Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler

After our Classical and Early Romantic studies we are moving into an era where we probably expect to feel more at home. It’s easier to understand music that’s nearer to us in time. Nearer, but by now it’s really quite a long time ago. In fact we should be on our guard that the way we play Late Romantic music today does not always reflect what these composers had in mind. We have inherited a century and a half of “heroic” interpretations which have exaggerated some aspects of it, and underplayed others.

Of course this is in fact always more overtly emotional music than Mendelssohn and Schumann. But right up until Mahler’s revolution, music was still meant to be noble, uplifting, not vulgar. Sunday morning rather than Saturday night, you might say.

Mahler changed all that, but even he still used   3/8s, smooth portato, and classical tempi. He is the last of the old tradition as well as the first of the new.

The most questionable modern tradition is that Late Romantic music is best played funereally slowly. All four of our composers have suffered from this obsession with slowness. We have already heard attempts by well-meaning conductors to suffocate 18th century music in gloomy respectability. 19th century composers have suffered the same treatment, if not worse.

The second most questionable tradition is that it the music should be covered in layers of vibrato.

Let’s use my matrix of the Six S’s to examine these, and all other relevant aspects in turn.

S for SOURCES

There are very numerous instrumental and vocal treatises from this time. Here are a couple:

Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) His Violinschule (1905 with Andreas Moser) is highly relevant, coming at the very end of an era. He knew Brahms well, and premiered his Violin Concerto. He was surprisingly aware of all the early theorists, from Geminiani onwards, and explains where the present tradition differs, and where it should stay the same.

LEOPOLD AUER 1845-1930)

A great violinist and teacher, much admired by Tchaikovsky, was noted for his traditional views. “The dead level of monotony when you pepper every note with the tabasco of vibrato”. “You must continually guard yourself against the habit”.

I should also mention a modern text of great importance to each of the eras I have discussed:

CLIVE BROWN

Classical and Romantic Performing Practice

1750-1900, Oxford University Press.

S for SIZE

Orchestras were growing in size throughout the Romantic period. But 8.8 Violins was still quite a normal size for many orchestras, for instance at Meiningen,- a favourite venue for Brahms.

Brahms was very happy with this orchestra. When he was offered extra players for the premiere of his 4th Symphony there, he declined. “8,8 will be quite sufficient”.

Wagner too preferred large string groups, especially in his “buried” orchestra pit at Bayreuth.

In 1870 , when the Vienna Philharmonic moved into the large new Musikverein hall, they increased their violin strength from 8,8 to 12,12. At the same moment they doubled the woodwind, to give a good balance between the two forces.

So Bruckner, writing his symphonies with the VPO in mind, had double woodwind at his disposal. And they certainly are much needed. Modern performances with single wind and many more strings than the VPO’s 12 Firsts,  do his music a grave disservice. I have heard many a performance where the weighty string and brass forces totally drown the wind. I invariably used double wind. It is not only common sense, but historically evidence-based.

And Mahler, often with the same orchestra, of course wrote regularly for 16 woodwind in his symphonies.

S for SEATING

As in the 18th century, Violins were placed left and right on the stage, often in the order: V1, Celli, Viole, V2. The double basses often stood in a line across the back.

Horns and Trumpets were usually also placed left and right so that the horns’ sound could be reflected off the wall, balancing the more direct sound of the trumpets, and providing yet another dialogue on stage.

There’s a famous photo of Mahler rehearsing his 8th symphony with exactly this layout.

19th Century stages normally had risers, either in rows or in a half circle. They allowed the musicians to see each other and share the music. You can still see built-in risers today in the Musikverein in Vienna and the Albert Hall in London.

In America they were mysteriously removed in the 1930s or 40s. (I found some in the basement at Symphony Hall Boston). It seems that conductors in the 20th century wanted to dominate the players beneath them, keeping them all under their close control.

Halls built since WW2 have often reinstated the idea of risers, usually electrically operated.

Good examples are the Berlin Philharmonie, the Kölner Philharmonie, and LA’s Disney Hall.

I used to ask for maximum-height risers, while I conducted standing on the floor. Height seems to shrink the orchestra to a community, while everybody onstage is fully visible to the audience and to each other. That intervisibility also solves the challenge of separating the first and second violins. Even the back desks of each can see each other.

