Mahler’s bowing instructions

Rachmaninoff played his Third Concerto in January 1909 in New York, conducted by Gustav Mahler. Rachmaninoff recalled the rehearsal:

Suddenly, Mahler, who had conducted this passage a tempo, tapped his desk:

“Stop!  Don’t pay any attention to the difficult bowing marked in your parts. … Play the passage like this,” and he indicated a different method of bowing.  After he made the first violins play the passage over alone three times,  the man sitting next to the leader put down his violin:

“I can’t play the passage with this kind of bowing.” 

Mahler (quite unruffled): “What kind of bowing would you like to use?” 

“As it is marked in the score.” 

Mahler turned towards the leader with an interrogative look, and when he found the latter was of the same opinion, he tapped the desk again: 

“Please play it as written.” 

O. Riesemann, Rachmaninoff’s Recollections, New York, Routledge, 2015, p. 159.

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