Am I too late for the party?!

[Herodotas]

I've recently looked again at this site after a longish absence and was inspired by your conversations to listen to my old Mahler 5th Symphony recording with Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Sym. I only really know the 1st (someone earlier said it was horrible ) and the 4th. I did once have an LP of the second but found it completely over my head.....I just couldn't get my bearings at all. These three, though I can relate to. I enjoyed the 5th again, though it does seem emotionally rather OTT to me and a bit "loose". I don't have any sleeve notes as this is one of my trancriptions from LP to CD and I've given the boxed set away to a charity shop! Are those melodies Mahler's own or does he draw on traditional folk ones? Who do you think his influences were? I detect more than a hint of Bruckner there.....with maybe an element of Strauss. Is it my imagination or may some of the "folk" melodies be drawn from Yiddish tunes? (If there are such things! Some of this sounded reminiscent of "Fiddler on the Roof" to me!!).

[Florestan]

Hello Herodotas! Great to see you back.

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Herodotas

Is it my imagination or may some of the "folk" melodies be drawn from Yiddish tunes? (If there are such things! Some of this sounded reminiscent of "Fiddler on the Roof" to me!!).

There certainly are such things - check out Klezmer bands such as Klezmer Juice. Good stuff, like wild east European folk music mixed with jazz.

[Mischa]

If you ask for influences - growing up in Europe's most musical and most versatile melting pot (East-European, Austrian, Jewish, German folklore & traditions) Mahler loved to integrate folklore and military music, the more vulgar the better (to paraphrase him). You'll find clear Jewish elements in the symphonies you mentioned like in the Bruder Jakob minor theme of the First or the third movement of his Second. Or in the 4th:

[ame]http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=wEWnQYwNFSc[/ame]

Sounds like a Klezmer-march, doesn't it? The solo-violin is btw. tuned a tone higher than usually in this movement like in some Eastern-European folklore. It's rather difficult to distinguish between profan Jewish and Eastern-European folkore, the Jewish influence in Mahler's works is enough material for a long dispute (Adorno wrote about it).

If you ask for composer's influences, well, Beethoven & Bruckner. I read more than once (e. g. by Barenboim) that Wagner's influence on Mahler is pretty obvious, well, I fail to reproduce that.

(If you plan to enhance your Mahler a bit: there's the complete recording with Rafael Kubelik (amazon.co.uk: £35.55), not the best recording regarding each symphony, but for the price a very good bargain with nice recordings.)