You know what i enjoy the most about "classical" people? Their passion! You have that passion and seek to share that sense of life with us. Classical music lovers are in touch with the internal depths of the universe in contrast to many, if not most, others who only access its superficialities. Gustav Mahler was the high priest of depth.

Excellent! After a lifetime of listening, I’m 83, I’m still learning. I have several recordings of this work, including Eschenbach and Bernstein (Sony).

in a rehearsal of the Vienna Philharmonic in Tel-Aviv, Bernstein didn't like how they played the opening bars of the piece so he stopped and shouted:" no!! it's sounds too nice!! it should sound like.... the Wehrmacht entering the gates of Vienna!". The players couldn't believe what this old Jewish man was asking them but when they played it again it was really frightening

When I was a young man (in my 20s), I bought a number of Mahler symphonies, but found that, apart from the 1st and the 4th, I could not get my head around what was actually happening, and so for all the pleasure I had from listening to the music, I would eventually get lost, and eventually I turned to shorter more approachable pieces that I could more easily fathom. After thirty years, Mozart and Beethoven had become the only classical composer's whose music I listened to; however, last month, I was cleaning house, and I found my old Mahler CDs, because I had loaned a CD player from work, I began to listen to them again. It was a revelation. Finally, I felt as though I had encountered a music that could reflect my thoughts and experiences. Still, I realised that I needed help to fathom what was happening in this music. What made the Mahler's 6th different from his 7th, 8th and 9th. Finding your website has become part of my recent revelation. Thank you. Your talk about the 6th Symphony has not only given me great insights into the music, it has also augmented by teaching--I am a high school teacher, who teaches classical texts such as Antigone, so your discussion of the classical and the tragic employed a vocabulary I know well. I look forward to sitting down and going through all your talks.

I literally clapped when you held up the Bernstein NYP recording. It was my first and will always be my favorite. The complaints I've heard about his interpretation have always baffled me, as I've never felt a conductor so perfectly "got" what Mahler had written. And his fiery tempi in his younger years is much preferable to his plodding tendencies in his late recordings.

50 years ago I loved turning rockers into classical music lovers, especially playing the final movement of the 6th, and watching them nearly jump out of their chairs when that final, unexpected hammer blow sounded. Yes, I have a delightful, sadistic streak. Then there was a performance at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC, in which they used a large, hollow wood podium held up by a few guys and slammed down on the floor of the stage to create a magnificent hammer blow!

Absolutely enlightening. Really loved watching your videos. Can't Thank you enough Mr. Hurwitz!

Really enjoying these videos, David. Please keep 'em coming.

Dave, you're a treasure. Thanks so much for this discussion and your recommendations. i'm about to get myself to Disney Hall this evening to hear the Sixth with the LA Phil and Dudamel. I can't wait.

I so appreciate this lucid rationale for the sequencing of the second and third movements!

Thank you for the education you are giving me. The first movement of the 6th is my favorite Mahler, and one of my two favorite pieces of music.

There are several Mahler recordings, conductors, orchestras that I love & enjoy, but Bernstein is and will always be my go to man. His recordings touch my soul and open my mind...Love you Lenny 👍

An anecdote about Mahler first encountering Niagara Falls----> "At last, a real fortissimo!"

Very much appreciate the connection of the piece's form to the Aristotelean definition of tragedy (I spent way too much time in graduate school on A's Poetics). Thanks.

Just finished listening to Michael Gielen's thrilling performance and was reminded that I've never understood what is "tragic" about this symphony. To me it's exciting and exhilarating throughout, possibly my favorite of the 9, and the finale is triumphant. If that's tragic, gimme more! :-)

David, thank you so much for reintroducing me to Mahler's 6th. The first recording that I ever heard was Cleveland/Szell. I came across your Great Artist, Bad Day video a few days ago where you spoke about it 😀This was a revelation because all these years, I always avoided listening to the 6th after hearing Szell's account, thinking that this work isn't for me. As much as I admire Szell, I now understand that great artists can sometimes have a different point of view of a particular work which can have unfavorable results. Thank you for all the recommendations. Luckily, most of them are available as downloads from Presto Classical. Bernstein, Gielen and Haitink versions have become my favorites. I was also lucky to get my hands on the St. Petersburg Phil/Thomas Sanderling recording which is excellent. I hope you'll do a video about him someday. I've never heard any of his work and hope to explore more of his performances.

