I cannot overstate how much I love your enthusiasm, knowledge, humility and humour. Simply put, you have rekindled my love of music. Bravo, maestro!

"Purges and purifies you.... psychologically". Totally spot on. This is a great talk !

Brilliant analysis. Agreed. I’ve always thought the third movement was like a dreamlike respite from the darkness of the first two movements with the intro of the fourth movement being like an awakening from a dream and back into a nightmarish darkness. To each his own, but your analysis was illuminating !

Tragedy in this work, of course, but I had a Mahler experience that was part horror movie. As a teenager our house was on a hill overlooking some other houses, our town and a college along the Pacific coast. One evening I was left alone in the house as the rest of the family attended a school event and so I decided this was a perfect time to play my new record of the Mahler 6th with Bernstein at full volume. Since this was the late 60’s the record was Bernstein’s CBS first version. The night-time view down to the coast from the window behind my seat was perfectly clear as I sat down at the start of the music. When the work was done I finally noticed that the house had been completely cloaked in fog and the friendly lights from below were suddenly missing. The sense of dread at that moment was indeed quite jarring. I had just realized how completely alone I was, or at least appeared to be. Thanks Dave for reviving that actually fond memory.

This is the Symphony I love most along with the 2nd. It fulfils my appetite for Sturm und Drang like no other! The Bernstein interpretations were my introduction but there are many revelatory readings of this work. Barbirolli stands out - the slow tempo of the opening sets the tone and gives you a taste of what's to come. I suggest people check that version out!

I don't know a thing about music theory or history, and this popped up on my feed. I am very satisfied with how KZfaq's suggestion algorithm performed today.

I have heard in 1988 in tel Aviv..it was memorable vpo and Bernstein

I really enjoyed your talk on one of my all time favorite symphonies. I had just found this performance last week at a record store and it is achingly beautiful. Thank you for your pithy remarks, terrific.

Such an intense, great symphony. Stunning recording by Bernstein!

I’m glad your doing this fabulous symphony! I’ve actually transcribed the first movement for concert band.

On this rec I just listened and yes, it is a fantastic performance and recording. I reflected a bit on the difference between this and what I grew up with, the Karajan DG with the rainbow, and it occurred to me there's a trade off between exposing and exploring details, not just sonic but structural, and creating coherence - Lenny seems to me to be all about the components of the work and Herb (he'll forgive the familiarity) makes things much smoother, elements meld into each other, and surge and fall away, tempi are steady. I felt Lenny wants to really peer into the extremities, Herb wants to present a seamless whole. Side note: Herb has better cowbells, Lenny's sound almost like gamelan.

"Purges and purifies you.... psychologically". Agree. I find the same with Sibelius 4. People say it's cold, dark and impenetrable. I find the opposite. I'm uplifted by Sibelius's handling of motifs, whisps of sound, brevity, economy and the "in between the lines" nature of it. So much so, that I find it cathartic and triumphant.

David, this talk was brilliant and gripping! The section dealing with inner movement order was the best explanation of it I've ever encountered. The 6th was my first great fave among Mahler works. Nowadays I have trouble keeping 8, 9, and Das Lied off of my turntable, but I still enjoy them all.

Like many, I'm used to hearing the andante as the 3rd movement. When the scherzo is second, there's a gain in continuity: it's easier to discern a mutation of the march tread from the first movement. Between the third and fourth movements, the gain is from discontinuity, though in a purposeful way. If the opening of the fourth movement is nightmarish, one reason is because it emerges from the tranquility at the end of the andante, just as it's only natural for a nightmare to emerge from a sleep cycle. The morning after, you're not sure if there's any connection between the nightmare and what came just before it, and any other connections are less than linear. A nightmare is usually more vivid than real. No matter how believable it is to the subconscious, any recollection straddles the boundary between the real and unreal. This is what Mahler captures in the introduction to the fourth movement, with its drift of fragmentary non-sequiturs that assumes a more coherent form in the rest of the movement. Even though Mahler recollects the introductory material and mood later in the movement, its meaning is different. The nightmare re-enacted as a "waking" experience that also includes a flashback to the nightmare: you knew this was going to happen, and it's happening again, and the awareness of all that is registered in the music. Like the first movement, the last has a clear sonata-form structure. The minor-key ending might seem less than typical, but it's just as logical as the ending of Mozart's Symphony No. 40, his C minor piano concerto, or Tchaikovsky's No. 6. What's different about Mahler is the relationship between order and chaos. He scrambles the distinction between real and unreal, consciousness and subconsciousness, human agency and something less human that, by default, might be called fate. With Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, you know when you're up against fate, and even Shostakovich gives you a post-revolutionary equivalent. With Mahler, you get the unique dread of indeterminacy, conveyed most clearly in the finale's introduction, with its formative or decomposing cloud of unknowing. Think of a disintegrating star getting sucked into a black hole.

