Columnist Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times has written a great column on how to become an annoying, insufferable, classical music snob. It’s quite a funny read, and oh so true. My favorite bit is his concert experience with Mahler’s Sixth Symphony:
I downloaded Leonard Bernstein’s version of Mahler’s Sixth and read the Wikipedia entry about the symphony. This turned out to be really smart because I found out the symphony not only requires a triangle, a glockenspiel and, awesomely, cowbells, but, according to Mahler, a hammer that was to be pounded “brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a nonmetallic character (like the fall of an ax).” Somewhere, a child-prodigy percussionist is being yelled at for not pounding a wooden hammer dully enough.
That night, I did a lot of staring at the hammer guy, who, to my delight, was also the triangle and cowbell guy. And his hammer was this gigantic, Wile E. Coyote-sized mallet that he slammed maybe five times onto this enormous wood chopping block on wheels. I couldn’t decide if I was more delighted by the notion of Eschenbach, who conducts this symphony all over the world, trying to persuade airport security to let him board with his carry-on giant hammer, or the idea that the Philharmonic keeps a giant hammer and table in storage just for Mahler’s Sixth. Or that, for the rest of my life, I can talk about the sublime dullness of the hammer, which gets lost on recordings, as soon as Mahler’s Sixth comes up in conversation. Which it will. Because I will bring it up.
Read the entire column here.
Via ArtsJournal.com.
One reply on “snobbery for dummies”
Sir George Solti conducted and recorded the complete works of this composer and was a significant force in the Mahler boom of the 1960s, yet he rarely seems to be given a place at the top table of Mahler interpreters. His interpretations are generally considered too extrovert.
I’m no convinced Mahler lover, but I usually enjoy Solti’s recordings. I still think his recording of the 8th symphony is unchallenged and his 1980s digital version of the “Titan†with the Chicago SO is similarly excellent. Currently I’m getting to know his London Symphony Orchestra 2nd from 1966.
He always benefited from superb Decca sound, which it’s difficult not to be influenced by.
Personally, I’ll always take Klemperer over any other Mahler interpreter (even Bruno Walter), but I rate Solti highly in this repertoire.