Totally agree it is best to have multiple recordings. My two favourites couldn't be more different. I love the punchy immediacy of the slow and dark Barbirolli / Philharmonia - engineered like you are standing right next to the conductor. But just as moving is the Tennstedt / LPO Albert Hall (live recording) with its distant acoustics and faster tempos, but utter beauty particularly in the adagio.

oh the 6th...what a work....heard Tennsdedt live at the RFH....sitting front row of the choir, still have goosebumps...the audience was silent at the end...exhausted....Thanks for your wonderful reviews Dave.

This DG Vienna Phil Mahler 6th with Lennie is just crushing. The recording is one of DG's best. The hugeness of the orchestra comes through - it is the biggest sound stage on my system of any of my recordings. Fabulous. Mahler's music seems to just capture the dark and horrible self destruction of the old Europe.

Solti was my first/"learner set" for Mahler. As a horn player it was amazing to hear Mahler with such athletic brass playing. As time went on and I heard other interpretations I have grown away from Solti's Mahler. However, I have always loved the manic energy of his 6th and I still go back and listen from time to time for the adrenaline rush. Glad to see it get a mention. Not sure I could see it be someone's only recording of the 6th, though. I guess I could say that about just about any 6th, though!!

Mr. Hurwitz... I find your talks most illuminating. I first heart Mahler over 50 years at Carnegie Hall. It was a most unusual concert. Abbado conducting the Cleveland Orch...The First half of the program was a Mozart piano concerto with R. Serkin. The second half was Mahler's Sixth. It was a magnificent performance. I was so moved by the piece. I have watched the Mahler performances with Abbado with the Lucerne Orchestra...they are extraordinary. The Mahler sixth is very well done. The Abbado's live recordings with Lucerne Orch..I think some of the best performances I have watched and heard.... It is pleasure listening to your talks...I have just become a fan.....Jerel Zoltick

Wonderful talk on the Mahler 6th, Dave!

I haven't heard the Gielen recording of the Sixth but I had the great good fortune of attending his phenomenal performance of it with the Cincinnati Symphony not during his time as its music director but later as guest conductor. It was stunning, shattering and unforgettable. I plan to hear his recording.

Your channel is gorgeous! You're so "no BS" and so to the point. Really interesting and reach!! thanks!!!

Thank you another excellent talk. I agree with you about the order of the movements, but on CD you can choose the order of the movements with less hassle than on vinyl when it was spread over two LPs. My own favourite is Bernstein/NYPO, which I first had on LP with the weird album cover. Another version I like is Szell and the Cleveland orchestra, which is a very classical approach, quite a contrast to LB, but fascinating. Despite the ending it is an inspiring work, after the two hammer blows the music regroups and tries to battle on; it has none of the icy emptiness of the end of Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antarctica, which like Mahler 6 deals with heroic failure.

Oh, David! I just discovered your yt channel. A few days before Christmas. What s gift! You are my Santa Claus! Thanks a lot Santa! I merit it. I' ve been a good boy all year long.

Bravo! Lennie/VPO every time. The first time I heard this recording on vinyl, those trumpets just knocked me flat. Out of all the many recordings I own, no one else does it the way Mahler wanted it. Levine with the LSO (RCA Red Seal 1977) is also impressive, but I couldn't live without Haitink/Concertgebouw, Bernstein's earlier cycle, or the wonderful Klaus Tennstedt with the LPO. All great recordings. Rattle's excellent Berlin Phil recording (his final concert as chief conductor) on BluRay and CD is a big investment, but worth it. However, Bernstein will always be number one for me.

Hi having just discovered your channel just before Xmas and on you recommendation I was lucky enough to procure my self a copy of the Bertini box set from Oxfam. Anyway I have just listened to the 6th symphony and so far I have to say it is one of the best performances I have ever heard. Anyway just a bit surprised you didn't mention it in this review

It's the Sanderling for me, although I do like the DG Bernstein. Glad that you rate the Solti too, its a wonderfully detailed recording.