Various different seatings were explored during the 20th century, ending up with what became standard, and to me highly unsatisfactory. I much prefer the 19th century seating, which of course the composers had in mind when they wrote. Happily many orchestras are opening up to those old traditions again.

S for SOUND

During the 19th century permanent orchestral vibrato was still a long way off. As late as 1904 Joachim was clear about the required style:

JOSEPH JOACHIM

Great sound comes from the “noble cantilena of the bow”.

Continuous vibrato shows the world “you cannot play the instrument”

Vibrato is a replacement “when real feeling is missing”.

Permanent vibrato for strings began to appear around the time that Mahler died (1910), but was not universal until the 1940s.

ARNOLD ROSÉ (1863-1946)

Rosé was the outstanding Viennese violinist of the era. He knew Brahms and Schönberg well, and premiered several of their compositions. He also knew Mahler, and married Mahler’s favourite sister Justine. At age 18 he was made a Concert Master of the Opera and Vienna Philharmonic, and held the post for 50 years. He was also Wagner’s last Concert Master at Bayreuth. In addition he led an extremely celebrated string quartet (the Rosé) on tours throughout Europe. During all that time, like Joachim and Auer before him, he played with Pure Tone, and did not permit vibrato in any of the orchestras he led.

You can hear one of his last appearances with the VPO in the 1938 Mahler 9 recording. After that he was dismissed for being Jewish and escaped to London, with his laughter Alma. On his dismissal the VPO rather soon fell in line with the vibrato of other European orchestras, although even today they employ a somewhat gentler version.

A PARIS SAXOPHONIST

In the 1920s the star French saxophonist Marcel Mule was in both the army band, and at the Opera Comique. He was used to playing “straight” without any vibrato, but as the Jazz Age developed in Paris he was invited to join a band. He was surprised, and rather shocked, to discover that the players used a “wavering sound”, but he gradually learned how to do it. Back in the army and at the Opera he could play straight again.

AN AUDITION IN VIENNA

In 1928 a young violinist auditioned for the Vienna Opera. He played his best to the Conductor Schucht, the Leader Arnold Rosé, and the Manager. After a while Schucht asked if he could play without that  “bleating goat sound”- the vibrato he had recently learned at the Hochschule. Fortunately he could still remember how to play straight, and he got the job.

MARCEL MOYSE

The great French flautist explained in one of his many treatises, how he discussed with other wind players in the 1920s whether or not they should adopt the “string vibrato”, already more prevalent in France than other countries. They finally decided they would.

LEON GOOSSENS

At around the same time, the English oboe virtuoso, Leon Goossens (with whom I was once fortunate to play) recalls in a memoir how he was pondering exactly the same question. He started to experiment with vibrato (which is quite difficult on the oboe) and got a lot of criticism from his neighbouring wind players sitting in the London orchestras.

He persisted, and created a beautiful tone for hs subsequent solo career. But the new undulating sound did not go unchallenged. When Sir Thomas Beecham asked Goossens for the “A”at a rehearsal, and Goossens provided it, the conductor famously said “Take your pick  gentlemen”.

No doubt ifferent traditions were followed in different orchestras at different times. But if we follow the evidence, Pure Tone is likely to have been normal with any of the composers we are looking at. Permanent vibeato  seems to have come from the players, not the conductors. Sir Adrian Boult told me that vibrato just “seemed to gradually  arrive” from one day to the next. He was happy with or without it.

Mahler seems to have used the word just once, in a late New York correction to the 5th Symphony Adagietto. Perhaps he was making a little experiment

with the new fashion? It’s the only place you’ll hear vibrato in my Stuttgart recording of the Mahlers.

S for SPEED

Brahms

Brahms used the metronome rather rarely, claiming that the heart has its own speed. But I wish he could have used it more often. At the start of his first symphony, for example “Un poco sostenuto” is incredibly unhelpful. Sostenuto is not a tempo, it’s an adjective. So is this a sustained Allegro or a sustained Adagio?  Luckily this the sort of problem that historical evidence can help us solve.

1.The movement is in 6/8 which for Brahms still meant a feeling of 2 beats in the bar, rather than 6.

2. Brahms’ friend and admirer the conductor Fritz Steinbach stated “By all means conduct the opening in 6, but it must sound in 2”.

