It's amazing: the last movement of the last piece of music by Mahler is a return to the most beautiful lyricism. He takes us on a journey to the darkest parts of the human soul, the mocking laughter of fate, the pain and bitterness of life, and then at the end of it all he takes us back to the purest and most earnest place. And then, gently, we have to let go. It breaks my heart. For me Mahler expresses everything there is to say and after I hear him I can't listen to anything else for days.
I'm amazed at the comments. I am nearly 70, have known this music since my teens. The 10th was my first introduction to Gustav Mahler and of course even though I have heard the previous nine and the song cycles, I am still less impressed with them than I always was with this symphony. He really was nearly done with it in 1910 and failing health didn't offer him very much time to finish it. The various versions of it preserve enough of Mahler's intentions that you know you're listening to the same authentic message. Talk about hard crying. You'd have to be heartless and dead not to get this. There's literally nothing like Mahler's 10th. Thank you!
I agree, my two favorite symphonies by him are the 1st and 10th. The others are good too, but I am not knowledgeable enough to even comment in any detail. The thing that bugs me about the 10th is that no one is sure how much of it he actually wrote. Some say he wrote the Adagio, but the other movements were never completed? So who finished them? Nevertheless, the Finale is a perfect piece of music and really does seem like the end of the symphony as we know it. After Mahler, from what I understand, came lots of atonal music and experimentation with music that had never been done before.
Not something I have ever dared, or had the time, to do. One of these days maybe I will marathon my head off with Beethoven, Nielsen, Sibelius and Mahler - and then see if my head does just melt right off my shoulders.
For me, Mahler is one of the greatest composers because of his 'rightness'. He understood music profoundly on both an intellectual and an emotional level, so that his music never suffers those lapses of taste that characterise the music of so many otherwise excellent composers. You never feel that a moment in his music was accidental or badly thought out. Everything arrives on time and hits its effect perfectly. Even when he catches you by surprise by a sudden change of key or dynamic, in retrospect it all fits. This means that even his surprises don't suffer the tendency to pall on repeated listening as they can with some composers. Although an effect might be strange or surprising, it does not rest for its acceptance by the listener on simple shock value, so that when you go back you do not feel cheated as if you had seen through the trick. Beneath every trick lies a rigid, unbreakable, psychological and emotional logic, so that the more you look the deeper you see. The perfect marriage of a great intellect and a great soul. Rarely matched.
This is very true, because he was a great conductor. He understood the possibilities of music, and saw in many works how other composers underplayed their climaxes. Mahler took all the clichés of German music and developed them into their full climactic glory, better than any other composer before him.
@@Dan474834 Gosh, though, Mahler would be one of the last composers I'd think of as taking cliches, however superbly he treats his material. The musical language is so personal and the closest to unique I know of. He does take folk musics and popular idioms, but I can't see it's appropriate in his context to call these cliches. He really felt those musics, deeply. There are no cliches to someone like that, choosing what they love of existing types of material.
I agree with you mostly, I’m talking about typical German motives like in the adagio of the 9th. He transforms it into this grotesque painful soundscape, very different to the usual way that motive was used before.
It probably was Bernstein who established the reading of the last movement of Mahler's 9th as his "last long breath", when we could literally hear his heartbeat ebbing away. That was how I first experienced it. And then, suddenly, there was his 10th, not just its first but its last movement. Mahler's true last words. And how beautiful and majestic and moving and satisfying they are! It is the worthy conclusion of a symphonic work that revolutionized modern music.
This is sublimity''s sublimity. It is what I imagine the last person on Earth experiences on seeing the last sunset - erupting in fierce and vital colour, and then fading to black. It is as though Mahler in his last moment looks back and tells us all, "It is good, even so. Love eclipses death."
The passage from 16:18 to 16:48, for me, is so very beautiful. I can imagine the composer's spirit trying so hard to soar, while his failing human frame keeps pulling him down. Oh, what tragedy.
I feel like the 9th is a man dying. But in the 10th he is already dead. It's a man finally taking a rest while remembering with sadness. And it's more or less what happened. Mahler was dead and someone else had to finish his work. He is really talking to us after death.
For me, this symphony is the most brilliant and tragic ever written. Over 40 years, I have listened to it literally hundreds of times. While Simon Rattle's performance is sensitive, I cannot believe the Cook version is true to Mahler's intent. For me, the Mazzetti version is by far the best. The differences in this final movement are considerable, and Mazzetti's version is a fitting tribute to this wonderful composer. Let's hope Rattle records that version, too.