Hello, I would recommend next to Bernstein the fantastic recording with Boulez/Vienna Philharmonic and the new edition "In memoriam Michael Gielen" which contains two versions of the 6th (1971 and 2013), very very different in every sense but stirring and well recorded, even the 1971 studio version. It's a fascinating development of 42 years conducting this symphony. Greetings from Germany, your videos are fantastic!!

I'll read your article on the 6th with interest. A couple of quick reactions. I do think the documentary evidence for Mahler's last-stated intention being that the Andante should come before the Scherzo is stronger than you've indicated here. Nonetheless, when I've conducted the piece I've placed the Scherzo before the Andante, partly because of some of the reasons you've stated here, but mostly because no matter what post hoc anxieties Mahler might have had about the movement order, he'd written the piece using a harmonic outline that makes following the 1st movement with the Andante nonsensical. With Scherzo-Andante, the movement tonics are A minor to A major - A minor - E-flat major - a minor, BUT with an A-flat major opening that then quickly progresses to A minor. This harmonic outline has coherence. Even the tritone shift between A minor and E-flat major makes sense because it creates the effect of the Andante being an idyll existing in some other place. The dislocation is intentional. With Andante-Scherzo, the movement tonics are: A minor to A major - E-flat major - a minor - a minor AFTER that A-flat major opening. It's incoherent. It's one thing to go from A minor (no sharps/flats) to E-flat major (3 flats), as with Scherzo-Andante. But if the Andante follows the first movement, we're jolted from A major (3 sharps) to E-flat major (3 flats), a truly arbitrary shift of the sort that would be uncharacteristic of Mahler. All of which is to say that by the time Mahler started fussing about the movement order, the horse was out of the barn. There's much to say about the hammer blows, and specifically, the inclusion of a third. For now, I'll point out that the use of trombones in funerary music was a tradition in Germany and Austria that stretched back to at least the 1600s, and thus the writing that comes after the spot where a 3rd hammer blow is placed makes rhetorical sense. It's an epilogue.

Fantastic exegesis on the middle movements. Could not agree more. Hammer blows also. Three Hammers?? Original orchestration. Revised orchestration? Two hammers! Bravo Dave!

I have Bernstein, Chailly and Kubelik, Mitropoulos at New York and recently St_Laurent Studio gave a wonderful restoration of Mitropoulos with the Vienna PHilharmonic.

We're really in synch here, Dave. Your top three are exactly the same, and in the same order, as mine. In fact Chailly's performance is the only one I'll listen to besides Lennie's two. The cover of his New York recording on lp was very odd but somehow apt: photo of a decapitated statue that looks like it's been smothered in Hollywood ketchupy gore. I was so fascinated by the work back in the 60s I spent months reading through a pocket version of the score borrowed from Liverpool Public Library while playing the Bernstein recording. These days I pull out the VPO recording only about once a year because it's impossible to listen to anything else for days after hearing it, it leaves me drained.

A funny thing happend to me on my way to the perfect Mahler's 6th: Choosing to listen on KZfaq to Abbado's Berlin, which I remembered as the most moving and "right" for me - I was indeed moved to tears an chills again, amazed at the sound, thrust and power. It was even better then I remembered! But - allas - on checking again I found that I was actually listening to...Leif Segerstam! hmmm...

In my teens I got to know Mahler 2 and 4 then for a decade I had little opportunity to listen to classical music, let alone Mahler. Later I managed to cassette-tape an FM broadcast of the Dohnanyi/Cleveland Mahler 6 (Decca). In 1993 I read your review for another publication of a Chandos/Segerstam Mahler 6. So at age 44, riding back and forth from work in North Africa, I started listening to the Dohnanyi cassette in my car, which had my only cassette player. It provided sorely needed cultural contrast to my involvement overseas in the Arafat/Rabin negotiations. So you had a role in Mahler 6 re-igniting an interrupted enthusiasm. I have heard many versions since, admiring Gielen, Mitropoulos, Tennstedt, and both Bernsteins (as well as all the other symphonies). Dohnanyi is not the "best" but I still prefer the way the way the cowbell/alpine passages come across in that recording. Not surprisingly, after Rabin's assassination in Nov 1995, I have associated him with the tragic character of Mahler's 6.

For those of you of the Andante-Scherzo persuasion (I’m not typically, but variety is the spice of life and all that), I’m listening to Ivan Fischer’s 6th with the Budapest Festival Orchestra right now and the driving rhythms and clarity of sound are about as good as it gets.

