![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Mahler-1.jpg\")
<\/a>A picture of the ‘Carnegie Klusterficken’ when Mahler conducted his First Symphony for the last time<\/p><\/div>\n
Newly discovered research shows that Mahler\u2019s final performance of the work was something of a disaster. \u201cWe now know that at the final performance under Mahler\u2019s baton, when the horns stood up at the end, the fifth hornist knocked over the tam tam,\u201d writes Christoph Pedant, editor-in-chief at Brechenauf und Ch\u00f6rtle, publishers of the new Critical Edition. \u201cThis launched a chain reaction, with the tam tam taking out the bass drum, which knocked over cymbals. The poor horn player was so startled that he lurched forward and flipped over the shoulder of the e-flat clarinet player and took out most of the flutes. The principal clarinettist\u2019s instrument flew up in the air and wedged itself inside the bell of the principal trumpeter. Mahler carried on as bravely as he could, but in all the commotion it became apparent that the second timpanist had not put the brakes on his drums and Mahler\u2019s final performance of his own music in New York ended with two timpani rolling downstage and into the auditorium of Carnegie Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mahler was said to be \u201csomewhat disappointed\u201d with the performance, although New York critics were still more positive about his music than the Viennese press had been. Nevertheless, he quickly arranged another concert to feature the First Symphony, but planned on a drastic revision.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing what has since become known as the \u2018Carnegie Klusterficken,\u2019 Mahler had serious doubts about the viability of the finale,\u201d says Pedant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was after a long night drinking schnapps with Bruno Walter that a solution was found. Walter suggested that Mahler should re-arrange the movements of the First Symphony.\u201d The next afternoon Mahler, suffering a monumental hangover, wrote in the margin of his score, using what appears to have been one of his wife’s eye pencils: \u201cDie zweite erste, die erste dritte und die letzte gar nicht\u201d (\u201cThe second first, the first third, and the last not at all\u201d).<\/p>\n
Also at Walter\u2019s suggestion, Mahler restored \u2018Blumine,\u2019 the \u201cmodestly attractive\u201d piece of theatrical scene-change music he had cut from the original five-movement version of the work several years earlier, as the finale of the work. The new, official order of the symphony\u2019s four sanctioned movements is now:<\/p>\n
I. Scherzo
\nII. Funeral March
\nIII. Old First Movement
\nIV. Blumine<\/p>\n
Conductor Kevin DuBois of the Kentucky MahlerFeast, who leads the world premi\u00e8re performance of the new version of Mahler\u2019s First Symphony on April 1st <\/sup>, says the new discovery marks a major breakthrough in Mahler scholarship. \u201cNews that we\u2019ve been not only been playing the movements in the wrong order, but actually playing the wrong movements, has generated more free publicity for everyone\u00a0 than anything I\u2019ve been involved in since we premi\u00e8red the sketches for an 11th<\/sup> Beethoven Symphony recovered from a napkin Beethoven scribbled them on in a sausage house in suburban Vienna.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWalter was one of Mahler\u2019s most trusted advisers,\u201d says Pedant. \u201cHe not only convinced Mahler to reverse the inner movements of the Sixth Symphony after getting him completely hammered on heuriger Wein in Gumpoldskirchen, he also did Mahler the great favour of introducing his wife Alma Mahler to Walter Gropius. He was always looking out for Mahler, and wasn\u2019t jealous of Mahler at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing his drunken conversation with Bruno Walter, Mahler never conducted the First again in any other order other than the one we have published here,\u201d says Pedant. \u201cThis means we can be absolutely certain that he never sobered up and realised he\u2019d done something absolutely bonkers.\u201d<\/p>\n The new edition of the First Symphony also clarifies long-standing debate over the famous double bass solo in what was the third movement. \u201cA previous critical edition of the score claimed that Mahler intended this solo to be played by the whole bass section, on the basis that the timpani are playing at that moment. It is a well-known fact that a bass solo starts only when the drums stop,\u201d says DuBois. \u00a0\u201cIn fact, the Pedant\u2019s have proven that not only is it a solo, it is a solo for bass xylophone, which is a huge improvement on the original.\u201d<\/p>\n Next up in the new edition is Mahler\u2019s 10th<\/sup> and final symphony. Long thought to be unfinished, new research has revealed that Mahler rejected four of the five originally-planned movements following a meeting with fellow-symphonist Jean Sibelius. This is the first edition to present the 10th in it’s complete and final form, exactly as intended by the composer.<\/p>\n \u201cSibelius is a pompous asshole\u201d Mahler wrote to his wife Alma following their meeting. \u201cHe keeps banging on about how everything has to be essential and pure like spring water, when he reeks of vodka and cigars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019ve shown the bastard now,\u201d Mahler continued. \u201cMy new 10th<\/sup> Symphony, which I am calling ‘Purgatorio’ in honor of Sibelius’ music, is only four minutes long. It\u2019s even shorter and more pointless than Sibelius 3.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
<\/span><\/span>Mahler- Das Lied von der Erde, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen<\/h2>\n\t£<\/span>12.00<\/bdi><\/span><\/span>\n<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
\nHear the world-premiere of the REAL new Critical Edition of Mahler’s First Symphony by Breitkopf & Hartel on the 19th of May in Boulder Colorado when KW conducts the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra. We’ll be playing all the right movements in right order.<\/h3>\n
Project details are here.<\/a><\/h3>\n
Concert details and ticketing information here<\/a>.<\/h3>\n