Mahler - Symphony No. 3 "Pan"

Some recommended recordings: I’ve grown to love the recordings by Sir Georg Solti with the London Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, both on Decca. The performances and tempi are spot on and feel natural. Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony is good too and Dimitri Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic live is a good historical reference of a fast conducting pace (under an hour twenty!!), albeit the fidelity is lacking. I used to like the Leonard Bernstein New York Philharmonic recordings on Columbia and Deutsche Grammophon, but now I have come to realize that his tempi are off and he is way too slow in the final movement: he draws it out too long, so it loses all of its power. But still, Bernstein is a respected Mahler interpreter, so I would be remiss in not including him as well. 

As a side note, and pleasantly timely, April and I saw this symphony performed at NJPAC last Friday. The performance was a bit idiosyncratic, there were a few flubs, and you could see the orchestra get a little winded during the third movement, but the conductor Xian Zhang was really getting into the performance, it is supposedly her favorite symphony. Her conducting gestures were so animated and contained so much movement, yet it was effective. And the orchestra gave 100% and you could feel their enthusiasm for taking on such a gargantuan piece.

Gustav Mahler wrote to Jean Sibelius that “A symphony must be like the world, it must embrace everything” When he wrote this, he was referring to this Symphony No. 3 he was in the process of creating. Even the recent Mahler podcast series “Embrace Everything” by Aaron Cohen feels like it could not have been titled anything else. After two already epically proportioned and themed symphonies, Mahler comes back in his Third with a massive six movement symphony that is the story of the creation and development of everything: the world, life, the universe, ultimate purpose, etc. It’s the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, clocking in at over an hour and a half, sometimes an hour and forty minutes! Some early titles he considered were “Pan: Symphonic Poems” or “My Joyful Science,” a nod to Friedrich Nietzsche, whose Thus Spoke Zarathustra he quotes in the fourth movement. Pan refers to the Greek rustic pastoral god, whose nature-creation qualities Mahler latches onto here. It’s also possible he is referring to him because Plutarch recorded news during the reign of Emperor Tiberius that “The great god Pan is dead” and the symphony is alluding to the death of God (or our traditional senses of Him) and providing us with an account of Mahler’s alternative pantheism (the Nietzsche connection is hard to avoid here too, especially because “God is Dead” appears in Nietzsche's The Gay Science). “Pan” could also be a double entendre, referring to the prefix “pan-” meaning “all, everything”

Even though Mahler eschewed programs, he did provide program notes and movement titles during the first few performances:

"Pan Awakes, Summer Marches In"

"What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me"

"What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me"

"What Man Tells Me"

"What the Angels Tell Me"

"What Love Tells Me"

I will address the titles, themes, notes, and commentary as we pass through each movement. Let’s begin!

Part I, First Movement: "Pan Awakes, Summer Marches In" is in sonata form, and I had originally thought it was less complex than the opening Totenfeier movement of his Second Symphony, but I see I am mistaken. The movement opens with a great trombone and brass fanfare (you may hear a foreshadowing of the types of sardonic brass parts composer Dmitri Shostakovich would include in his later works as a nod). There are these menacing muted or offstage upward trumpet runs during the development of the opening fanfare, which is a very dramatic section, with much interplay between the brass and strings. To me, this section connotes the creation of the world: you can see the lava and rock bursting forth almost like something from Fantasia’s Rite of Spring animated sequence. Underpinned by bassoon trills we come to a quieter, moodier section. Then we have a new woodwind based motif, with fluttering of the upper register woodwinds like flute and clarinet. Maybe this is portraying the god Pan entering the scene trying to create life on a lifeless hostile Earth? 

We return to the opening motif but this time it’s presented by solo trombone with variations following on. We have more development, and then a wonderful brass march fanfare/theme which the listener will quickly notice is just a major key recapitulation of the opening motif! Also, it sounds like a marching band in summer, a nod to Mahler’s youthful exposure to local town bands! Embrace Everything podcast (EE) describes the march as Pan coming through, bringing the first stirrings of life and green to the world. This march occurs about halfway through the movement and then it climaxes with a great whirlwind/crescendo of brass and orchestra, this recapitulation motif gives us our first impression of the universal and infinity. Now the movement crashes back to the creation motif and dour mood of the beginning of the movement. EE thinks this is the failed attempt at creating nature, frustrated by the harsh, primordial creative world forces. After some more development, ⅔ of the way through the movement another brass theme appears, followed by an offstage snare drum rattle, and then back to the opening motif again. The crashes of the timpani are like hammer blows, shaping the world. I hear and see primordial lightning. We hear a soft solo trombone and a low strings part that foreshadows a main motif from the final movement. We then hear a reprise of the 2nd triumphant brass theme/fanfare to close out the movement. The score instructions from Mahler himself tell the trumpets and woodwinds to point the bell up at the conductor to end the movement on a really joyful note! NB: The first movement is so long, it is considered its own first part of the symphony and sometimes a brief rest follows it.