I've never heard a recording of the 6th that I like as much as the Bernstein NY Phil but I'm very happy to learn of these recordings to check out. I did hear a terrific live performance by NY Phil under Boulez once upon a time. It was a time when the musicians of that orchestra usually slept through performances but he really woke them up. I recall the first movement was quite fast and the Andante was really lush. Boulez's much later recording of the 6th on DGG is a horror.

Yep, Lenny with the VPO has my vote for # 1. Also with the 5th (again the VPO) - they're both on my iPod of essential recordings - and his 7th with the NYPO is ground-breaking. Bernstein has that inner triptych of 5, 6 and 7 all sown up.

It's Karajan and the BPO for me. No other version matches the barbarity and the beauty that seems to be Karajan's strength in Mahler. I do agree that Gielen's version is outstanding. It's a very close second on my list.

You're right, Gielen is a phenomenal Mahler conductor. I think his Mahler 6th is available separately from the set, although the cycle is worth owning. If you're interested, you can get it in the Michael Gielen Edition, vol. 6 reasonably priced.

Thank you for this educative talk. In my personal preference I would add Kubelik and Bavaria Radio Symphony Orchestra to the top. The entire performance is rich of expressiveness without any exaggeration at all. Especially in the scherzo and andante movements

Both Mackerras and (IIRC) Zander restore the original orchestration accompanying the third hammer blow. But you are right on vis-a-vis Scherzo/Andante.

Enjoyed the analysis of the piece before the recommendations, totally agree that the only place for the scherzo is after the first movement. I'm also not precious about the first movement repeat but I do enjoy it! Agree with the majority of your recommendations especially for Bernstein/VPO at number one... It's a tremendous recording, have it on DVD also. Eschenbach has been mentioned in the comments, I enjoy that recording too. I know Sinopoli is slow a lot of the time but in Mahler 6 I don't think he's that bad... The playing is first rate and he does this as well as any of his best Mahler. More recent recordings I like are by Jonathan Nott/Bamberg and Daniel Harding/Bavarian Radio - both superbly played by the orchestras and the conductors do a great job of keeping the momentum going from the first bars with enough tension where required!

Atlanta/Levi is my go to 6th. Glad to see you acknowledge it.

Completely agree with you about the two hammer blows and the order of 2nd & 3rd movements. I’m so glad you clarified that this is about music and its form. Not some moral fatalistic crap.

You're so right, every man & his dog has recorded this work (my personal favourite Mahler symphony, it's just shattering in a good performance). It's become another Rite of Spring in it's recorded ubiquity, but that's also cos, just like The Rite, it's a fabulous work. It pains me when I hear pedestrian/workaday performances of this work, the worst culprit possibly being Noseda with the BBC Phil in the Proms some years ago, a shame as they've been fantastic in other repertoire. I'm not familiar with the Gielen but having really warmed to his execution of many tough & rare 20th century works, I'll seek it out cos I'm sure he'll bring out things others have missed or bypassed. I still have a soft spot for Rattle's CBSO version, not the EMI recording (although that is very good) but his Prom performance with them some years ago. I've still never heard the slow chorale/funeral march at the heart of the Finale done with such effect as they do in that performance. It was the Karajan recording that first really switched me on to just how great this symphony is, years ago, and it still stands up to all the other versions that have emerged since, it's tremendously exciting and the fact he only ever recorded 5,6 & 9 showed how much he must've loved the work. Can't say I have a favourite though, there are just too many great recordings of this work, so many in fact that I haven't listened to the Rattle or the Karajan versions for years now.

I just stumbled over the Telarc in a shop and got it for the famous Telarc sound. To my surprise it turned out yo be the best 6 I had.

Thanks for the excellent discussion and review. One comment on the Telarc recording. Yoel Levi DID include the 1st movt exposition repeat during the recording session. But later Telarc decided to cut it out to fit the entire performance onto a single disc. Apart from it, I concur it is a great Mahler Sixth.

My favorite is Abbado with Berlin-spectacular and deeply felt.