3. The Double basses’ portato bowing would be completely impossible at a very slow tempo.

4.  Hans von Bulow, a celebrated performer of the Brahms Symphonies, noted down  the running times of his own perfomances. They are remarkably short, indicating that, while the Allegros may have been steady, the slow movements cannot have dragged.

So this opening (possibly inspired by the opening of the Bach Matthew Passion, which Brahms had conducted the year before in Vienna) must clearly move along somewhat. Almost all recordings are played incredibly slowly with pompous posturing from the timpani. This is powerful, frightening music, possibly  concerned with the death of his friend Robert Schumann. But pompous, and unplayably slow, it must surely not be.

Apart from Steinbach there were several conductors of whom Brahms approved. Unfortunately for us none of them lived into the recording era. But one fine interpreter who did hear several of them was Adrian Boult, and his recordings of the symphonies, modestly paced, without constant changes of tempo so beloved of the composer-manqué Furtwängler, may be the nearest thing we have to Brahms’ ideals.

Brahms’ view of this Wagner-inspired style was: “So-called elastic tempo is not new, and should be used con discrezione”.

So for instance in the MS of the first movement of Symphony No.1 Brahms was careful to show how slight each tempo modification should be, by writing the instruction in small letters, and only over the first violin line. A hint for the conductor and concert master, not for every one to see and react to.

At the end of the movement he changed the final section from  poco sostenuto to Meno Allegro to avoid the tempo of the opening.

We might consider Brahms a “Romantic Classic”.

He is passionate; but it’s a noble rather than a hysterical passion.

Bruckner

Bruckner created his monumental symphonies at a time when the equally monumental buildings of the Viennese Ringstrasse were being constructed. The symphonies were new, one-of-a-kind pieces, but very much inspired by masters of the past: by Bach and Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn. They do not need added monumentality in performance.

The first movement of Symphony 7, for instance, is written Alla breve, which still had the meaning of twice the speed of C 4/4. Why do so very few recordings give even a hint of this? Conductors presumably feel that Bruckner’s religious devotion must dominate all his music. After all didn’t he regularly kneel in class when he heard the Angelus at noon? Yes he did; but his was a simple, country faith, and it’s only half his story. As a youth on Sundays he played the organ. But on Saturdays he played his fiddle at parties and weddings in inns and beer gardens. Bruckner loved to dance, to drink, to eat a lot. I always looked for the human, rather than the divine in his symphonies. They were written for the Musikverein, not the Cathedral.

There’s a perfect example of these two sides of his personality in the 3rd Symphony. At letter B, (measure 65) in the Finale Bruckner writes “Etwas langsamer” (A little slower). Those numerous conductors who are addicted to slow tempi slam on the brakes here and hobble along, completely missing the composer’s charming effect of two melodies at once: a Polka and a Chorale.

As Bruckner explained to a friend walking between a church and a wine house in Vienna one evening:

“That’s what I meant in my third symphony. On one side a funeral, on the other a party”. Taken “a little slower”gives us a perfect tempo for both Polka and Chorale. Played very slow, like almost all recordings, the music becomes undanceable, and unsingable.

Wagner                               

Wagner was renowned for elastic tempi, but not necessarily very slow ones. He has been placed in  some special universe of his own. But he famously said “Why do people play my music so slowly?”  And I must admit that I’ve always had an irresistible desire to treat his works as if they were music!

He certainly seems very practical in his analysis of the Meistersinger Overture, in the pamphlet Über das Dirigieren of 1869. There are some surprises.

He explains that by Sehr mässig bewegt he meant Allegro maestro, a “true animated Allegro”. He calls for constant subjective changes of speed. (When Berlioz heard heard him conduct in London he wrote “I cannot find the tempo”) He shows how the music can go faster at letter D, or slower in Alla breve at letter H. After this he thought anyone could see it could gradually increase in speed until letter M. Then holding back so that the piece ends “exactly as it

began”.

Elsewhere he claims that the last time played it took a few seconds over 8 minutes. Few recordings come in at near 8 minutes. Striving to move along as Wagner directs I find 8.18 the best I can do. So he must have really motored. I find the slow, ponderous performances  pretty dull, and hardly sound like the overture to a comedy, written to make money.