Part II, Second Movement: Part II begins our “life” movements with “What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me” Finally we get a real minuet from Mahler in this second movement per the symphony’s score instructions. The movement begins with light string melodies and fiddling, which lead to airy flute and woodwind: to me you can hear the pastoral mood of the movement: nature has finally arrived, with its green meadows, plants, and flowers . Suddenly, we have a sweeping string motif which vaguely reminds me of how certain string parts in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” sound: sadly we only hear this Scheherazade string swirl once and never again (as far as I can hear). A faster, hurried, sharper tone enters during the second half of the movement. It’s actually a quote from “The Heavenly Life” (Das himmlische Leben) which was originally planned as the final, seventh movement of this symphony, but Mahler decided to hold it back for the finale of his Fourth Symphony, per EE. Also thanks to the EE podcast’s owl ears: during the fast section, the meter changes but the tempo stays the same, ramping up the pace/energy but keeping lyrical continuity. I hear this fast section as Pan works his mischief again, this time to bring animal life into the world.

Third Movement: "What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me" is a scherzo that opens with a four note motif by clarinet and woodwind, which reminds me of his First Symphony. Why? For one, we again have a visualization of animals in the forest (think about the first movement in the First Symphony). Second, this movement opens with the melody from "Ablösung im Sommer" from Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” lieder, which he has again adopted for a symphony – Another Wunderhorn connection! This opening motif is developed further and continuously hinted at by Mahler throughout this movement. You can tell animals are now involved in Mahler’s story via the “coo-coo-cah-coo” pattern of the motif, referring to the cuckoo from the text of the lied he’s quoting. The churning strings and low parts remind me of Beethoven and his Pastoral symphony, fitting again and likely intentional. Then suddenly comes a stillness and we have a lonely post horn solo, which harkens back to Mahler’s youth living in the country. The horn call was used by the post service to announce their arrival from afar and there is something nostalgic and wistful about it. Is this the first sign of man entering our world? It would be fitting to see the discovery of man stumbling into the forest from the perspective of the animal world, hitherto now sheltered. Then the scherzo (opening part A) returns and we get some nice back and forth interplay from the orchestra. Animals playing and bounding around in nature come to mind. There is a slowdown and we hear more foreshadowing of a motif from the final movement with another nascent string part. A quiet passage then builds with woodwinds and we get a reference to the death/creation shriek from the first movement and then a harp flourish, after which horns and timpanis enter and we have a big finale to close out the movement.

Fourth Movement: “What Man Tells Me” with the score notes Sehr langsam—Misterioso (Very slowly, mysteriously). This short movement is a setting of the Midnight Song (“Oh Man, take heed!”) from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche’s influence on Mahler is now coming more into focus. The darkness and stillness of the movement is in my mind a nod to the brooding parts of the early portion of the First Movement. The first hint at the entry of man during the last movement was not exactly happy sounding and this movement broods. It is in stark contrast with the moods and emotions of the second and third movements: perhaps plants and animals in their perpetual naïveté are forever ignorantly happy, yet man must live with the knowledge of the future and his existence. The Übermensch has this constant weight of existence that he must come to terms with in order to overcome. A mezzo-soprano sings the Midnight Song: 

O Man! Take heed!
What does the deep midnight say?
“I slept, I slept —,
from a deep dream have I awoken: —
the world is deep,
and deeper than the day imagined.
Deep is its grief —,
Joy — deeper still than heartache.
Grief says: Perish!
But all joy seeks eternity —,
— seeks deep, deep eternity!”

Even though there is much grief in the world (and amplified in this midnight nocturnal land), the Übermensch (and we all) must embrace everything: both grief and joy, and joy is deeper and eternal and will overcome grief. The meaning of this movement didn’t click with me until I sat down with the lyrics and took the movement in during the NJPAC performance. Just like the Urlicht lied in the previous symphony, the midnight song (and the next movement) set us up for the arc of the remainder of the symphony, and the themes and narrative of the at-first-glance-inscrutable last movement.

Fun fact: an excerpt of this movement was used in Luchino Visconti’s film “Death in Venice” (which also used the fourth Adagietto movement from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony)

Fifth Movement: “What the Angels Tell Me” is a joyful piece that incorporates the Wunderhorn melody from the lied “Es sungen drei Engel” – it is surprisingly big in scope, using both an adult and children’s choir and the mezzo-soprano again! The movement is fine, but I prefer and like the darker parts here much better than the joyful parts, like the children as cherubim imitating bells with their voices. After seeing it performed live, and giving a deeper reading of the lyrics and how it fits into the narrative of the symphony, it has grown on me. In seeing a performance live, I just realized the joyful melody nods back to the marching band motif from the first movement!!! Or actually, Mahler composed the first movement opening motif with an eye to having it eventually transform into his already existing Wunderhorn lied – talk about planning and attention to detail! We are hearing the sounds of Angels, the next level of being above Man. And they are welcoming in Peter to heaven:

Three angels sang a sweet song,
with blessed joy it rang in heaven.
They shouted too for joy
that Peter was free from sin!

