Symphony No. 5
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Trauermarsch (Funeral March); Stürmisch bewegt (Violently agitated); Scherzo; Adagietto; Rondo - Finale
Around half of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies include voices. In these, listeners rightly expect the music to lend meaning, colour and intensity to the text. Although the Fifth Symphony makes no use of the human voice, questions about ‘meaning’ persist because Mahler incorporated melodies from his existing songs into the purely instrumental fabric. For example the opening trumpet fanfare is a quotation from the vocal last movement of his recently-completed Fourth Symphony. Are we expected to rummage through the innards of the Fifth to unearth a ‘meaning’, using the original songs and their words as clues? And if we find that elusive ‘meaning’, will we be wiser? Thankfully, Mahler himself let us off that particular hook.
If a composer himself has forced on his listeners the feelings which overwhelmed him, then he has achieved his object. The language of music has then approached that of the word, but has communicated immeasurably more than the word is able to express.
Put more colloquially: ‘Take my music as you find it; don’t bother to search for verbal messages which aren’t there.’
Mahler’s life and state of mind were complex, often tortured. Much of his music could be described similarly. Even if we abandon the idea of a narrative running through his music, we might support a notion that his symphonies are autobiographical in some way, reflecting the highs and lows, the joys and agonies of a volatile soul. In his biography, The Real Mahler, Jonathan Carr made the position clear: ‘…there is so often no apparent correlation between Mahler’s physical state and the character of his work that it is wise to be wary when it does crop up’. Alex Ross, in The Rest Is Noise, encapsulated the point in relation to this symphony in particular: ‘The Fifth Symphony … is an interior drama devoid of any programmatic indication, moving through heroic struggle, a delirious funeral march, a wild, sprawling scherzo, and a dreamily lyrical Adagietto to a radiant finale’.
More than an hour of music lies ahead of us. How can we track it without the help of a narrative or a crib to chart the emotional journey? The answer is musical. We must listen carefully and thoughtfully so that the artistry, the argument, the inspiration and the eccentricity become apparent as the music unfolds. Mahler has helped us by dividing his five-movement symphony into three main sections.
The opening section comprises the first two movements. In some ways they interlock, not only because they share common thematic material, but because their broad outlines are complementary. The first movement is an almost lugubrious funeral march that opens with a striking trumpet call: simple, memorable and a touch chilling besides. The motif and its associated slow tempo alternate with noticeably faster music, music that sounds almost frantic at times. Back and forth they go, always varied but not really ‘developing’ in the style of a classical symphony. The faster second movement does more-or-less the opposite. It opens briskly, again reiterating the main musical ideas, this time alternating with slower episodes that seem to recapture the mood of a funeral march. The American musicologist, Phillip Huscher, observed, ‘The second movement is both a companion to and a commentary on the first’.
The central movement, a scherzo, is a self-contained element within the three-section design. It is based on the moods, rhythms and tempi of the Ländler, an Austrian dance loosely related to the waltz. This is a Ländler with a difference, partly because it is unusually long, more particularly because it features an obligato solo horn: the nearest that Mahler got to writing a concerto. It is reported that the horn soloist sat next to the orchestral leader at the Viennese première in 1904. It’s a wild piece of music for sure, often taking the listener by surprise, and justifying the word ‘eccentricity’, used above. With its delightful contrasts in tempo, texture and mood, it is almost a one-movement symphony in itself. In a letter written during the rehearsal period and prior to the first performance, Mahler exclaimed:
Heavens, what is the public to make of this chaos in which new worlds are forever being engendered, only to crumble into ruin the next moment? What are they to say to this primeval music, this foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound, to these dancing stars, to these breathtaking, iridescent, and flashing breakers?
Some have suggested that the third section, movements four and five, mirror the interrelationships of the first section, movements one and two. It is certainly the case that the fourth and fifth movements share musical material but they cannot be likened to two interlocking Lego bricks as the earlier pair might be. The Adagietto is famous for having served the musical needs of the film, ‘Death in Venice’, also for providing a vignette, detached from its parent, in concerts needing a ‘little piece for strings’ to fill a gap. It is much more than that because of its subtle musical connections with the movements that surround it, the fifth movement in particular. It also prepares us for a marked change of mood. As in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the finale elevates the listener into a world of dazzling light and high spirits, with the Adagietto serving as its herald. Being a rondo, the melodies and motifs of the finale come and go in boisterous and unpredictable succession and, when the final thump tells us it’s all over, we feel a great surge of satisfaction. What a wonderful journey that was!
