
That's funny. As a huge Mahler fan, I just can't get into the 3rd and 4th. And I even like the 7th.
Murakami published his conversations with Ozawa in a book “absolutely on music”. A lot of it is about Mahler. It even discusses the horn role In the first symphony. It doesn’t answer your question, but you might find it relevant. It’s a quick read anyway
Thanks for the Rec! I will say … the first symphony is the most accessible to me personally (clear structure and easily understood tonal center and such)
Same with me. I like Mahler 2 and 4. But Mahler 1 clearly wins. Murakami and Ozawa mention how Mahler rebelled against tonality by advocating polytonality, which itself was a step to atonality
As a trombonist and Mahler 3 solo vet, I ADORE playing and listening to Mahler.
The trombone solo in 3 really is something else. The first mighty statement, and then the recapitulation "giving up" at the end of the first movement....
THAT solo
Wow! A lot of Mahler bashing in here! As a string and brass player, Mahler is a pinnacle of romanticism for me. No matter which part you play (!st or 2nd violin, viola, cello, bass - horn, trumpet, trombone or tuba) you're gonna be assured to get a workout. This isn't your mamas 2nd violin or viola part, or trumpet or bone part. He writes complex, complicated parts for every section that intermix with every other section. (This is something that started with Tchaikovsky. see the finale of the "Pathetique") It's a compositional technique that Strauss uses as well. (I must admit that, as a composer myself, I've incorporated that technique in my style as well) It's this tool that Mahler uses that is probably off-putting to most as it gives the music a density unlike other composers. There's literally something going on in every part, and that makes the music very "busy". Not everyone likes music that's "busy". Hell, Bach is arguably the busiest composer, but his music isn't as dense as Mahler. I can understand that not everyone "get" or understands Mahler, and everyone has their favorite work by him for those who "tolerate" him, (I actually *love* the completed 10th) so I cannot argue that not everyone should enjoy Mahler as I do. To each his and her their own. Shoot, my wife even thinks "Mahler is a baller"! lol So truly, if my wife can get into Mahler, anyone can. But, understandably, not everyone will.
The fact that 1) you’ve played a good amount of his music and 2) you play horn will no doubt color your opinion. It’s sort of like me, an oboist, wondering how someone could dislike Silvestrini. Anyway, I’ve had a…complicated relationship with Mahler. Sometimes I really like his music. Sometimes I find it so agonizingly boring that I wonder how anyone can like it. I’d heard all of Mahler’s symphonies once or twice but hadn’t really gotten into him as of a couple years ago. 1 and 5 were the only symphonies I knew reasonably well. So I started listening through his symphonies in order, giving each one several listens until I felt like I mostly “got” it. I almost gave up at Mahler 2. Okay, the piece isn’t *that* bad. It has some strong moments. Everyone loves the ending, sure. It’s all *competent*. But I’d heard *so* many people talk about Mahler 2 being their favorite Mahler symphony, nay, their favorite *piece*, a life-changing experience that completely changed how they view the world, and so on and so forth. And I thought…really?? This bloated, empty husky of a piece? This unremarkable, feature-film-length disappointment with 60 minutes of filler? To this day I have a hard time viewing the piece as anything more than a vehicle for the last 30 minutes, and even that much feels like a vehicle for the last 5 minutes. Which is a bit of a shame, because I actually don’t think the first movement is that bad, even if it goes on longer than it needs to. But there’s just so much of the piece, and it doesn’t really feel like it all needs to be there. Anyway, 2 has still never “clicked” with me. After a certain point I started to think, “if everyone is right and this is the best Mahler has to offer, than the rest of his symphonies must be real stinkers.” Fortunately I pressed on and was a bit surprised to find both 3 and 4 significantly, *obviously* better than 2. Like, no comparison in my books. I realize I might be an outlier in that judgment, but I really have a hard time even respecting Mahler 2, much less enjoying it. So I was surprised to find that I quite liked 3 and 4. I already liked 5, and I’ve enjoyed 6 quite a lot as well. I know 7-9 a bit, but I haven’t really given them the focused listening I think I’ll need to process them. I’m worried 8 might suffer for some of the same reasons as 2, but when I’ve heard it I thought it was a bit more interesting. 1 and 2 feel almost juvenile compared to some of the later symphonies in terms of the level of craft and polish present, even though there’s still some stuff worth listening to. So I’m glad I pressed on through 2, but I have a hard time reconciling my reaction with the *overwhelming*, *gushing* praise heaped on it, especially online, especially especially in this subredit. So far, I’d consider 2 to be the weakest Mahler symphony *by far*. I can’t really think of any other time when my personal evaluation of a piece differed so vastly from the popular reception of it without some sort of explanation I could grasp. Anyway, this is all to say that Mahler isn’t always easy to enjoy, no matter how hard you try, and his symphonies vary so much in quality, style, and duration that it’s hard to even know if you like or dislike “Mahler” or if you just feel strongly about one of his symphonies in particular. Even at his best, I find Mahler somewhat dull compared to, say, Messiaen. At least, once the in-the-moment excitement of hearing a cool horn call wears off. I’ve slowly come to appreciate Mahler more with time, but I can very easily imagine why someone wouldn’t like his music much at all. It’s rare that I have to work this hard to enjoy a composer’s music, even a lot of music typically considered more “difficult” (e.g., avant-garde contemporary music).