 

Then the movement takes a darker turn musically: 

And as Lord Jesus sat at the table

with his Twelve Disciples and ate supper,

Lord Jesus said: "Why do you stand here?

When I look at you, you are weeping!" 

 

"And should I not weep, kind God?
I have violated the Ten Commandments!
I wander and weep bitterly!
O come and take pity on me!"

 

The lyrics talk about Peter’s sinful flaws, but I also view the tone of the music as a reference to Mahler’s cynical view of innocence similar to the darker turn in the second movement of the Second Symphony describing the Hero’s childhood. But this darker turn is dispelled, there is still hope:

"If you have violated the Ten Commandments,

then fall on your knees and pray to God!

Love only God for all time!

Thus will you attain Heavenly Joy." 

 

Heavenly Joy is a blessed city,

Heavenly Joy that has no end!

Heavenly Joy was granted to Peter

through Jesus, and to all mankind for eternal bliss.

 

Through God and repentance and coming to terms with our flaws and imperfection, we can be saved and reach Heavenly Joy. I had originally written off these two vocal movements but you can see that their inclusion is integral to the narrative pathway of the symphony (Grief and joy exist, joy is deeper than grief, the heavens welcome you despite what you have suffered and feel, and if you truly repent or accept the heavens, the will present you with eternal joy).

Sixth Movement: "What Love Tells Me" – the Adagio, in chorale form. I apologize in advance if my commentary here is muddled: there is too much to unpack, too much emotional ground to cover to properly express in words – it must be experienced and felt in the music itself. The movement begins with the main theme, which brings out this sense of longing, and continues to develop with strings, almost glacial (and possibly a slight nod to the end of the movement). As the movement progresses, we have the chorale trading off motives between the different sections of the orchestra: for example, the repetition of the main theme is performed by flute and woodwind, trading off between each other, but then the movement abruptly segues into another motif which is very wistful, with an eight note descending line, played here on strings. There is a build up of the first motif, which we will see again at the end of the movement. Now more development and a new motif enters, filled with tension and disharmony, that builds to a dramatic swell that returns to the chaotic outburst of the first movement, bringing thematic unity to the symphony. How is this movement about Love? What does love have to do with the world building at the start of our journey? Based on the previous two movements, we see that love is beautiful, joyful, painful, hideous, but we must accept the good and the bad and seek some sort of resolution and redemption surrounding it. Love here is love as we know it, but also God’s love, love of the universe.

We enter a quiet section led by flute that offers a brief respite and contemplative mood. Now the trumpets enter with their canon, playing this eight note descending motif we had heard earlier. We then get a full throated trombone rendition of this motif and we can tell the symphony is moving towards closure. Both these motives appear at the end of the movement intertwined in a masterful way that only Mahler can execute to bring it all home. Then we hear the final development and recapitulation of these themes taking us to the conclusion, trumpets pushing upward in the background, but in an extremely melancholic way. These are “Passages of burning pain” as Bruno Walter says and we can tangibly feel the searing emotion of the music. He is facing the Wheel of Ixion – eternal torment and frustration.

There is a pause before the final section where the orchestra goes quiet, reaching a sort of emotional zenith and nadir simultaneously, Man at his lowest point but also highest potential, completely spent but still persisting. But then unlike the previous expression of this motif, the orchestra re-enters with very soft woodwinds, which layer on brass, and then the orchestra crescendos into a titanic finale, where the symphony makes good on its promise to embrace everything as you feel the music rise to the level of the universe, all encompassing, where all is now one (both grief and joy together). From EE, Mahler is saying here, "Father, look upon my wounds” which is taken from a Wunderhorn poem about Redemption - finally the Love of God is revealed. You can feel the main protagonist of the movement, at the abject bottom, finally turn his eyes up to see the nature of God’s love, the universe revealed. Standing up confident now and at peace, he is consumed by the firmament and the empyrean light, in a blaze of glory. 

In those final moments of the symphony after the quiet pause, think of this quotation from Gustav Mahler: “‘What Love Tells Me’ is a summary of my feelings towards all beings, not without divergences onto deeply painful side roads but which gradually resolves itself into a blissful faith – the Joyful Science!” In a way, this is Mahler’s nod to and interpretation of the Übermensch continually striving and finally overcoming.

I had always enjoyed this movement but it only began to resonate with me strongly in 2019, and has continued to hit home more and more as I have gotten older. If you think my gushing commentary is all hype, look at these appraisals from Mahler’s contemporaries:

Bruno Walter: “In the last movement, words are stilled—for what language can utter heavenly love more powerfully and forcefully than music itself? The Adagio, with its broad, solemn melodic line, is, as a whole—and despite passages of burning pain—eloquent of comfort and grace. It is a single sound of heartfelt and exalted feelings, in which the whole giant structure finds its culmination.”

William Ritter: "Perhaps the greatest Adagio written since Beethoven." (in his review of the 1902 premiere)

An anonymous critic from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: "It rises to heights which situate this movement among the most sublime in all symphonic literature.”

Originally, critics and preview audiences had heard only three movements of the symphony (the second, third, and sixth movements) and many complained that the Adagio was too long. Mahler then fretted, what would they think of the first movement which is over a half hour long?! As we can see, the proper premiere erased all concerns: according to the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Mahler was called back to the podium 12 times, and a newspaper reported that “the thunderous ovation lasted no less than fifteen minutes.” Really reminds me of the Dudamel BBC Proms performance of the Second Symphony I referenced last week!

Thematically and visually, the ending of the Third is similar to the finale of the Eighth Symphony “Symphony of a Thousand” – perhaps we can look at the finale there in the Eighth as a mature revisitation of the finale here in the Third? Also, with the themes of struggle and overcoming and redemption, the ending of his Second Symphony looms large here too.

Spoiler Alert! Once you hear this, you can’t unhear it: it seems that the second motif in this movement bears a striking resemblance to the melody of the song “I’ll Be Seeing You” – was Sammy Fain a secret Mahler fan and noticed some thematic connection between the two pieces?

Aborted Seventh Movement: As mentioned before, “The Heavenly Life” or alternatively, "What the Child Tells Me" was planned as the final and seventh movement for the symphony, but Mahler cut it and it ended up as the final movement of the Fourth symphony instead. We hear melodies from this movement in the Fifth Movement, all part of Mahler’s great foreshadowing of motifs from later movements.

Next week is the last of the Wunderhorn era symphonies, his Fourth Symphony, and with that, I’ll be taking a break before tackling the symphonies of his Middle Period. In case you haven’t heard the Third, you can see these two performances of the final movement: Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Philharmonia Orchestra or Leonard Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

And links to my preferred recordings:

• Bernard Haitink, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Decca
• Sir Georg Solti, LSO, Decca
• Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony, EMI
• Dimitri Mitropoulos, NYP, Live 1956
• Leonard Bernstein, NYP, Columbia
• Leonard Bernstein, NYP, Deutsche Grammophon

Copyright © 2023 Jared Pilosio. All Rights Reserved

Mahler - Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection"

Some recommended recordings: Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic, either on Columbia from the 1960s (Lee Venora and Jennie Tourel) or his later Deutsche Grammophon recording from the 1980s (Christa Ludwig and Barbara Hendricks), Zubin Mehta with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Christa Ludwig and Ileana Contrubas) re-released on Decca Legends is unexpectedly great, and Sir Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Dame Janet Baker and Arleen Augér) is very good too. Not available on CD or streaming is Gustavo Dudamel performing with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra (Miah Persson and Anna Larsson) at BBC Proms in 2011. I’ve only seen a video recording of it on YouTube. Not only is the whole performance electrifying and mesmerizing, but at the end! – I won’t give it away, but what happens at the end of the performance after the music stops sums up why this might be the greatest recording of the symphony. Or at least proves why a live viewing of the Resurrection Symphony might be the best way to experience it.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Auferstehung” – The Resurrection Symphony! Such an evolutionary leap from his First Symphony! You can see it right away in its complexity and length. Maybe Mahler was being conservative and held back in his First. Maybe his composing skills improved. EIther way, it is a magnitude of scale change from the previous symphony. The addition of vocal and choral components shows him fully accepting (seizing?) the legacy symphonic mantle of Beethoven. And to do it in his second symphony! Was there another choral symphony of note after Beethoven’s Ninth up until this point? (I can’t think of any – let me know in the comments if you can name one!) Not only a choral symphony but one with a full solo vocalist movement too! As he was composing, Mahler knew he wanted a grand vocal finale but couldn’t figure out the subject matter. Conductor Hans von Bülow, who was a strong supporter of Mahler in the early days, helped give him confidence as he was sketching out the first movement of this symphony. He was ill for some time and died in 1894 while trying to recuperate from his long term illness. von Bülow’s funeral provided Mahler the inspiration how to conclude the symphony, upon hearing Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's poem Die Auferstehung “The Resurrection” during the services. He wrote in a letter, "It struck me like lightning, this thing and everything was revealed to me clear and plain!” On that note, let’s begin our symphonic journey!