I like this performance of the sixth most of all I’ve heard.

Perhaps the most nihilistic statement in music. I love it!

A fine choice from among the many great 6ths I've heard. (And you're absolutely right about scherzo - andante order. Well argued.) While it may be exciting and uplifting to play, a good performance often leaves the audience/listener in a few moments of stunned silence. I think that's the reaction Mahler was looking for. Point of fact; Mahler conducted only 3 performances of the 6th, all within the space of 8 months, between May 1906 and January 1907.

I grew up on scherzo-andante with Solti-Chicago, and I have three other recordings like that (not this Bernstein, yet). But then I heard andante-scherzo with Mitropoulos-NY and Abaddo-Lucerne. I find that approach highly effective as well, a different experience, almost like a separate symphony (No. 6A). So I go with Mahler's muddled intentions, since both versions work for me in different ways. I love 'em both!

"That was so much fun!" I got to talk to Jay Friedman - Principal Trombone of the Chicago Symphony - right after a performance of Mahler 6 with Eschenbach, and those were his exact words.

On the movement order.... I agree 100%. Mahler changed his mind a number of times, and had many doubts, about so many things about this piece... Taking the music, and only the music, in consideration, the Andante has to be 3rd...

Could not agree more. The opening bars of the last movement are electrifying ... but I also love how Bernstein conducts the ecstatic middle section of the first movement, although I wonder if his first recording of this work with the NY Philharmonic might be a little better in this regard.

A terrific performance by Bernstein. I was only familiar with the NYPO version. Many thanks. I, for one, have to admit to liking the slow-motion 2013 version by Gielen, my favourite Mahler conductor (and no, I have no wish to end my life prematurely). Ps: I would be interested to know your opinion of Karajan's performance, and would you say this is Mahler's best symphony? (I can't make up my mind which one is).

Your right Dave Bernstein could have easily had a reference Mahler cycle but it all mixed over different labels. IMO Bernstein & Mahler just simply works... a nice balance and the 6th amazing.

Such a great presentation. Thank you, Dave! I adore this recording. It is one of DG's best in the Musikverein and the VPO play like men possessed. How I would have loved to have heard this live.

I recall the Greek tragedy/cathartic concept in the great Jack Diether's liner notes from Lenny's NY recording, which provided a great framework for me when I learned the 6th back in 1968. The SCHERZO FIRST is absolutely the way to go, regardless of what the often-unreliable Alma may have said about Mahlers' final intentions. It resembles the structure and emotional effect of Beethoven's (THE NINTH!)..with the Scherzo second (same key and basic character as the 1st Mvt) and then, as you say, the "Island" effect of the slow movement in the Third position, before plunging into the Finale. I assume that Lenny's Vienna DGG recording originated with the same performances as his Unitel Video version. It makes for great viewing...especially that giant wooden hammer! LR

The Xylophone part in the Scherzo reminds me of the rattling of bones of a skeleton?

I still remember the first time I ever heard this great music: the very end scared the crap out of me! That was the Barbirolli recording. SA is the way to go...just like Mahler originally planned. The Bernstein/VPO is my choice, too, but Mitropoulos is right up there.

Thank you for your great videos! Could you please do a small series why it is so difficult for some people to "get" some composers? I personally enjoy Bruckner, Magnard, Sibelius, Madetoja, Zemlinsky, etc. etc., but I cannot yet get into Mahler.

Amen to your argument for the scherzo coming first. When I (rarely) listen to a recording where the scherzo is played as the third movement, the performance loses me. This video helped me better understand why I feel this way.