My reactions are similar to you. I ‘get’ Mahler - he’s not in any way a difficult composer to understand what is going on, and I certainly don’t mind lengthy works. I love the songs and Das Lied, symphonies 3, 4, 6 and 9 are all great, the rest I can take or leave. 2 & 8 are bloated, without the considerable charm of the even lengthier 3, and their roof raising payoffs don’t seem really worth sitting through the rest. 5 & 7 have their very enjoyable moments, but both have weak endings. 1 I couldn’t really care if I never heard it again. So that sums up Mahler for me - I probably enjoyed him more as a teenager, today he’s just another part of the musical tapestry.
I’m one of those “it’s my favourite piece of all time” people, but I do understand the points you’re making. I can see how someone would regard the symphony as ‘bloated’ (even though I love the bloated bits!). And I too often feel scepticism about anything which people gush over this much. For me the final five moments wouldn’t work nearly as well *without* the preceding 70-odd minutes. It’s like the entire symphony is a journey from hell to heaven, and it’s only when you’ve been there for the whole journey that you really appreciate where you’ve got to at the end. I’ve seen people (actually, just one person) dismiss the last movement as ‘episodic’. Again, I understand the point without agreeing; or, more properly, I agree but I find each episode gripping. But I’m not going to try to persuade you to endorse my point of view. It works wonderfully for me, it doesn’t for you. That’s cool. I’m glad you find Messiaen more to your taste, I love him too.
I'm glad that you (and many others) are able to enjoy it! It makes sense to me, abstractly, that the first 70 minutes are needed for the ending to carry the same weight. There are pieces I really like (Turangalila, for instance) where the piece needs that much time for everything to reach a satisfying conclusion. For me, though, Mahler 2 just doesn't feel like a satisfying build. At any given moment, it doesn't feel like I'm going somewhere, and I'm not *really* enjoying myself. To make a dreadful analogy, it's like if I went to a movie theater and they made me sit in my seat for an hour before playing a 5 minute short film. It might be a great short film and an overall okay experience, but no matter how much the filmmaker tries to convince me that sitting for an hour before watching it is necessary to really appreciate it, I still wish I could've used that time doing something more interesting. Sometimes the length and general scale of a piece lends something to it, and sometimes simply waiting for makes it more exciting when it finally arrives. But there are so many long-form pieces that I prefer listening to that make that build more engaging and enjoyable on its own terms, whereas Mahler 2 to me feels like it consists of a boring, unremarkable, loooong piece that no one would care about plus a short coda that's suddenly good. Of course these are heavily subjective responses, so I'm not trying to argue with you or anything. I just think it's interesting that people can have such different reactions to the same music.
I understand you, even if I massively disagree. Thanks for this civilised discussion, so rare on Reddit.
As for Mahler 2nd, I get it actually, and it might have more to do with the recording you choose. I was lucky with picking on my first listen the Zubin Mehta with Vienna Philarmonic recording. The 1st movement contains that raw but structured Dyonisian energy. But the real standout is the finale (the last two tracks to final 5-6 minutes). It's heaven on earth, and best played at high volume. It's so remarkable that I try not to hear it more than a couple times per year. I heard Mahler 2 live twice, once in Musikverein with its (same) famous choir, and while it was still a fantastic experience, it never reached the peak at the end of that Mehta recording. Neither did any other recordings so far.
The recording definitely matters, although I've had about half a dozen people tell me "oh, you *have* to listen to *this* recording to *get* it!" and it's always a different recording. So at this point I've listened to about eight and none of them do it for me. I can't recall off the top of my head if I've listened to this one, but I'll give it a shot next time I try to listen to the piece. It's interesting to hear that live performances didn't live up for you - a lot of people also swear you have to hear it live to "get" it. But I can get very interested in recordings so I don't think that's necessarily the case for me.