First Movement: This is actually in miniature sonata form itself. Why? Because it was originally composed as a 1888 standalone single-movement tone poem called Totenfeier - “Funeral Rites”. It’s as long as the middle three movements combined. If the hero lived or triumphed at the end of the First Symphony, here he is clearly dead – the mourners are burying our hero. This dour mood is very clear from the swell of strings and double bass melody. Imagine the movement as the funeral march, the hero’s burial, the mourners’ remembrances of pain and (briefly) joy, and numerous returns to the funereal mood that permeates everything in the music. If the hero triumphed in the last symphony, no one got the memo here! After the initial march, the music moves on to a nostalgic string motif with melancholy in it, and we now start to hear hints of the heavenly stings to come later in the last movement, but interspersed with that funeral march again. Really, the movement cannot escape the gravity of the funeral march motif and its various forms; the symphony keeps getting drawn back into it. Like a cloud hanging over the mourning party when they talk about their memories of the dearly departed. The march motif finally comes to a recapitulation with a new “valiant/heroic” theme, but then the music returns to the funeral march. There is a return of the opening march motif, then the heavenly/nostalgic stings return with more development. This leads us to a dwindling/receding “death knell” decrescendo marking the end of the movement with a slightly frenzied flourish before it comes to a close. Mahler originally had in his notes to take a five minute break after this movement before starting the second.

Second Movement: Again, Mahler gives us a second movement in the form of a ländler (that Germanic dance form) but this time, it is slower and presented more stately than in his First Symphony. It is fine, though it has grown on me. Narratively, the symphony now switches over to follow the Hero from his perspective. Maybe he is between earthly death and the next stage, reflecting back on memories of his life? He remembers his pleasant childhood, though some darker, stormier passages interject as the idyllic motif progresses. These dark passages hint that not everything is perfect in childhood. Or is it painful nostalgia from the perspective of the hero? The movement is only slightly cynical, not like the full blown sarcasm of his later work.

Third Movement: We have an actual scherzo finally in this movement! We hear a fluid-like string motif that evokes fish swimming. It is the St Anthony of Padua story, his attempt to teach the fish to be virtuous. A rousing brass motif is interspersed into the fish string motif, which we can hear is a setting of Mahler’s lied "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. The brass comes back but it’s contorted and the movement ends in a “death shriek” or “cry of despair” and then the music becomes quiet. However, we start to hear a flute, trumpet, and string section that has a different atmosphere and seems to foreshadow something else (spoiler alert: it’s a nascent version of the Resurrection theme from the final movement.) The harder edge parts of the movement channel the hero despairing over the futility and meaningless of life, as well as his later hardship and confusion, post childhood. The futility is mirrored by the story of St. Anthony, who preaches but all the fish ignore him and his teachings after the service ends – just like his parishioners. The story from the original lied:

St. Anthony arrives for his sermon

and finds the church empty.

He goes to the rivers

to preach to the fishes;

They flick their tails,

which glisten in the sunshine.

The carp with roe

have all come here,

their mouths wide open,

listening attentively.

No sermon ever

pleased the carp so.

Sharp-mouthed pike

that are always fighting

have come here, swimming hurriedly

to hear this pious one;

No sermon ever

pleased the pike so.

Also, those fantastic creatures

that are always fasting -

the stockfish, I mean -

they also appeared for the sermon;

No sermon ever

pleased the stockfish so.

Good eels and sturgeons,

that are dined upon by the nobility -

even they took the trouble

to hear the sermon:

No sermon ever

pleased the eels so.

Crabs too, and turtles,

usually such slowpokes,

rise quickly from the bottom,

to hear this voice.

No sermon ever

pleased the crabs so.

Big fish, little fish,

noble fish, common fish,

all lift their heads

like sentient creatures:

At God's behest

they listen to the sermon.

The sermon having ended,

each turns himself around;

the pikes remain thieves,

the eels, great lovers.

The sermon has pleased them,

but they remain the same as before.

The crabs still walk backwards,

the stockfish stay rotund,

the carps still stuff themselves,

the sermon is forgotten!

The sermon has pleased them,

but they remain the same as before.

Fourth Movement: “Urlicht” is another Wunderhorn song, “Primal Light” sung by an alto. The hero finally has a breakthrough about the meaning of his existence, which will be more fully explored in the finale. The trumpet canon at the start is funereal and yet beautiful. The turning point in the symphony starts with this little lied. The hero has finally come to a realization about life and his purpose and place in the world and what he lived through. The music changes in the middle of the movement when the lyrics reach the second stanza, reflecting his change mentally from only recognizing his low point to realizing the answer to “it” all:

O little red rose,

Man lies in greatest need,

Man lies in greatest pain.

How I would rather be in heaven.

There I came upon a broad Path,

When I came upon an Angel who wanted to turn me away.

But no, I will not let myself be turned away!

I am from God, and shall return to God,

The loving God will grant me a little light,

Which will lighten my way up to eternal, blessed life!