I've been buying Bernstein's individual CD's from both cycles and I have quite a few. But somehow neither of his 6ths! I just gave in and bought both boxes (Sony, DG). It's time, especially at these prices! I used to work at a Classical CD store and several other employees convinced me that Bernstein's way was not true to Mahler. Over the years, little by little, one symphony at a time I have found that not to be true. Thank you for putting into words something I have felt about Bernstein for so long!

Hello Mr. Hurwitz: I agree with you about the order Scherzo-Andante. On the other hand, I liked your selection, I will listen to Levi's recording carefuly. May I suggest you to take a look (listening) to Harold Farberman/LSO and Teodor Currentzis/MusicAeterna? Great review!

Please do the 2nd symphony 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Heartily agree that the Scherzo should be second... however, I often think that for this symphony, Mahler should have have included a second Scherzo, with the Andante being the central fulcrum of the work. Having a second Scherzo would also be logical to immediately precede the slow music of the introduction to the Finale... Since virtually everyone talks about the "classical" nature of the 6th (Cowbells and celesta, and wooden hammer, and a 30+-minute finale??? What a risible idea!!!), critics would hate a 5th movement, but it seems highly logical to me...

We sang in a chorus the Beethven Missa Solemnis at Alice Tully. My wife was pregnant, and standing near the bass drum. When the bass drum went off, so did my daughter, in utero.

Good to hear an explanation of "tragic." If there is any central human figure in Mahler's 6th, it would be the drummer in "Revelge," which is one more example of a song the composer elaborated in a later instrumental work (not unlike Mozart instrumental works channeling the spirit of his operas). The drummer can be thought of as a zombie, or metaphorically as the survivor of trauma who will never be the same. In the 19th century, lots of people, even with some material advantages, lived with trauma of some kind. Mozart's No. 40 is as tragic as any symphony can be, and so is Tchaikovsky's 6th, even though they both differ from Mahler's work in many ways. For the ancient Greeks, the agents of tragedy were divine, but anthropomorphic, even in feeling. Mahler's sense of drama and scale owes a lot to Wagner, not to mention Beethoven and Bruckner, but his notion of fate is a thing of a later time. Mahler's fate is inhuman in an almost mechanical sense, evolving in the early decades of mechanical reproduction for many things, including music. That's why I consider the hammer less a symbol of fate "coming down" than, more explicitly, a sound from beyond the boundary of music. It's like the mindless sounds at the end of "Wozzeck" or the percussive fadeouts that Shostakovich used in his 4th and 15th symphonies, and in his 2nd cello concerto. In the latter cases, it's as if fateful chime of Russian church bells had morphed into just another machine that never dies. As James Joyce pointed out, there's a big difference between tragedy and personal misfortune. I first heard Mahler's 6th more than 50 years ago, so I'm familiar with the biographical lore. The only thing that matters is what Mahler meant when he said a symphony is like the world. He didn't mean just the scale. He meant how music tunes in to what surrounds us, how it reverberates inside us, even if it's not exclusively about any one of us as an individual.

I also like very much to learn the opinion of other fans of Mahler and when a new recording or concert video appears and praised, I like hunting for them. In Mahler's Sixth after listening Dave's considerations and evaulations, went through my Mahler 6's and it turned out that the atmost favourite is Currentzis musicAeterna beeing the most serious in every note and moment. It became obvious when I compared them from phrase to phrase

Mackerras with the BBC Phil is my absolute favourite recording, probably because as an operatic conductor he understood the operatic phrasing and sensibilities that Mahler, an operatic conductor, seemed to infuse most things he wrote with. I really don't get how so many music critics don't seem to pick up on what I see as obvious tableau building for an unfolding drama.