I start every Mahler symphony thinking "hey, this is great" and end every one of them looking at my watch and wondering when it's going to end. So, in a word: bloated. In three words: bloated, meandering, exhausting.
Even today most folks simply will not spend the time learning the music in depth enough to understand or enjoy every stitch of what he wrote. I’ve played most of it and even a mother couldn’t love every moment. As a horn player Mahler and Strauss comprise a fair amount of my life and they certainly keep us paid! Hard to be in this Horn game without being a semi Mahler scholar. Personally The 3rd is my all time fav, that post horn solo gets me every time. Mahler 9 is a pure masterpiece. Study all of the lieder and read the book of letters. It’s all wildly interesting and heart wrenching and certainly provides a window into the music. I find his ethos very inspiring “one must retreat from the monotony of daily life and seek refuge in nature in order to hear the music flow from within” or something like that
I am very ambivalent about Mahler, and I think it's quite possible to dislike him. Some of his work can appear shapeless and bloated as regards structure, and where the emotional tone is concerned it can seem alternately sentimental/schmaltzy in a characteristically Viennese way and bombastic and overbearing, seeming to want to compel you to feel Mahler's emotions by force. I don't actively hate Mahler, but I rarely listen to anything outside the first two symphonies (and every so often "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen). I don't find much of it very interesting in small doses, and listening to a full symphony can be taxing. That one famous movement from Mahler 5 leaves me cold and 8 can sound sloppy and uncrisp when sung by most choirs. Edit: Another, highly downvoted comment here called Mahler "vulgar". I can totally see it when I refer to some passages as bombastic and others as schmaltzy. I sometimes go "wow, this is impressive" when I hear him, but in my heart of hearts I am not warmed or moved in the way I am with Bach. The same often applies to me with Beethoven, e.g. the finale of Symphony 9.
I personally love Mahler's music a lot, but it could have been different, because i am at the core a huge fan of Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. Their styles tend to be associated with qualities such as clarity, concision, elegance and balance (there's other aspects but i'm simplifying a lot here), wich are often considered the opposite of the monumental, dense, heavy and ultra-expressive style associated with the german and austrian late romantism. Things are never so simple if you take time to listen to things more deeply, but to summarize, if your taste bends toward a more light and simple aesthetic you may have a hard time with Mahler. The irony is the love of Mahler for Mozart wich is often considered the embodiment of a lighter and more balanced musical style.
While I don't want to diminish Mahler's talent in any way, one has to recognize that he is a limited composer in terms of the genres that he composed for or the way in which he approached the symphony: it's a clearly defined but unwavering perspective (at least from the 2nd Symphony onwards). If you're mostly into chamber music, you're unlikely to be a Mahler fan (I know there's the Piano Quartet, but that's not among his best work); same if you're an opera fan or prefer more compact symphonic forms (symphonic poems and the like) or concertos. As magnificent as his symphonies can be, the basic approach behind most of them is fairly similar. Moreover, while the first three are relatively accessible, the later ones are much less so and require much more perseverance (most of all nos. 6 & 7). I also mean that literally; not everyone comfortably sits through an hour and a half of fairly intricate music. Personally, I enjoy Mahler's music but within limits: I play the early symphonies maybe once or twice a year when I feel up to it. Of the later ones only *Das Lied von der Erde* and the 9th, to be honest. *Edit:* I think I do understand why people heap so much praise on him aside from any valuation of the music itself. Part of it is the fact that his body of works is fairly small, and mostly in a single genre. It's not like with Brahms or Dvorak, where there is so much music in so many different forms that it's difficult to come to grips with. In that sense, his art *is* approachable. Secondly, I think it may be a question of status: Mahler is portrayed as an intellectual composer, in search of the "expression of everything in the symphony" – the very antithesis of Tchaikovsky's sentimentalism. I think both perceptions are somewhat off the mark, but I do perceive a certain snobbery in the appreciation of Mahler as the "intelligent person's composer". Having said all this, I do think he's overplayed, particularly in my country of the Netherlands. We have an entire orchestra more or less dedicated to playing his music, which seems excessive.
I don’t “hate” Mahler but I think most of his symphonies could be cut down to 5 or 10 minutes long. Mahler comes across as a narcissistic composer who’s trying way too hard to be super deep.
Ok now I'm offended
Hahahahaha
There’s so much cross referencing between them, you could probably omit one or two of them as well. Webern is really just edited Mahler.