Thanks for the kind words about my version of this great symphony, but it hasn't been performed since 2010. I've always loved the Cooke version and have decided that his revised score (re-published in 1989 with important corrections by Cooke's collaborators), is the best representation of Mahler's intentions and should be the accepted performing version of this masterpiece.
I'm with Mr Mazetti on this. As a transitional version and attempt in the face of an unrevised Cook version, his version was, if not better, more convincing in parts. However the revised Cooke version, which Rattle performs here reigns supreme above all other attempts.
"...Deryck Cooke's final versions remain, at the moment, the paramount guide to the Tenth Symphony as it stood at Mahler's death.... Of those conductors who have taken this best-known version up it is Simon Rattle who reigns supreme with Kurt Sanderling close behind. Rattle's second recording in Berlin is the one against which all others should be measured ..." www.musicweb-international.com/Mahler/Mahler10.htm
"The Kaiser didn't die of illness; He passed away having used up all of his lifespan. He didn't fall from illness. Everyone, please don't forget that."
Beautiful though this undoubtably is, I prefer its precursor with Rattle conducting the CBSO.....infinitely more raw and painful......the transition between IV and V like a giant unseen hand pushing you from behind towards the edge of reason/existence itself.....very scary stuff. Just imagine what Mahler might have gone on to do had his childs English nanny not given him that fatal throat infection.
I highly recommend you check out the recording of Rudolf Barshai with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie if you haven't yet... It's very raw and powerful, particularly the last movement, and it's the performance I keep finding myself coming back to.
The earlier recording is with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra not the CBSO. There is a live 1992 performance with the CBSO on RUclips that I prefer to either of the commercial recordings.
While the "famous" one is in the first movement, the second "tone gate" closing the symphony is at 12:09 and 12:22 in this movement (though the phrase leading to it starts at 11:48 ).
Hey guys ...... you play it beautifully ... , but this is not beautiful music , this is more : this is music of sorrow and pain , and you (and me) , as Christians , are not on the right level ..... so let us do an exclusive delegation to a jewish conductor and an orchestra full of jewish musicians , because with you , sorry , it doesn't work .....
There is more Jewish music than Mahler's. Ernst Bloch wrote some amazing things. Does that imply that only real Jewish musicians have to play it for the music to be generally understood? You know, I don't think so. I am a pianist and I have played music by Mendelssohn and have observed what seem to me obvious Jewish sounding phrases and chord progressions. I play them for their universal message and most have liked how I played them. But I am not Jewish. BTW, I heard an excellent performance of a Mahler symphony played in Japan by an orchestra of mostly Japanese musicians. I guess your point is taken, but the real test is a music's universality; no matter where it came from, will its message be universal enough that musicians from anywhere will champion it. Thanks and best
@@dpbmss I do not believe to an "universality of music". And when I spoke about "jewish music" , it was not only about the score but also about the interprets. Mahler is for me the pinacle of jewish pain. Mendelssohn was too happy in his life, good for him, but not representative. And yes, jewish musicians are far more inspired to play Mahler than others.
@@Fritz_Maisenbacher I admire your spirit even if I don't totally agree. Bernstein used to tell his string players to play it Jewish when they came to one of those passages, several places in the first movement of the ninth where you would swear Mahler was describing the distinct sound of whining. Yeah, I know what you mean. Best
"The legend ends, the history begins."
😭😭😭
Greatest Show ever
It's amazing: the last movement of the last piece of music by Mahler is a return to the most beautiful lyricism. He takes us on a journey to the darkest parts of the human soul, the mocking laughter of fate, the pain and bitterness of life, and then at the end of it all he takes us back to the purest and most earnest place. And then, gently, we have to let go. It breaks my heart. For me Mahler expresses everything there is to say and after I hear him I can't listen to anything else for days.
I'm amazed at the comments. I am nearly 70, have known this music since my teens. The 10th was my first introduction to Gustav Mahler and of course even though I have heard the previous nine and the song cycles, I am still less impressed with them than I always was with this symphony. He really was nearly done with it in 1910 and failing health didn't offer him very much time to finish it. The various versions of it preserve enough of Mahler's intentions that you know you're listening to the same authentic message. Talk about hard crying. You'd have to be heartless and dead not to get this. There's literally nothing like Mahler's 10th. Thank you!
