Mahler Foundation

The tenth song in this collection, “Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz” (At Strasbourg on the battlement), starts with a very colorful piano entrance marked “as a folk tune” and “imitating the shawm.” 

As Donald Mitchell points out, this is of a type very characteristic of Mahler in his vocal as well as symphonic output: the slow farewell song or funeral march…We have a relatively simple example of the kind, remarkable chiefly for the piano’s imitation of the “Schalmei,” the chalumeau or herdsman’s pipe, which lures the homesick soldier into swimming the Rhine by night. There is also the imitation, in the left hand, of the military drums that accompany his capture, his conviction as a deserter, and the march to his execution. Mahler explicitly instructs the right hand to play “like a chalumeau,” and notes for the left: “In all those low trills the sound of muted drums is to be imitated by means of the pedal,” a clear indication that he was moving towards a song form with orchestra.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Zu Strassburg Auf Der Schanz with Lew Smoley.

The third movement is the most obviously pentatonic and faux-Asian. The form is ternary, the third part being a greatly abbreviated revision of the first. It is also the shortest of the six movements, and can be considered a first scherzo. First this movement was called ‘Der Pavillon aus Porzellan’ (‘The pavilion made of porcelain’).

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A listening guide of Das Lied von der Erde – Von der Jugend with Lew Smoley.

The majority of the songs in this collection begin with very soft dynamics. Eleven of the fourteen songs begin with the dynamic of piano, one song begins at pianissimo, and the remaining two songs (this song and the last song in the collection) begin at the dynamic of forte. The tubist should take advantage of this diversity of dynamics and style. The eighth song in this collection, “Aus! Aus!” (Over! Over!), has a strict sense of time. While some of the songs have a lyrical quality that allows for rubato, this melody is one of only a few that requires a steady march-like tempo.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Aus! Aus! with Lew Smoley

This movement is a much softer, less turbulent movement. Marked ‘somewhat dragging and exhausted’, it begins with a repetitive shuffling in the strings, followed by solo wind instruments. The orchestration in this movement is sparse and chamber music-like, with long and independent contrapuntal lines.

The lyrics, which are based on the first part of a Tang Dynasty era poem by Qian Qi, lament the dying of flowers and the passing of beauty, as well as expressing an exhausted longing for sleep.

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A listening guide of Das Lied von der Erde – Der Einsame im Herbst with Lew Smoley.

This song is the first of the Wunderhorn Lieder for Voice and Piano. It is titled “Um sclimme Kinder artig zu machen” (To make bad children good) and is much longer than any from the previous collection. The quick and witty style will challenge the novice tubist with soft dynamics and repeated articulations.

“To teach naughty children to be good”. Original German folk song: “Es kam ein Herr zum Schlösseli”.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Un Schlimme Kinder Artig Zu Machen with Lew Smoley.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Maitanz Im Grünen with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Serenade Aus Don Juan with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Winterlied with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

The first movement continually returns to the refrain, Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod (literally, 'Dark is life, is death'), which is pitched a semitone higher on each successive appearance. Like many drinking poems by Li Bai, the original poem 'Bei Ge Xing' (a pathetic song) mixes drunken exaltation with a deep sadness.

The singer's part is notoriously demanding, since the tenor has to struggle at the top of his range against the power of the full orchestra. This gives the voice its shrill, piercing quality, and is consistent with Mahler's practice of pushing instruments, including vocal cords, to their limits.

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A listening guide of Das Lied von der Erde – Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde with Lew Smoley.

Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) is a song cycle for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The words of the songs are poems by Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866).

The original Kindertotenlieder were a group of 428 poems written by Rückert in 1833-1834 in an outpouring of grief following the illness (scarlet fever) and death of two of his children. Karen Painter describes the poems thus: “Rückert’s 428 poems on the death of children became singular, almost manic documents of the psychological endeavor to cope with such loss. In ever new variations Rückert’s poems attempt a poetic resuscitation of the children that is punctuated by anguished outbursts. But above all the poems show a quiet acquiescence to fate and to a peaceful world of solace.” These poems were not intended for publication, and they appeared in print only in 1871, five years after the poet’s death.

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A listening guide of Kindertotenlieder – Intro with Lew Smoley.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Im Lenz with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Intro with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (‘Songs of a Wayfarer’) is a song cycle by Gustav Mahler on his own texts. The cycle of four Lieder for low voice (often performed by women as well as men) was written around 1884-1885 in the wake of Mahler’s unhappy love for soprano Johanna Richter (1858-1943), whom he met while conductor of the opera house in Kassel, Germany, and orchestrated and revised in the 1890s.

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A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Intro with Lew Smoley.

The final song, “Selbstgefühl” (My mood), starts with a dynamic of forte. To maintain a high level of playfulness, the tubist must observe the strict dynamic indications. Mahler indicated that the octave in the left hand of the piano part can be omitted throughout the song if the additional low notes create too thick of a texture in this register.