But the final movement is needed to bring it all home.

Fifth Movement: An over half-hour long sonata form, the movement is instrumental at first and then breaks into our choral finale. It’s almost half the length of the symphony (33 out of 70 something minutes!) The movement opens with our “death shriek” (as we heard in the third movement) and now we hear a nod to the later Resurrection theme, the most fully formed version of it yet, and you realize you’ve heard embryonic snippets of it before throughout the symphony! The music expresses that new atmosphere that was hinted at in the third movement: as the title of the symphony implies, now the Hero has to find final resolution in the afterlife, beyond the worldly existence. We hear a new “hero” theme that starts out really softly and takes a long time to build and develop before bursting out. When it does, that’s what I am talking about: how Mahler’s development skills have leaped by a magnitude of scale since his first symphony. The hero theme as it becomes fully developed, it’s amazing – the music is so emotive and in some respects, visual too. Is it a battle charge by the hero which eventually flounders? (I swear you can hear Dmitri Shostakovich give a nod to this hero section in the last movement of his Fourth Symphony, except it’s dripping with sarcasm the whole time and does not resolve itself in any uplifting way). What the listener doesn’t realize is that Mahler is giving us a preview of the end of the movement and the finale to the symphony. But the way he transforms the motives is so masterful, that you don’t realize it’s happening as you listen. With short hiccup, a fast paced sinister sounding brass development follows. As Mahler noted, this is the march of the dead coming out of their graves, the apocalypse has begun. The development of motives here and foreshadowing of future musical ideas is wonderful. 

But then the music changes to something more triumphant, some sort of victory over the zombie dead that have been reanimated. The music now becomes quieter, focusing on strings and we hear the “dead of death” with a floating flute line. Then the choral section begins very quietly, with their message clear:

Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you, my dust, after a brief rest!

Immortal life! Immortal life

He who called you, will grant it to you.

You are sown to bloom again!

The lord of the harvest goes

And gathers sheaves,

Us, who have died.

As this continues, the most fully recognizable appearance of the Resurrection theme comes on, it is sweetly played by strings – in my opinion, this is one of the most poignant moments in classical music. There is something so fragile and precious in how it is played. Then enter the Soprano and Alto – Mahler has now discarded Klopstock’s lyrics and written his own:

O believe, my heart, O believe:

Nothing is lost to you!

Yours, yes yours, is what you desired

Yours, what you have loved for

What you have fought for!

O believe,

You were not born for nothing!

Have not lived for nothing,

Nor suffered!

What was created

Must perish;

What has perished, rise again!

Cease from trembling!

Prepare yourself to live!

The chorus with the soloists builds and there is great interplay, interjecting each other, announcing their victory:

O Pain, you piercer of all things,

From you, I have been wrested!

O Death, you conqueror of all things,

Now, are you conquered!

With wings which I have won for myself,

In love's fierce striving,

I shall soar upwards

To the light which no eye has penetrated!

Then the chorus and soloist keep repeating the epiphany, realization, answer that our hero finally gets:

I shall die in order to live.

The end is wonderful, it bursts through, the audience finally understand what all this motive development has been traveling towards, the final transformation of the theme bursts forth rapturously: the symphony is finally explaining the hero’s mystery, how everything will be made right in the end:

Rise again, yes, you will rise again, 

my heart, in an instant 

What you have suffered, 

shall carry you to God! 

The score tells everyone to play and sing at the maximum: the organ finally enters at full volume, church bells ring out. Once the singing ends, the orchestra continues to take us higher and higher and the audience gets a glimpse of the heavenly realm as the hero is finally at peace and can enter in full glory. The divine light is so bright it obscures our view of his final entry and acceptance by God.

Whether or not you listened to the Resurrection symphony before, you have to watch the Dudamel BBC Proms performance. This performance is what got me into recognizing Dudamel as a serious conductor and a great Mahler interpreter. It also got me to appreciate the symphony more, especially the singing because the subtitle translations here are very good (though I make my own minor corrections to the translations of phrases like “einem nu” and other tweaks). To tell you how great this performance is SPOILER ALERT members of the orchestra begin crying, Anna Larsson turns away to hide her crying, there is at least five minutes of standing applause from a wild audience that continues over the end credits and the BBC announcer needs to cut the broadcast while they still continue to cheer and applaud.

Thank you again for making it through my commentary! Next week is Mahler’s Third Symphony - the longest in the standard repertoire. I promise the posts will get shorter after that. Give it a spin ahead of next Wednesday. Until then!

