taking sides: schubert vs mahler

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i'm afraid i know very little indeed about this, so feel free to use this thread to explore more than just the stated aim.

gareth, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Schubert

anthony, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Blue Suede Schubert.

Dave225, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My exposure to both is somewhat limited, but Mahler did the Ressurrection Symphony, which is magical and awe-inspiring.

Dan Perry, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Try Schoenberg or Stravinski if your into that classical bag. The punk rock of the longhairs period. -H

Smarmyank, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Stravinsky is great, Schoenberg a little less so but still pleasant in the right atmosphere.

Dan Perry, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Schubert, no contest. No composer could do so much with so little -- his piano impromptus and Lieder are to die for. An eternal classic.

Mahler, on the other hand, was the Classical mutant Journey -- overblown, over-sentimental, and too much indebted to the thoroughly awful Wagner. Dud with a capital D.

Tadeusz Suchodolski, Monday, 8 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, I thought better of my comparison. Mahler is to classical music what Meatloaf was to rock ... think Born to Run Springsteen/Meatloaf and you can see the Wagner/Mahler symbiosis clearer.

Tadeusz Suchodolski, Monday, 8 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...
schubert has to be the most prodigious talent ever, everything he did was accomplished before he turned 31. there's maybe a callowness in some of themes of his work as a result, which has an appeal of its own. ive often heard said that his "winterreise" (which i love) is absent any self-pity but i disagree, it seems to be drowning in it even if the poetry of the words and music makes it easy to bear and the combined imagery and sound world is amazing.

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 21 November 2003 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

i also resent the meat loaf thing (not least because lumping springsteen in with meatloaf seems to be a big mistake) because it implies that mahler was fond of unearned bombast which i think is hardly the case. the themes he chose to tackle were often weighty in the extreme but the music never threatens to topple under the weight. at least not in the things i know.

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 21 November 2003 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

also

schoenberg : webern :: sex pistols : wire

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 21 November 2003 15:16 (twenty-one years ago)

fair enough ... i just don't like mahler- (or wagner- or strauss-) style classical music. i couldn't think of a better comparison than meatloaf.

Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 22 November 2003 01:37 (twenty-one years ago)

'pierrot lunaire' ownz!

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 22 November 2003 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Schubert's the greater composer - he's a miracle, like Mozart or Shakespeare. He does things that no human being without a direct hotline to God would be able to do.
Mahler's the ultimate example - like Beethoven - of staggering achievements through struggle, artists who had to sweat blood to be 'inspired'. Schubert's inspiration was like running water.
Intersting, also, that they should de pitted against eachother in this thread, 'cos Mahler is Schubert's true musical heir, i.e. a lyrical Leider composer at heart. He felt compelled to express much more than could be contained in that form, however, but that's where he starts from.
Though i can't quite explain why, i feel that Mahler is only superficially like Wagner. The latter so utterly changed the musical landscape that everyone was profoundly influenced at the time, but i think that their musical - and actual - personalities are fundamentally different.

Pete S, Saturday, 22 November 2003 03:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree...more later

amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 22 November 2003 13:21 (twenty-one years ago)

mentalists, mentalists, mentalists

Mahler is tremendous, totally sui generis, and to call him sentimental is to miss the point utterly.

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 22 November 2003 17:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Schubert is one of the biggest. Mahler was great when it came to complexity, but not quite as great when it came to tunes. And tunes are more important than complexity.

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 22 November 2003 18:11 (twenty-one years ago)

What about complex tunes vs simple choons?
What about simplistic views?
This means that Tchaikovsky is better than Beethoven, and Saint-Saens is the greatest musician of all time.
Infact no, it means christmas carols rule.
It also means something else, but i'm too polite to say what.

Pete S, Saturday, 22 November 2003 18:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Beethoven had great tunes too. Anyway, Mozart had the best ones, and as such is the biggest from the "classical era".

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 22 November 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

!!!!
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!!!!
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!!!!
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!!!!
!!!!

Pete S, Saturday, 22 November 2003 18:24 (twenty-one years ago)

You should have known the routine by now ...

nestmanso (nestmanso), Saturday, 22 November 2003 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

ARGH MUST RESIST TEMPTATION TO EXPLAIN MAHLER TO GEIRBOT

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 22 November 2003 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

rest content in your good taste j0hn

also 1,000 kisses

i'm going to listen to kindertotenlieder tonight and cry like a baby

amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 22 November 2003 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

five years pass...

