From: smoliar@argon.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: LA Phil
Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 12:36:33 GMT

In article <12OCT199220084826@portal.lasc.lockheed.com>
le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel) writes:
>In article <12OCT199210252439@eccles.caltech.edu>, inr@eccles.caltech.edu (I.
>Neill Reid) writes...
>
>> Ron Nadel reported on Salonen's Sunday performance - I heard the
>>Saturday night performance. I wouldn't give that performance the 
>>same rave review. I felt that the first and second movements were
>>far too episodic and piecemeal - isolated fragments with no real
>>integration into an overall architecture of the movement as a whole.
>
>That is a good description of the nature of this music, actually.  You can 
>try as hard as you like, but you cannot really integrate that first movement,
>Mahler has more than one moment where the direction the symphony is
>going just stops, and after a pause, moves off in another direction.  
>In fact the 1st movement has trouble getting "started" all together
>after the great opening horn fanfare (which I have always recognized
>as a direct rip-off from the 4th movement of Brahm's 1st symphony).
>It's a terrific movement, one that shows the stride that Mahler made
>away from more organic classical sonatas.
>
This may be the first time I regret missing a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert!
Still, if we are going to discuss the interpretation of the first movement, I
think it might be worth while to bring in the notes which Deryck Cooke wrote
for the original Solti recording:

	The sub-title 'A Summer Morning's Dream' later became 'A Summer
	NOONDAY'S Dream';  this was after he had completed the work by
	composing the fantastic first movement.  The idea of noonday
	brings to mind 'the heat, the stillness, the Pan-ic horror'
	of Mrs. Mahler's description;  and in fact Mahler now dropped
	the title 'The Joyful Knowledge', and describe the introduction
	to the work as 'Pan awakes'.

There are certain compositions during which one feels the composer is bringing
his audience with him to the brink of madness, providing a giddy excitement
mingled with the fear that he just might go too far.  This one symphonic
movement has always been one of my favorite examples of such a flirtation
with madness;  and I am not sure that we, as listeners, have very much to
prepare us for it (with the possible exception of the "Waldmaerchen" from
DAS KALGENDE LIED).

NEVERTHELESS, it is worth bearing in mind that all that hysteria really IS all
in sonata form!  Indeed, perhaps it is that constraint of sonata form which
ultimately keeps Mahler (and the rest of us) from going over that bring.  When
the march of summer threatens to trample all under the thunder of the battery
section, it is the recapitulation of Pan's fanfare which ultimately reminds us
that we are still in a sonata-form movement, after all.  Admittedly, this may
be the longest sonata-form movement ever written (I do not think Guinness
records things quite that arcane);  but the form is definitely there for
the ear to hear (just as the second movement of the eighth symphony is
ultimately a prolonged elaboration of the first movement).

>>The orchestra also almost never reached p - mf to fff seemed to be
>>the preferred dynamic range. The later movements were much better in 
>>these respects - especially the final adagio.
>
>Not too much range to the first 2 movements anyways, but the third,
>with the posthorn solo covered the pp - FF range very well!  And the
>finale is where you'd expect the ppp.
>
If this is true of the first movement, then I would fault the performance.
That first movement is an experience of extremes.  That first harp glissando
should open the gates of Hell, and there had better be dynamics to support the
fires beyond!  At the opposite extreme, there are silences broken by only the
slightest murmurs--the sorts of slight gestures which often engender more panic
that the loudest of outbursts.  Taking away the dynamic range takes away most
of the impact of the movement.
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg