James Tobin ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>I just heard a really fine performance by Andreas Delfs and the
>Milwaukee Symphony of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. ...
>
>One of the unique things about the instrumentation of this symphony is the
>construction used to produce the famous hammer blows of fate in the finale ...
>But for the third blow, which Mahler himself omitted from some of his own
>performances, evidently a really smashing blow was wanted, presumably by
>Delfs, so the hammer was wielded by a large male percussionist who brought
>it down like a strongman trying to ring the bell at a fair--assuming you've
>tried or seen this.  What he succeeded in doing was making the whole box
>jump--but the sound was audibly less satisfying than before.  A case of
>trying too hard? Or maybe just that the first percussionist has something
>to teach the second.

Pity they didn't bother to look at the score.  The first blow is marked
fff, the second and third ff.  After the first performance Richard Strauss
criticised Mahler because each blow's effect was diminished from the
previous, thus IMHO, showing that he understood the workd as little as
Delfs and/or his percussionists seem to.

Deryk Barker
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