Schubert's 9th Symphony is kicking my ass! so great. the recording i'm listening to is by old man george szell and the cleveland orchestra.

schubert was the bomb.

i love mahler too.

did any goth group ever cover schubert's winterreise song cycle? someone should. or a black metal band. i mean, all those songs are about being inconsolably sad in the snow!

scott seward, Monday, 3 August 2009 01:14 (fifteen years ago)

Schubert all the way. Mahler does very little for me.

Turangalila, Monday, 3 August 2009 01:15 (fifteen years ago)

in fact, speaking of mahler, just today i got an original london stereo copy of kirsten flagstad and adrian boult (with vienna philharmonic) doing kindertotenlieder cycle and lieder eines fahrenden gesellen cycle.

might play that next.

scott seward, Monday, 3 August 2009 01:22 (fifteen years ago)

you have to allow mahler to take you away and do unspeakable things to you. with schubert, he has you at hello. but they were both beyond genius. its just that schubert is maybe more easy to like when you first hear his stuff. i had to listen to some of mahler's symphonies a zillion times before i really heard them. and i still need to listen more. they have secrets in them! wonderful secrets!

scott seward, Monday, 3 August 2009 01:27 (fifteen years ago)

i had to listen to some of mahler's symphonies a zillion times before i really heard them. and i still need to listen more. they have secrets in them! wonderful secrets!

totally. i think he had trouble working a lot of his weirder ideas into symphonic form but like you say, they are little gems all over the place. the thing i like about mahler is that he could take fairly standard language to places it hadn't been before. incredible command of texture, especially with strings, he really hits on some deep shit. i do have trouble getting all the way through some of his larger works, but there are certain movements and passages that are among my favourite bits of music ever.

i don't know much schubert tbh but outside of the songs... "death and the mainden" string quartet in d minor is worth checking out as is the piano trio in b flat. also, like scott says the great 9th symphony in C, it's great.

Crackle Box, Monday, 3 August 2009 08:47 (fifteen years ago)

note to self: read what you've written before you hit submit. duh.

Crackle Box, Monday, 3 August 2009 08:48 (fifteen years ago)

schubert OTM. mahler takes some getting used to, although i'd make exceptions for parts of DAS LIED VON DER ERDE and the songs, e.g. the KINDERTOTENLIEDER. still i probably listen to schubert's goethe songs more than any other "art music."

amateurist, Monday, 3 August 2009 09:07 (fifteen years ago)

ha i meant SEWARD OTM. but schubert too i suppose.

amateurist, Monday, 3 August 2009 09:07 (fifteen years ago)

Don't know much Wagner apart from what's been used in movies now and then. I'm a little intimidated by the pomposity but it seems a bit of stamina might remedy that.
Schubert on the other hand...4th chakra type stuff. His Impromptus as performed by Maria João Pires are fantastic.

willem, Monday, 3 August 2009 09:20 (fifteen years ago)

no mention of mahler's 5th on this thread? or is that too obvious? the adagietto is his most famous thing.

Crackle Box, Monday, 3 August 2009 09:32 (fifteen years ago)

Mahler, mostly because of the adagio from Symphony N.10.

J4mi3 H4rl3y (Snowballing), Monday, 3 August 2009 13:30 (fifteen years ago)

eleven years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfAjioz1LWc

I heard this on R3 the other day and it's so haunting and beautiful, one of the finest vocal performances of all time.

calzino, Friday, 4 December 2020 13:56 (four years ago)

Wonder if Joyce or Beckett knew of it (both Schubertians iirc)

Ape Hole Road (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 4 December 2020 17:13 (four years ago)

if Mahler is the Meat Loaf of classical what does that make Schubert?

Left, Friday, 4 December 2020 19:18 (four years ago)

sorry that was 19 years ago. I get the point about his cheesiness but his willingness to go there makes his music more enjoyable than e.g. Wagner

Left, Friday, 4 December 2020 19:24 (four years ago)

Mahler would have kicked Wagner's arse and then wrote a longform tone poem (to be played by three thousand musicians) about it. And Wagner would have subsequently stolen ideas from that piece, a piece about his own shameful beating.

And I *like* Wagner.

But this is Schubert all the way.

Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Friday, 4 December 2020 19:32 (four years ago)


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