And links to my preferred recordings:

Leonard Bernstein, NYP with Lee Venora and Jennie Tourel, Columbia Records, (1960s)

Leonard Bernstein, NYP with Christa Ludwig and Barbara Hendricks, Deutsche Grammophon, (1980s)

Zubin Mehta, VPO with Christa Ludwig and Ileana Contrubas, Decca 

Simon Rattle, BSO with Dame Janet Baker and Arleen Augér, EMI 

 

 

Copyright © 2023 Jared Pilosio. All Rights Reserved

Mahler - Symphony No. 1 “Titan”

Some recommended recordings are Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic on Columbia, which is classic, but Sir Georg Solti with the London Symphony Orchestra, re-released on the Decca Legends series, is actually great too. And I have come to appreciate Gustavo Dudamel as a Mahler interpreter, his live recording from Walt Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic is wonderful too.

Looking back on Symphony No. 1 (composed from 1887-1888), I see now how in some ways it is more conservative, compared to Mahler’s later works, even his following Symphony No. 2: the melodies seem simpler (and that might be primarily why I underestimated it), the development sections seem simpler, and variations on those motifs simpler - but it’s still so advanced! I didn’t fully appreciate the developments and recapitulated motives until I watched the “Listening to Music” lectures on YouTube by Yale Music Professor Craig Wright. I will reveal some of those revelations below – let’s dive in!

First Movement: the movement is in your standard modified sonata form, tempo langsam. The opening of the woodwinds and their descending motif sounds vaguely like the beginning of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (or was it his 4th – again, the shadow of Beethoven looms large to this career start, just as it hung over Brahms and his First Symphony). With the woodwinds, the long strings, the offstage hunter’s horn, the listener can’t help but think of nature waking up. And sure enough, in the original program, when the symphony was nicknamed “Titan” (after a Jean Paul novel), the movement was named “Spring and no end. This introduction describes the awakening of nature at the earliest dawn.” After the horns, the movement introduces a motif, taken from the main melody of “Ging heut Morgen übers Feld” from Mahler’s “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.” The lyrics make very clear why he reused this lied here:

I walked across the fields this morning;

dew still hung on every blade of grass.

The merry finch spoke to me:

"Hey! Isn't it? Good morning! Isn't it?

You! Isn't it becoming a fine world?

Chirp! Chirp! Fair and sharp!

How the world delights me!"

 

Also, the bluebells in the field

merrily with good spirits

tolled out to me with bells (ding, ding)

their morning greeting:

"Isn't it becoming a fine world?

Ding, ding! Fair thing!

How the world delights me!"

And then, in the sunshine,

the world suddenly began to glitter;

everything gained sound and color

in the sunshine!

Flower and bird, great and small!

"Good day, is it not a fine world?

Hey, isn't it? A fair world?"

Now will my happiness also begin?

No, no - the happiness I mean

can never bloom!

Because of this and other borrowings from his early lieder and the thematic unity they brought, Mahler’s early first four symphonies are called the “Wunderhorn Symphonies.” Moving on, we come to a slight variation on the nature awakens motif, then an ominous sounding development with a run of trumpets occurs (this development motif will get reprised in the last movement in a really functionally great way) that then returns the movement to a triumphant presentation of that Wunderhorn motif. I’ve always liked the first and second movements from Bernstein best – I may have to say that Solti gives him a run for his money, especially on the Second Movement.

Second Movement: this movement is a Trio (the “scherzo” or “minuet”), taking the form Ländler, Slow, and then back, Kräftig bewegt. When I first heard this movement, I had this feeling of a ship on the sea, getting up to speed and running full sail. I was not wrong because the original program said “Set with full sails.” Later, I would find out through Embrace Everything that we have a Ländler here, an Austro-German folk dance form, an interesting subversion of the scherzo/minuet expectation. Now the dance-like rhythm of the movement is almost unmistakeable. Then the movement shifts into its calmer, slower middle string section, which is most definitely a nod to the lost Blumine movement (more on that later). Then the movement returns back to the Ländler with a very frenzied finish that reminds me of the frenzied finishes of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and “Pini di Roma.”

Third Movement: this is the slow movement of the symphony, Feierlich und gemessen. It begins with a funereal like motif, possibly inspired by “The Hunter's Funeral” a woodcut by Moritz von Schwind, which portrays a hunter's funeral and the procession of animals that follows him. As the motif continues, we realize that it is in fact a minor key rendering of the children’s song “Frere Jacques”!! Then with barely a transition, a Jewish/klezmer motif comes right in! This motif could also be based on general Bohemian folk themes, but to our modern ears, it sounds Jewish. This motif leads straight into the melody from “Die zwei blauen Augen” from the Gesellen Lieder again and returns back to morbid Frere Jacques. The lyrics of the lied again provide thematic context and complementarity:

The two blue eyes of my darling -

they have sent me into the wide world.

I had to take my leave of this well-beloved place!

O blue eyes, why did you gaze on me?

Now I will have eternal sorrow and grief.

 

I went out into the quiet night

well across the dark heath.

To me no one bade farewell.