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Trauermarsch (Funeral March); Stürmisch bewegt (Violently agitated); Scherzo; Adagietto; Rondo - Finale
Around half of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies include voices. In these, listeners rightly expect the music to lend meaning, colour and intensity to the text. Although the Fifth Symphony makes no use of the human voice, questions about ‘meaning’ persist because Mahler incorporated melodies from his existing songs into the purely instrumental fabric. For example the opening trumpet fanfare is a quotation from the vocal last movement of his recently-completed Fourth Symphony. Are we expected to rummage through the innards of the Fifth to unearth a ‘meaning’, using the original songs and their words as clues? And if we find that elusive ‘meaning’, will we be wiser? Thankfully, Mahler himself let us off that particular hook.
If a composer himself has forced on his listeners the feelings which overwhelmed him, then he has achieved his object. The language of music has then approached that of the word, but has communicated immeasurably more than the word is able to express.
Put more colloquially: ‘Take my music as you find it; don’t bother to search for verbal messages which aren’t there.’
Mahler’s life and state of mind were complex, often tortured. Much of his music could be described similarly. Even if we abandon the idea of a narrative running through his music, we might support a notion that his symphonies are autobiographical in some way, reflecting the highs and lows, the joys and agonies of a volatile soul. In his biography, The Real Mahler, Jonathan Carr made the position clear: ‘…there is so often no apparent correlation between Mahler’s physical state and the character of his work that it is wise to be wary when it does crop up’. Alex Ross, in The Rest Is Noise, encapsulated the point in relation to this symphony in particular: ‘The Fifth Symphony … is an interior drama devoid of any programmatic indication, moving through heroic struggle, a delirious funeral march, a wild, sprawling scherzo, and a dreamily lyrical Adagietto to a radiant finale’.
More than an hour of music lies ahead of us. How can we track it without the help of a narrative or a crib to chart the emotional journey? The answer is musical. We must listen carefully and thoughtfully so that the artistry, the argument, the inspiration and the eccentricity become apparent as the music unfolds. Mahler has helped us by dividing his five-movement symphony into three main sections.
The opening section comprises the first two movements. In some ways they interlock, not only because they share common thematic material, but because their broad outlines are complementary. The first movement is an almost lugubrious funeral march that opens with a striking trumpet call: simple, memorable and a touch chilling besides. The motif and its associated slow tempo alternate with noticeably faster music, music that sounds almost frantic at times. Back and forth they go, always varied but not really ‘developing’ in the style of a classical symphony. The faster second movement does more-or-less the opposite. It opens briskly, again reiterating the main musical ideas, this time alternating with slower episodes that seem to recapture the mood of a funeral march. The American musicologist, Phillip Huscher, observed, ‘The second movement is both a companion to and a commentary on the first’.
The central movement, a scherzo, is a self-contained element within the three-section design. It is based on the moods, rhythms and tempi of the Ländler, an Austrian dance loosely related to the waltz. This is a Ländler with a difference, partly because it is unusually long, more particularly because it features an obligato solo horn: the nearest that Mahler got to writing a concerto. It is reported that the horn soloist sat next to the orchestral leader at the Viennese première in 1904. It’s a wild piece of music for sure, often taking the listener by surprise, and justifying the word ‘eccentricity’, used above. With its delightful contrasts in tempo, texture and mood, it is almost a one-movement symphony in itself. In a letter written during the rehearsal period and prior to the first performance, Mahler exclaimed:
Heavens, what is the public to make of this chaos in which new worlds are forever being engendered, only to crumble into ruin the next moment? What are they to say to this primeval music, this foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound, to these dancing stars, to these breathtaking, iridescent, and flashing breakers?
Some have suggested that the third section, movements four and five, mirror the interrelationships of the first section, movements one and two. It is certainly the case that the fourth and fifth movements share musical material but they cannot be likened to two interlocking Lego bricks as the earlier pair might be. The Adagietto is famous for having served the musical needs of the film, ‘Death in Venice’, also for providing a vignette, detached from its parent, in concerts needing a ‘little piece for strings’ to fill a gap. It is much more than that because of its subtle musical connections with the movements that surround it, the fifth movement in particular. It also prepares us for a marked change of mood. As in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the finale elevates the listener into a world of dazzling light and high spirits, with the Adagietto serving as its herald. Being a rondo, the melodies and motifs of the finale come and go in boisterous and unpredictable succession and, when the final thump tells us it’s all over, we feel a great surge of satisfaction. What a wonderful journey that was!