Another “traditional” tempo which I question, is the Prelude to Tristan. It’s usually conducted in a very weighty 6 in a bar. But, like the opening of Brahms 1 it’s written in 6/8. When Wagner wanted a steady 3 in a bar he wrote in quarter notes (for instance measure 44 in the Parsifal Prelude). 6/8 still implied some kind of 2 in a bar. And this is love music, a slow waltz. And what’s more the scene is about to open on on the unsteady ocean, on a sailing boat, heading for Cornwall.

Ten years earlier Berlioz had written an Adagio Love Scene for his Romeo and Juliet Symphony, using a 6/8 with eighth note=88. Wagner heard the symphony in Paris in 1841. But whether or not that was an influence, 88 seems to me a very suitable speed for the Tristan Prelude as well. My recording shocked quite a few critics. But have a listen; several German gritics liked it a lot…

Mahler

Mahler didn’t very often use metronome marks. but in 1905 he played several of his songs, and the first movement of the 5th Symphony, onto piano rolls at the Welte Mignon studios in Leipzig,- the only record we have of his performances. They show only very delicate changes of tempo; more of feeling than speed. The piano roll of the Symphony no.4 Finale in particular gives very exact and credible tempi. And when he mentions that the symphony should start with the same music “a little slower”, we have valuable factual evidence for that unusual opening.

Let’s note the surprising, and jokey sudden slow down a few bars later, preparing us for a wild ride.

The 2nd movement Scherzo, written in 3/8, is of course to be heard, and beaten, in 1, just like the

Trio from Bach’s Brandenburg 2 which it imitates. I have often heard this played in a plodding 3 beats, completely losing its fantasy character.

The 3rd Movement is marked only “Poco Adagio” (somewhat steady), not Lento as it is usually played. This astonishing movement, presumably about the suffering and death of a child, is not helped by being boring.

In the 4th Movement the piano roll (without singer of course) gives us Mahler’s exact intentions.

Mahler’s other Ländler are often played too slowly. In the second movements of Symphonies 2 and 9 the feeling should be in 1, just like the Scherzo in the 4th.

If you look in the manuscript of the 2nd symphony (not the printed score)  you will find a metronome mark of 90 for the eighth note,- far faster and more relaxed than most modern performances.

Returning to Mahler’s Adagietto, conductors again long to take it as slow as they dare. But we have a timing of his own performance which quite contradicts this tradition.

By the way Allmählich (“gradually”) is really important in all his works. He often writes “from C to E gradually faster”. Conductors tend to react much too quickly to the tempo change.

S for STYLE

Late Romantic writing is much more familiar to us today than the detailed codes of the 18th century. Some points are worth making however:

Passagework should normally be played on-the-string, not spiccato unless marked.

Even some staccato was still regularly played on the string.

Dots, strokes, and wedges were used differently by each composer.

Brahms seems to use dots for on the string, and  wedges off.

Bruckner uses a wedge for staccato.

Mahler uses 10 or so different indications of note length, as well as 200 written remarks.

So, using contemporary evidence we can see that quite a lot of our modern tradition does not match up to the old tradition, which I believe we should take quite seriously.

Let me add a note on Tchaikovsky:

TCHAIKOVSKY

The arrival of western Classical music in Russia was greatly influenced by Germany. German concert masters were hired, German instruments bought, and German traditions copied.

So the size and seating plan of the new orchestras were the same as in Berlin or Leipzig. And Pure Tone would have been the norm until the gradual advent of vibrato in the early 20th century.

An exactly similar story could be told in Japan, by the way. Before I researched the matter I had assumed that Classical music arrived in Japan with MacArthur and the American occupation in the 1940s. But no, the Tokyo Philharmonic was founded as early as 1911, and military bands (with English instruments) were already playing in the 19th century. Once Japan opened to the West in 1860, officials (wearing dark suits instead of kimonos) brought home German culture as well as German industry. It was no surprise to me to hear Pure Tone on the earliest recordings of the NHK Symphony.

I always played Tchaikovsky in the German tradition,- something like Brahms. You can hear the result on the Stuttgart Radio CDs.

In the Pathétique Symphony the metronome several times shows movement forward where “tradition” slows down. It seems he anticipated the tasteless sentimentality of too many conductors, young and old.

Brahms maybe dots