You mention Henri-Louis de la Grange. I had the great honour of meeting him when he was in Australia and spoke at some length with him about Nos. 6 and 7. In his great tome there is a mini chapter about the order of movements and the hammer blows. He was strongly in favour of the scherzo second, largely for the reasons you outline. There is the great major/minor dichotomy but more than that is the continuation of the pulse....that inexorable drive that makes the scherzo almost a coda to the first movement. It is as though they are two halves of the same thing. It's almost as if Mahler was saying, "well if you didn't get that, here it is again". For years I have been waiting for some brave conductor to play the scherzo as an attacca. Try that on for size! I don't think anyone has done it but it sure would be interesting.

I've always found this symphony to be a companion work of sorts to Beethoven's Appassionata piano sonata. Fate wins. No transcendence. And yes, the proper order is Scherzo then Andante, no matter the bug that someone put into Mahler's neurotic ear that caused him to switch them in performance. Dave mentioned some though not all of the reasons: - A major of I gets a punch in the face and comes back as A minor to start II. - The four vigorous strokes of the basses that start I come back as a disfigured waltz to start II: beat 1 on the timpani, 2 and 3 in the basses...or so it would seem, but the first blast of the timpani is actually on beat 3. Sneaky. - The Eb major ending of III focuses quite heavily on C as VI in the scale. IV starts in C minor which flows directly from that previous key. It almost feels like an attacca. - But the biggest reason is *balance.* The 1st and 2nd movements together weigh the same on the scale as the massive 4th, putting the Andante at the balance point. This is Mahler's most Beethovenian symphony, so it needs to act like Beethoven.

I’m not sure I’d be able to say what my favourite recording of this is, Dave. There are a lot of excellent and sufficiently different ones! I do like this one (and the earlier Bernstein) plus Boulez (really very good), Karajan (I like the Brucknerian Andante Moderato sometimes and it’s so beautifully played), Chailly (which is really quite different again and gorgeous recording), Kubelik for the briskness and no nononsenseness (can help here). We’re just so lucky with the whole array….

(Phillip Brookes) If a composer writes an exposition repeat - having abandoned one in earlier works - it should be played. After all, it's rather as if the composer's underlining the fact that "I didn't do this last time!" A good case is the New World symphony - Dvorak had abandoned such repeats in the 7th and 8th, but uses one in the 9th. So play it!

where did you see Bernstein conduct Mahler's 6th with the VPO? Carnegie Hall?

I remember seeing Mahler’s 6th in LA at Disney Hall (soon after it opened) with a guesting Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm. There was some attempt made at the preshow talk (and in the program notes) to justify the switching of the inner movements. The Los Angeles Philharmonic played wonderfully but the movement switcheroo ruined the entire point of the work. About 10 years later, I had the chance to go see it performed at the same venue with Dudamel conducting. Before purchasing a ticket I actually called the box office and asked them if they knew which order the movements were going to be in! They got back to me the next day and said “it hasn’t been decided yet“…. Ah, so they were at least thinking about it. It’s one of my favorite pieces of music so I took my chances. And Dudamel did the same thing as MTT. Oh brother, so lame.🤦‍♂️ I remember thinking how can such learned people ignore the ACTUAL musical results of such a devastating piece just to check off some academic box. This box-checking wasn’t to serve the piece’s dramatic line, logic or narrative. It was about self-regard, not the music itself (which it handily cut the wings of).

Your purely musical arguments for putting the Scherzo first are persuasive, but I always find it jarring that the rather optimistic first movement (the hero’s journey with mere intimations of setbacks) is instantly parodied and undercut by the sardonic, mocking Scherzo. I find the work makes more musical and emotional sense if we get the interjected idyll of the Andante first. It represents a sort of respite from the increasingly forced struggle of the first mvt. Maybe it represents a love affair that fails or some other weakness of the hero. So that when the mocking strains of the Scherzo arrive as the 3rd mvt, we have a hero resuming the same marching journey as earlier, but with greater pessimism and a sense of futility. The idyll has weakened him and soured him. But he then martials his spirits for the final great push of the 4th mvt, only to be frustrated emphatically by Fate. Put the Scherzo first and you get march, march, struggle, prevail, struggle, etc., followed by even more marching and struggling with the same thematic material but with a kind of comic bitterness. The Andante is needed to break up that monolith, allowing the spiritually-damaged hero at the end of the Scherzo to move directly into his final battles. The only other argument against putting the Andante first is that we might forget the 1st mvt themes by the time they reappear in the 3rd mvt Scherzo. I don’t think that’s likely as they are so immediately familiar whenever they appear.