I've really enjoyed all of your videos that I have managed to watch thus far, and indeed am looking forward to checking out several of your recommended recordings that have caught my interest. In this case I disagree with many of your points regarding the order of the inner movements, both in the video and in your article that you linked. So I'll present a few of my thoughts, not to be argumentative but simply to offer a different perspective. I much prefer hearing the Andante second, and I believe there are stronger arguments to be put forth than that Mahler simply wanted to give his audience a more "familiar" and easily digestable experience. The tragic narrative of the symphony is actually EMPHASIZED when the Andante carries over the optimism of the end of first movement, which is then perverted by the recalling of discord in the Scherzo afterward. The narrative function of the first movement's triumphant ending followed by the Andante is to get ones hopes up, because dashing the hopes of the Andante and reversing the effect of the first movement's conclusion are the principal events that make the whole symphony tragic. No hope, no tragedy. The basic principle of cyclic structure underlying this observation is that thematic returns of dark material are a way of reopening the conflicts of the first movement late in the cycle. It is a thoroughly standard way of putting the climax of the dramatic arc near the last act, as is standard in narrative literature and drama. Beethoven's "Appassionata," Schumann's 4th and violin sonata in A minor, Frank's Symphony and violin sonata, Tchaikovsky 4 and 5, Rachmaninoff's first two symphonies, 3rd concerto and 2nd sonata, Prokofiev's 6th and 8th piano sonatas and first violin sonata, Shostakovich's 8th and 10th symphonies, 10th quartet, Miaskovsky's 9th and 17th symphonies, and many more. More traditonal, more "classical" to be sure -- but based on very sound and convicing aesthetic principles. I also believe the mysterious opening of the finale sounds better following the fiery scherzo. Alternatively, I find placing the scherzo second is unsatisfactory for three reasons. The first movement has a frenetically positive conclusion on the second theme - a bit too positive, as it turns out. To countermand this conclusion by immediately reopening the symphony's principal conflict, as the scherzo does (by its relationship to the first theme of the first movement), is anticlimactic. It merely threatens less emphatically what the principal theme of the first movement asserted more powerfully. And since the principle theme failed to win the day in the first movement, the weaker reassertion is just lame. Secondly, because the timpani receives a grievous beating at the end of first movement, beginning the next movement with more timpani pounding is tiresome, especially since that pounding is now serving the opposing force. Absence makes the ear grow fonder, which is why the return of the timpani works better after the intervening Andante. And finally, the ascendancy of the second theme at the end of the first movement is meaningless if it has no consequence, that is, if its achievement is immediately reversed. The Andante makes sense afterwards because it rewards this ascendancy. The meaning is: By powerfully asserting the positive second theme at the end of the first movement, a beautiful and idyllic respite is won. On the other hand, following the Andante, the scherzo is not anticlimactic, as it is following the first movement, because its threat now has a clear object: It acts as a threat to the idyllic state established in the Andante. Moreover, it is no longer in direct contrast with its more powerful source idea in the first movement, where it was overshadowed. It is also worth pointing out that following the Scherzo, the Andante is completely unmotivated. A long rhapsody of calm is not a coherent response to a threat. On the other hand, it is a perfect response to a first movement concluding with the powerful assertion of its most positive sentiments. My conclusion: in the order S-A, both the scherzo and the Andante are dramatically unmotivated non sequiturs. In the order A-S both movements have a deep expressive and psychological coherence. As for Mahler's intentions, after having read up on the matter, which as I said includes your essay linked in the description, from what I can tell there isn't any ambiguity on Mahler's viewpoint. After Mahler had decided to put the Andante before the Scherzo preceding that first performance, he never looked back. He never wavered, he never performed it another way, and he made his publisher reprint the score with the Andante-Scherzo order. No record exists of any verbal or written instructions from Mahler to friends, conductors, publishers that lead us to believe he intended to revert the sequence of the movements to S-A. And as for Alma, I do not see how she is a reliable source,. Did she compose and conduct the symphony, or did he? Was she Mahler's collaborator? No, she was his wife, and she contradicted herself numerous times. Let's just say, hypothetically, Mahler did tell Alma his final vision, as his one and only confidant. When was Alma planning on speaking out about this!?!?!?! She waits for a telegram asking her opinion before she says anything!?!?!?! As Jerry Bruck's essay on the subject has pointed out, she not only never said a peep about any other conductor performing the work A-S, but when she begin writing a memoir of her life with Mahler about a year after the Mengelberg telegram, she herself referred to Scherzo as the third movement of the sixth. So who knows why she told Mengelberg S-A? I'm not even saying there was malicious intent involved. She probably misremembered, or maybe she was thinking of the fist time Mahler performed the work for her on piano. I mean, this is the same woman who recalled memories of Mahler composing the third at Maiernigg when in fact he composed it at his lakeside cottage in Steinbach. So again, we seem to know Mahler's intentions for the 6th as certainly as we know his wishes in every other case, and if you call doubt into play here I don't see why you can't theoretically call doubt into play for all of his revisions, in all of his symphonies. Of course this doesn't change the fact that following the critical edition published by Erwin Ratz in the 1960s, many of Mahler's greatest intepreters and most of the best recordings performed the symphony in the S-A order, creating a seperate performance tradition. I just don't agree that the new critical edition invalidates that reality.