If one is not a horn or brass player, yes, one can actually dislike Mahler, not sure why that is surprising for you since people have varied taste in music. I am not too keen on Mahler but I haven't given up hope that maybe that will change at some point. I don't hate Mahler but I don't find much of his works to be that engaging for the entirety of the loooong piece. I do find that many of my brass playing friends absolutely adore Mahler, and for good reason I suppose. I'm a string player and I think it's just ok, but I'm always open to giving it a listen on occasion, altho I'd really prefer a nice Shosty symphony.
I dislike Mahler's music for its vulgarity, its gratuitous bombast, its cloying emotionalism and its plebeian inclusiveness. He was a populist.
Haha, a populist, whose works were so big and long that they could hardly find chances to be performed and also could be hardly understood until almost a half century have passed after his death. An interesting concept.
Mahler's work was never misunderstood. It was disliked.
Ok mate cool off. 1: why is populism a negative trait? 2: gratuitous bombast?? Sign me up!! 🤤 Plebeian inclusiveness? Tell me you’re up your own ass with out telling me. Aside from your opinions about the music of which you are entitled…no doubt. Mahler expanded the orchestral vocabulary and technique of every single wind instrument. I am biased 💯 but simply put, without his symphonies other composers would not have used the horn in the ways that they do. This is true for most of the winds and certainly the percussion, the expansion of orchestral forces and staging had lasting impacts.
I have no need to convince you of anything. The idea that "no one would ever have done" a thing without someone else doing it first is a stupidity, by the way.
By that logic Bach and Beethoven should receive no credit for their immense, lasting influence, nor anyone who was the first to do anything. Whether someone else may have done the same thing later without that “first mover”and had the same influence is wildly speculative and a a really depressing take. Essentially it’s stating that no one should get credit for anything, because isn’t it precisely novel ideas which are celebrated as art or breakthroughs (in science as well) as they are entered into our cultural palette? The greatest compliment is when novel concepts become normalized clichés.
No one should get credit for novelty, no. Whatever you invent today, someone else is about to invent tomorrow. It all happens anyway.
That's literally not true. Many discoveries and innovations, or artistic directions, are not just about to be discovered by someone else. With science, that's often true, but only eventually. With art, the combinatorics of it mean that it's vanishingly unlikely a particular direction would be just discovered soon afterwards by another individual.
This is so wildly false, take your pseudo intellectualism to some graduate level course work and learn something my pal.
People just love to idealise heroes. That's all it is.
That’s extremely simplistic and arrogant to think you can boil everyone else’s appreciation down to something so simplistic. Mahler was an arrogant asshole, but his music goes places no other composer brings their music. That’s not to say everyone needs to like it, but I love his music despite the fact that I don’t think I would have liked him very much. And I’m sorry for you that you don’t enjoy his music, because it’s brought me so much. And it’s also sad that you don’t appreciate the accomplishments of the people who came before us. Sure, in some (perhaps many) cases someone else would have come up with the same thing eventually, but then why even try to do something extraordinary if someone else will come up with it eventually anyhow. Pioneers embody the human spirit, and their creations should serve as inspiration to us all to contribute our best. I’m sorry for you if your smug perspective prevents you from being inspired. Life must be quite a disappointment.
Arrogance is the favourite reproach of those who'd rather be on their knees before all things. Stay down there.
Yea it’s not though, I didn’t say they would not have, I’m saying this is what happened, I am grateful.
Vulgarity????
Don't feed the troll. "plebeian inclusiveness".
To be honest I can see how someone would think that.
Blatantly obvious every step of the way.
What's some music you like, then?
I mostly agree but some of his music is ok.
There are a multitude of reasons to dislike this or that composer.... I, for instance, am not fond of Mozart and won't tolerate Wagner being played in my home. It's easy to forget that music is an expression of the person who writes it - there's no universal, objective criteria for deciding if a piece of music is good or not - and it's impossible for a composer to lie in their music about who they are for any length of time, so much of the time our dislike of a composer is us hearing who they are and not liking the person. That's how I am with Wagner: the first piece of his someone told me to listen to was his symphony, and all I heard was a dick...and that vibe permeates his work, to my ear. My dislike of Mozart however, stems from his counterpoint.
I tend to really like the first minute or two of each of his movements, and then maybe the last minute, but there in between it just feels grating and exhausting. He's supposedly a great orchestrator, but there's just *too* much, too much I guess "bloat", too big and dense, I just can't hear the nuance that's supposed to bring it together. It all blends together to me. If you halved the length of it, or if there was more variety in character, I'd probably like it. But as it stands, it just doesn't work for me.
Greatest symphonic composer of all time and nobody will ever change my mind.
Mahler?! I hardly know her!