Farewell! My companions are love and sorrow!

On the road there stands a linden tree,

and there for the first time I found rest in sleep!

Under the linden tree 

that snowed its blossoms onto me -

I did not know how life went on,

and all was well again!

All! All, love and sorrow

and world and dream!

The movement then flows into a slow section that I think refers back to the discarded Blumine movement, or maybe it is performing variations on the slow section of the previous movement, which itself is derived from Blumine? Then the movement closes with the Frere Jacques motif in a more fully developed form and intertwined with the klezmer and lied motifs to slowly fade out.

Fourth Movement: the finale, in sonata-allegro form, Stürmisch bewegt – Energisch “Stormly agitated – Energetic.” We’ll see that this movement quotes many of the previous motifs throughout and provides some surprising developments, hinting at Mahler’s growth into becoming a master of foreshadowing and developing motives. The movement opens with a stormy crash and our “villainous” motif, the original program notes called this movement “Dall'Inferno al Paradiso” – From Hell to Heaven. Actually the whole second half was called “Commedia umana” –Human Comedy– a nod to Dante if I ever saw one! This motif transitions to a quiet section with strings which sounds a lot like Blumine, or at least inspired by Blumine. These more developed string parts are beginning to sound like later Mahler (I would only realize this in the future as I listened to, well, later Mahler). Then the storm/villain motif crashes in again. 

Once that runs its course, now we begin to hear a new trumpet fanfare peak through for the first time. This trumpet fanfare has something heroic about it, and now you see the theme of the final movement: a hero working to triumph over darkness and villainy and the storm. Maybe this is the kernel for the original “Titan” title of the symphony? We come to another interlude with the darkness/storm motif and then a fuller hero’s fanfare returns. Then back to a variation of the Blumine strings, this time the strings have reached their peak development, we know some change is coming. And then in an instant, the symphony-opening nature motif returns! The string motif comes back fuller with a swell and resolution before we enter the storm motif again, almost more sinister than before. Then we have the hunting horn call, marking again a link to the first movement. Triumphantly, next we receive the final presentation of the hero motif, and not only that, we hear the second hero’s motif, which we now realize from all the previous hints Mahler hit us over the head with is actually the same notes as the opening nature awakens motif!!! We have now fulfilled the original hints we heard in the first movement. The villain and storm motif is nowhere to be seen – the evil has been vanquished. Written in the score are notes, instructing the horns to stand, they probably can’t help feel triumphant as they play. You can tell the orchestra by this point is running at more than 100%. In spite of this, something bittersweet and slightly sad underscores what’s left of the movement, which concludes with a “joke” ending with an octave drop. 

When I was younger, I barely perceived this slightly off ending, but as I have gotten older, I have heard this secret message buried in the music more and more. And sure enough, in the Embrace Everything podcast, they discuss how the hero dies at the end of the movement – Mahler explained this in letters himself! But in his death, the Hero has triumphed over his challenges in life and he gallops onward into the sunset, things neatly resolved (for him, we’ll see eventually why this is important to note). So yes, we get the Death of the Hero. A twinge of sadness in the triumphal end, now I see why. I don’t know how I can top Mahler’s ending, so I will note Professor Craig Wright’s observation that the storm and hero motives of the last movement are actually one and the same! It’s the same pitches with different notes! Take this with the knowledge that the second hero motif is a subtle rearrangement of the motif we heard at the start of the symphony, and you see Mahler is a master at development. What great unity!

Blumine: ah yes Blumine, the rejected second movement andante. When this was a five movement symphony. Mahler removed the movement after the third public performance of the symphony, in the face of harsh criticism (another running theme through Mahler’s career). It’s not a bad movement, but it’s certainly hard to imagine Symphony No. 1 with Blumine shoehorned in as a second movement. The movement starts with a sweet trumpet melody, which seems a bit unlike other Mahler, but then a few minutes in, we start to hear Mahler’s usual tropes, orchestration, and development of motives via a string motif. The strings here sound like classic Mahler, hinting at his later string motives. This string section after the opening trumpet section is what Mahler quotes and develops and transforms in second and fourth movements (I am still convinced it is connected with the middle string motif in the third movement too). 

If you survived this many lines of composed music commentary, thank you for hanging in there! Next week, Mahler’s Second Symphony “Resurrection” - feel free to give it a listen ahead of my post on Wednesday or Thursday. Until then!

In case you didn't listen to this symphony already, check out this "live" recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

And links to my preferred recordings:

• Leonard Bernstein, NYP, Columbia Records
• Sir Georg Solti, LSO, Decca
• Gustavo Dudamel, LAP, Deutsche Grammophon
• Lost Blumine movement: Paavo Järvi, hr-Sinfonieorcheter, Michael Tilson Thomas, SF Symphony

Copyright © 2023 Jared Pilosio. All Rights Reserved