I agree, my two favorite symphonies by him are the 1st and 10th. The others are good too, but I am not knowledgeable enough to even comment in any detail. The thing that bugs me about the 10th is that no one is sure how much of it he actually wrote. Some say he wrote the Adagio, but the other movements were never completed? So who finished them? Nevertheless, the Finale is a perfect piece of music and really does seem like the end of the symphony as we know it. After Mahler, from what I understand, came lots of atonal music and experimentation with music that had never been done before.
just got to this after marathon of all mahler symphonies, im about to cry
Not something I have ever dared, or had the time, to do. One of these days maybe I will marathon my head off with Beethoven, Nielsen, Sibelius and Mahler - and then see if my head does just melt right off my shoulders.
Thanks for the idea!
For me, Mahler is one of the greatest composers because of his 'rightness'. He understood music profoundly on both an intellectual and an emotional level, so that his music never suffers those lapses of taste that characterise the music of so many otherwise excellent composers. You never feel that a moment in his music was accidental or badly thought out. Everything arrives on time and hits its effect perfectly. Even when he catches you by surprise by a sudden change of key or dynamic, in retrospect it all fits. This means that even his surprises don't suffer the tendency to pall on repeated listening as they can with some composers. Although an effect might be strange or surprising, it does not rest for its acceptance by the listener on simple shock value, so that when you go back you do not feel cheated as if you had seen through the trick. Beneath every trick lies a rigid, unbreakable, psychological and emotional logic, so that the more you look the deeper you see. The perfect marriage of a great intellect and a great soul. Rarely matched.
This is very true, because he was a great conductor. He understood the possibilities of music, and saw in many works how other composers underplayed their climaxes. Mahler took all the clichés of German music and developed them into their full climactic glory, better than any other composer before him.
Mahler knows all of the g-spots in music
@@Dan474834 Gosh, though, Mahler would be one of the last composers I'd think of as taking cliches, however superbly he treats his material. The musical language is so personal and the closest to unique I know of. He does take folk musics and popular idioms, but I can't see it's appropriate in his context to call these cliches. He really felt those musics, deeply. There are no cliches to someone like that, choosing what they love of existing types of material.
I agree with you mostly, I’m talking about typical German motives like in the adagio of the 9th. He transforms it into this grotesque painful soundscape, very different to the usual way that motive was used before.
@@Dan474834 I see.
Look at that, you made it to the end of the playlist. Well done!
Sieg Kaiser Reinhard!
Die Golden brat, long live regent Duke Otto von Breaunschweig!
What a perfect choice of music for the final scene of the show.
I DID IT!
@@perrosardinas7740 Congrats!
alll we lost was 8 tracks along the way
It probably was Bernstein who established the reading of the last movement of Mahler's 9th as his "last long breath", when we could literally hear his heartbeat ebbing away. That was how I first experienced it. And then, suddenly, there was his 10th, not just its first but its last movement. Mahler's true last words. And how beautiful and majestic and moving and satisfying they are! It is the worthy conclusion of a symphonic work that revolutionized modern music.
Currently this movement is the soundtrack of my life...
This is sublimity''s sublimity. It is what I imagine the last person on Earth experiences on seeing the last sunset - erupting in fierce and vital colour, and then fading to black. It is as though Mahler in his last moment looks back and tells us all, "It is good, even so. Love eclipses death."
This is the end . The real end .
No my friend, this is begining.
This is the end, my only friend, the end. (Jim Morrison)
devastating,you can feel the end of life...a light beam before the final darkness
The passage from 16:18 to 16:48, for me, is so very beautiful. I can imagine the composer's spirit trying so hard to soar, while his failing human frame keeps pulling him down. Oh, what tragedy.
I feel like the 9th is a man dying.
But in the 10th he is already dead. It's a man finally taking a rest while remembering with sadness.
And it's more or less what happened. Mahler was dead and someone else had to finish his work. He is really talking to us after death.
13:35 onward always does something to me.
For me, this symphony is the most brilliant and tragic ever written. Over 40 years, I have listened to it literally hundreds of times. While Simon Rattle's performance is sensitive, I cannot believe the Cook version is true to Mahler's intent. For me, the Mazzetti version is by far the best. The differences in this final movement are considerable, and Mazzetti's version is a fitting tribute to this wonderful composer. Let's hope Rattle records that version, too.