Totally agree with you about the ordering of the middle movements. There's another reason that I think seals the deal - the C minor beginning of the finale serves as a transition tonally between the Eb major 3rd movement and the rest of the A minor finale.

Looking forward to hearing the 2nd version by Bernstein. What about Barbarolli? Mistakes hear and there but gosh, I loved it! I really liked the almost Rite of Spring like march at the symphonies beginning. Uber dirge. That's all!

Hi David! I gave the Bernstein/VPO a hard listen -- terrific as advertised. I've long had the Karajan studio recording in my head, and imagined that if there were to be a third hammerschlag, it would belong where the introduction returns (bar 773), as you said. However, Bernstein inserts it ten bars later (bar 782) with the timpani motif. I agree with you: placed there it serves no purpose.

I became acquainted with this work from Jascha Horenstrin’s, which appeared on a Nonesuch LP.

I have the Bernstein first version on vinyl. The box has a rather gruesome cover image.

Lenny in the M6 - the Double Schmaltz Attack!

I got a fever and the only prescription is more hammer blows! I would love a symphony make this interactive for their audience. Perhaps sell one ticket for two performances. Play the piece one way/interpretation (i.e.the order of the movements, initial v. "final" version) then have the audience back for a second interpretation. Then let us decide. Or have a series where there is a lecture or Q&A associated with a performance where there is an opportunity for dialogue between fans, musicians, conductors, and scholars.

I'd like to know your impressions of recording with Currentzis and Music Aeterna. It seemed like a very good option, at least in terms of sound quality and sound ambience. I'm also among those who prefer the third hammer. I really appreciate your videos, thank you.

You are right, there are dozens of fine recordings. Can’t mention them all, but... wish you would have discussed the Barbirrolli/Philharmonia. Such a fascinating recording! 1) Best analog orchestral sound -ever- that I know of - especially the strings and percussion! Amazing intensity! 2) best hammerblow, to my ears: heavy, dark and wooden, not booomy. 3) weirdest - yet like a car crash on the side of the road that you can’t look away from it - 1st movement tempo. He does not take the first movement exposition repeat, but his recording time is longer than many who do! 4) the philharmonia (1967) play their butts off! Barbirolli’s 5th a year later, is somnolent in comparison, not nearly as interesting... doesn’t even get the trumpet triplets correct in the beginning...

My God....that Bernstein clip.....it sounds as if that could have been written in the 1960s!

What do you think about the live interpretation of Tennstedt with the LPO? I n my mind it is on the point.

Yep, I'm also a two strokes, scherzo/andante kind of guy. However, David, regarding the 'first version' writing that surrounds the third hammer stroke: Simone Young made a recording where she sticks with the first version from that strange glissando that leads into the third stroke, all the way to the beginning of the funereal dirge in the low brass. It's interesting because the first version has this dark sounding crescendo in the low woodwinds, as they sort of gliss. or slur down to a unison low "A" - just before the start of the dirge. It's really dark and creepy sounding. You might not agree, but I wish somebody would record the entire finale with the first version score (I know, I know!). I just think that would be a hoot.

I don't think many performers realize how harmful certain exaggerated bodily movements and facial expressions can be to their performances. In Bernstein's case, his over the top conductorial acrobatics easily suggest an exaggerated musical performance. But, if you follow his Mahler conducting with a score and eschew watching Bernstein on the podium, you will be surprised at how accurately he reproduces that score. The influence of one of his teachers of conducting, the exacting Fritz Reiner, has definitely not been lost.

Great video, however, I am shocked that you didn’t bring up Mitropolous’s recordings, which are acclaimed by many as some of the greatest Mahler recordings in history

What do you think about Boulez with VPO? On DG

Bernstein is vg but Karajan BPO on DG is also excellent - imo

Dave, just curious as to your thoughts on the Benjamin Zander version on Telarc? I like it because a) it places the Scherzo ahead of the Andante b) it provides both the 2 hammer blow & 3 hammer blow versions c) the tempo of the opening movement is just a bit slower than others I've heard and just feels "right" to me in its steadfastness. If you hate it, that's fine - I can take it!

