Mahler’s Sixth Symphony has presented questions for conductors since its premiere. At its first performance in 1906, Mahler decided at the last minute to reverse the second and third movements from how they appeared in the score.
Dimitri Mitropoulos, who led the 1947 U.S. premiere of the symphony with the New York Philharmonic, conducted it as Mahler had at its first performance.
On a recommendation from the composer’s widow, Alma Mahler, Leonard Bernstein flipped the two movements back to how they appeared in the original score for a 1967 performance. More recently, Alan Gilbert and Lorin Maazel followed how Mahler and Mitropoulos had conducted the piece; however, this season’s New York Philharmonic performances under Semyon Bychkov will follow Bernstein’s tradition.
A new technology, developed by researchers at New York University and the Norwegian company MusIT, will soon allow listeners to compare and contrast these decisions through archival recordings, while following along to the score at the same time.
The app, known as Oiid, is currently available on Apple and Android platforms. The ability to contrast symphonic works is already available on the app in Norway, and the feature is expected to be released in the U.S. this spring.
This past Wednesday, the philharmonic used a special version of the app to showcase how four different conductors, over five decades, have interpreted Mahler’s Sixth.
Taking advantage of the orchestra’s archives of more than 7,000 hours of recorded music, the app designers uploaded four different performances of the work: Mitropoulos conducting in 1955, Bernstein in 1967, Maazel in 2005 and Gilbert in 2010, along with versions of the score.
Users of the app can “step inside a performance,” explains Alex Ruthmann, a professor of music education and technology at NYU's Steinhardt School, to look more closely at the interpretive choices made by different conductors. For example, users can scroll through any passage in the symphony to compare the different tempos and emphases made by the conductors leading the piece.
In Wednesday’s demonstration, the app helped investigate the order of the Scherzo and Andante from Mahler's Sixth, as well as the dilemma of whether to play two or all three of the so-called “hammer blows of fate” — crushing sledgehammer strikes against a large wooden box called for in the finale of the score — and gauge their volume. (For those keeping score, Mitropoulos and Maazel presented two blows, while Bernstein and Gilbert played all three.)
The app will enable listeners “to bring together the paper with the audio,” philharmonic archivist Barbara Haws said, “to see how one may inform the other and how the past and present may enlighten each other.”
Mahler’s Sixth was chosen, Haws explained, because the “philharmonic feels particularly close to the work since the orchestra gave the U.S. premiere in 1947,” as well as its “tradition of great Mahler conductors.” And while Mahler never conducted the work in New York, his tenure as music director of the orchestra came only a few years after the work was written.
Another factor behind the selection was the availability of digitized original scores used by Mitropoulos in 1955 and Bernstein 1967, which were uploaded into the app. These documents show the conductors’ handwritten notes, markups and in Bernstein’s case, a “Mahler Grooves” bumper sticker across the first page.
In one revealing note in the score, Bernstein wrote: “basic elements (including clichés) of German music, driven to their furious ultimate power. Result: Neurotic intensity, irony, extreme sentimentalism, despair …”. Users of the new app may soon be able to read his words while listening to his performance and decide if they informed his interpretation of the symphony.
The app will also give listeners the opportunity to zoom in on performances from the vantage point of individual microphones, such as ones placed within the horn or woodwind sections. The feature, Ruthmann explained, allows users “to hear those subtle details.”
While the philharmonic hasn’t announced plans to produce audio comparisons with works other than the Mahler Sixth, Haws did say the process had left her eager to find funding to digitize the rest of the sound archives.
“I am going to find the donor,” she promised.