Thanks for the kind words about my version of this great symphony, but it hasn't been performed since 2010. I've always loved the Cooke version and have decided that his revised score (re-published in 1989 with important corrections by Cooke's collaborators), is the best representation of Mahler's intentions and should be the accepted performing version of this masterpiece.
Me too. You must be a kind of brother.
@@remomazzetti8757опять здравствуйте!
I'm with Mr Mazetti on this. As a transitional version and attempt in the face of an unrevised Cook version, his version was, if not better, more convincing in parts.
However the revised Cooke version, which Rattle performs here reigns supreme above all other attempts.
"...Deryck Cooke's final versions remain, at the moment, the paramount guide to the Tenth Symphony as it stood at Mahler's death.... Of those conductors who have taken this best-known version up it is Simon Rattle who reigns supreme with Kurt Sanderling close behind. Rattle's second recording in Berlin is the one against which all others should be measured ..."
www.musicweb-international.com/Mahler/Mahler10.htm
Mahler's music is the undisputed aesthetic peak of the human spirit
This happens to be my favorite orchestra with one of my favorite conductors! Thank you!
4:30, 14:50 The pinnacles of music.
What about 19:07?
Just forgot to put it in the description^^. Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philarmoniker. Sorry for this inconvenience.
Yes, this is so far my reference performance. Thanks
19:02 one of the greatest myths begin...
Consider yourself warned. You will bawl!
Hier fließt die Seele ins Universum
Terrible and magnificent .. the music of death.
"The Kaiser didn't die of illness; He passed away having used up all of his lifespan. He didn't fall from illness. Everyone, please don't forget that."
The best, ever.
The last words mahler:
Mozart! Mozart!
13:34
Beautiful though this undoubtably is, I prefer its precursor with Rattle conducting the CBSO.....infinitely more raw and painful......the transition between IV and V like a giant unseen hand pushing you from behind towards the edge of reason/existence itself.....very scary stuff. Just imagine what Mahler might have gone on to do had his childs English nanny not given him that fatal throat infection.
Alan Feathe
I highly recommend you check out the recording of Rudolf Barshai with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie if you haven't yet... It's very raw and powerful, particularly the last movement, and it's the performance I keep finding myself coming back to.
The earlier recording is with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra not the CBSO. There is a live 1992 performance with the CBSO on RUclips that I prefer to either of the commercial recordings.
🙏🏼
This flute...
where is the famous nine-tone-accord?
While the "famous" one is in the first movement, the second "tone gate" closing the symphony is at 12:09 and 12:22 in this movement (though the phrase leading to it starts at 11:48 ).
The ads really ruin the mood...
Sorry, not the CBSO but the BSO.
Who conducted such a blissful performance?
2m14s in. :'(
В мотиве 16-17 минуты-разочарование...
Тихая слеза, бегущая по щеке умирающего
Hey guys ...... you play it beautifully ... , but this is not beautiful music , this is more : this is music of sorrow and pain , and you (and me) , as Christians , are not on the right level ..... so let us do an exclusive delegation to a jewish conductor and an orchestra full of jewish musicians , because with you , sorry , it doesn't work .....
There is more Jewish music than Mahler's. Ernst Bloch wrote some amazing things. Does that imply that only real Jewish musicians have to play it for the music to be generally understood? You know, I don't think so. I am a pianist and I have played music by Mendelssohn and have observed what seem to me obvious Jewish sounding phrases and chord progressions. I play them for their universal message and most have liked how I played them. But I am not Jewish. BTW, I heard an excellent performance of a Mahler symphony played in Japan by an orchestra of mostly Japanese musicians. I guess your point is taken, but the real test is a music's universality; no matter where it came from, will its message be universal enough that musicians from anywhere will champion it. Thanks and best
@@dpbmss
I do not believe to an "universality of music".
And when I spoke about "jewish music" , it was not only about the score but also about the interprets.
Mahler is for me the pinacle of jewish pain.
Mendelssohn was too happy in his life, good for him, but not representative.
And yes, jewish musicians are far more inspired to play Mahler than others.
@@Fritz_Maisenbacher I admire your spirit even if I don't totally agree. Bernstein used to tell his string players to play it Jewish when they came to one of those passages, several places in the first movement of the ninth where you would swear Mahler was describing the distinct sound of whining. Yeah, I know what you mean. Best