Dave, what do you think of the Mahler Sixth by Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic on Teldec? I think it's a '96 recording. I once met the first trumpet player on that record and he was proud of it.

Have you listened to petrenko M6 with BPO in the last sort-of mahler cycle made by BPO with multiple conductors? I feel its not as good as bernstein and gielen but i cant scratch my head finding the precise reasons why i feel like that. Opinions on that recording?

Your enthusiasm is obvious! I believe Benjamin Zander added the original finale with the three hammer blows (at least part of it) to his second recording. For something completely different, try Barbirolli's recording which is too slow but really agonized. Thanks for the quick response.

Dave, I have a bone to pick with you. How dare you stop that recording the moment before the contrabassoon shakes the floor with its C1?

Karajan would have disagreed on the point made of the 6th leaving you elated. He ranked it with Sibelius 4 and Honneger's Liturgique as a work which left him emotionally drained for days afterwards.

Just curious. Do any of your recommended performances have the Andante second? I know Solti's is Scherzo/Andante because I've heard it often and was living in Chicago when it was being performed and recorded. I tend to look at the orchestra before the conductor, and Chicago's brass section was hard to beat in that era (and as a trombone player, I'm biased that way). Personally speaking, the order of the inner movements makes no difference in my enjoyment of the piece, nor does the number of hammer blows.

One lovely thing about Bernstein/NYP is his ability to bleed off the energy/ tempo at the end of the Andante and still continue the line without it sounding crowbarred. Very organic.

what do you think of Szell's live version of the 6th

Watching "Mahler Symphony no. 6 "Tragic" - Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - Leonard Bernstein" I count three hammer blows, though the last is purely orchestral (no big wooden hammer- just bass drums but what's the difference really?) and is at the very end of the finale Emotionally, it has the same effect as the other hammer blows. I guess it's the 'death blow.'.

An interesting and beautiful symphony. It is like a circus like march to the grave with frequent backward looks at nostalgic youthful days. A heroic upward struggle being pulled down every time by fate. A funeral march beat ever underneath. I favor the scherzo second as I first heard it. The Andante oasis, imo, HAS to go third before the last fourth movement. Does not work for me as a second movement. I saw it live with New York Phil under William Steinberg.

I don't know all of Mahler's symphonies, but do you think the 6th and the 4th are his best?

I'll be lynched but I am a fan of the Zinman recording of the Sixth. Yes, the Andante is second. But you can hear the harps and celeste/s, and the cowbells are wonderfully atmospheric. Great hammer blows. However, it's the projection of the work's structure that really impresses me - Zinman attentively shapes the Classical elements of the form as much as he relishes the orchestral brilliance.

Shostakovich's 4th symphony is tragic also, but very entertaining to listen to.

Excellent talk. I agree that the andante should be place third in the order of movements. Also in agreement with your assessments of the Bernstein/VPO, Levi/ASO, and Solti/CSO recordings. I rather like the Haitink/BPO recording despite what to my ears is a routine pedestrian account of the first movement. The Abbado/Chicago recording is very good and extremely well played, but it can't touch the intensity, excitement, and tension of Bernstein/VPO.

The volume is rather low on this video.

All my Mahler sixths VPO,L.Bernstein BPO,H.Karajan New Philharmonia O,J.Barbirolli Philadelphia O,C.Eschenbach NYPO,L.Bernstein Cleveland O,G.Szell Atlantta SO,Y.Levi

😳 taking the wife to see the 6th in a couple weeks with M.T.T.... and she is in fact pregnant, should I warn her about the hammer blow??

Am I the only person who really gets a kick out of the first movement and then completely loses interest in the rest of the symphony? (At least this attitude solves, for me, the issue of the order of the two inner movements and the number of hammer blows at the end. Talk about cutting the Gordian Knot!) Not only that, but although I have at least ten recordings of this symphony (because I own at least nine sets of the complete Mahler symphonies), the only one I ever listen to--just the first movement, of course--is the "singleton" in my collection: the ultra-self-indulgent Barbirolli. Go figure. ~John Drexel