Least favorite by a considerable margin: no. 1
Favorites: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
I have to admit I haven't fully come to terms with Part 2 of no. 8, not once
you get past the stunning slow movement that opens it (which I love to death).
And I don't know the last movement of 6 all that well. The outer movements of
7, the first movement of 8, and the outer movements of 9 strike me as at once
the most ambitious and most fully realized movements Mahler ever wrote, but he
had already proved himself a fully mature master as early as the last movement
of 3.
I suppose I have a thing for Mahler's slow movements: I love the variation set
from 3, the Adagietto from 5, the slow movement from 6, the first 11 or 12
minutes of Part 2 of 8, and the outer movements of 9. I also love the
incredible scherzo from the 6th, which is a parody of the first movement just
as the second movement of Beethoven's Hammerklavier is a parody of the first
movement of the Hammerklavier. With it's constant cross cutting and changing
meters, it's also one of the most original things Mahler ever did. (Boulez has
a field day with the flexible tempi characteristic of this movement in a live
Mahler 6 with the BBC SO.)
The central movement of the 5th is another incredibly ambitious thing and
entirely successful, or so it seems to me. Arguably the most radical thing he
ever did, I find the first movement of the 7th endlessly fascinating. Rather
than being based on a single stable and recurrent theme or group of themes, it
depends on the constantly evolving transformations of a basic underlying shape
no single realization of which can be construed as the basic referential form.
The first movement of the 7th also marks the advent of the period in Mahler's
career when his contrapuntal writing had attained a new richness and
complexity, transformations of the theme resulting in transformations in the
character of the polyphony. The first movement of the 7th strikes me as being
much more ambitious and fully realized than the first movements of 2, 3, and 6,
although each of these is more fully realized than its predecessor. In any
case, after the first movement of the 7th, there is no technical or formal
challenge that Mahler's technique would not have been up to. God only knows
what he would have done if he'd lived longer.
The exuberantly happy vein characteristic of the last movements of 5 and 7 and
the first movement of 8 is not the best fit for me temperamentally. I find the
long opening movements of some of the earlier symphonies--2, 3, and 6--each of
which sticks fairly closely to the traditional recipe for a first movement
sonata form--less interesting than the more original first movements of 7 and
9. But I like them anyway.
I doubt the first movement of the 7th will ever be as popular as a lot of
Mahler, but my vote for the most unjustly underrated Mahler piece is not a
symphony but Das Klagende Lied. Written before the first two symphonies, it
strikes me as a more fully realized whole than either of them. Already with
that piece Mahler had attained a mastery of writing for the orchestra and of
late nineteenth-century "developmental technique" that is not to be believed,
and it's full of stunning coups de théâtre and haunting moments. The still
quiet close for tenor and strings is one of my favorite passages in all of
Mahler.
-david gable