The piano extends the melodic line throughout this final song, playing the same melody in the right hand and completing the soloist’s musical thought, as seen in measures 25 and 56-57. 

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Selbstgefühl with Lew Smoley.

The third movement is a full display of despair. Entitled “Ich hab’ein glühend Messer” (“I Have a Gleaming Knife”), the Wayfarer likens his agony of lost love to having an actual metal blade piercing his heart. He obsesses to the point where everything in the environment reminds him of some aspect of his love, and he wishes he actually had the knife.

The music is intense and driving, fitting to the agonized nature of the Wayfarer’s obsession.

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A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Ich Hab’ Ein Glühend Messer with Lew Smoley.

Balancing the soft low texture with piano remains one of the main challenges for tubists in the penultimate song in this collection, “Nicht wiedersehen!” (Never to meet again). It is scored very low on the piano and would be easy to lose the melody inside of the harmony of the accompaniment. Mahler instructs the pianist to use the pedals freely, however perhaps the dampening pedal should be the most important. The effect of the sustain pedal will be too much for this song, especially when the pitches between the piano and tuba overlap.

The first three notes of this song are the most challenging notes on a Germany Rotary bass tuba in F, especially at a soft dynamic, like piano. The performer may modify articulations to assist in increasing the line’s accuracy and clarity. The first note after a breath should have a stronger articulation, as sometimes noted by a tenuto marking above or below the specified note.

“Never to meet again”.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Nicht Wiedersehen! with Lew Smoley.

The first movement is entitled “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht” (“When My Sweetheart is Married”), and the text discusses the Wayfarer’s grief at losing his love to another. He remarks on the beauty of the surrounding world, but how that cannot keep him from having sad dreams. The orchestral texture is bittersweet, using double reed instruments, clarinets and strings.

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A listening guide of Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen – Wenn Mein Schatz Hochzeit Macht with  Lew Smoley.

“Scheiden und Meiden” (Partings) explores the metric juxtaposition of two versus three used in “Ablösung im Sommer.” “Trumpetlike” is the first expression in the music as F major arpeggios rise from the tuba and piano. Despite the repeated ascending passages, the first dynamic is piano so the tubist should strive to be precise to start with soft dynamics.

In this song, the pianist must take care to follow dynamics, which do not always coincide with those of the tubist. The rhythmic motor of the repeated ostinato in the piano provides the driving force for this first part of the song. As the text notes, “There rode three horsemen,” the piano rhythm mimics a riding motive made famous by Richard Wagner. As the song enters a new time signature (switching from triple to duple), it slows just slightly; however, the eighth note should stay relatively constant through this meter change. Wide triplets are notated in measures 23 and 24, providing an opportunity for both the pianist and the tubist to slow down and expand this duple section musically before the horse-like melody comes back in the piano and forces us to stay in strict time.

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A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Scheiden Und Meiden with Lew Smoley.

A listening guide of Lieder Und Gesänge Aus Dem Jugendzeit – Frühlingsmorgen with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

The poetic theme of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,” one of Mahler’s most beautiful and moving songs, is again unusual. It evokes the peace achieved through the poet’s withdrawal from the everyday turmoil of the world and his absorption in the most meaningful and central aspects of his life: his heaven, his life, and his song. (By implication the last is the product of the preceding two).

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A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen with Lew Smoley.

Um Mitternacht moves from the most brilliant day to deepest night, and the change is once more immediately apparent in its coloration. Mahler calls for an orchestra without strings. In addition to pairs of woodwinds (with a single oboe d’amore replacing the usual oboes), three horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a single tuba, and timpani, both harp and piano are prescribed.

The length, weight and scale of the song match its theme. Five six-line stanzas (each of which begins and ends with “Um Mitternacht”) are set in a rich and complex contrapuntal idiom, more symphonic than lyric in character.

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A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Um Mitternacht with Lew Smoley.

Rückert-Lieder is a song cycle of five Lieder for voice and orchestra or piano by Gustav Mahler, based on poems written by Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866). 

• Lied Ruckert 1: Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder
• Lied Ruckert 2: Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!
• Lied Ruckert 3: Um Mitternacht
• Lied Ruckert 4: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
• Lied Ruckert 5: Liebst du um Schoenheit

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A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Intro with Lew Smoley.

A beautiful, but proud queen would like to get married but do not know who. She conceives of a competition: the man who first brings her the very special flower that grows in the forest may marry her.

Many men from the kingdom accept the challenge, including two brothers. The eldest brother is brave, mean and reckless, the youngest brother kind, gentle and curious. Soon the youngest brother finds the flower, picks it and places it on his hat. Satisfied he takes a nap against a tree.

The eldest brother is furious when he discovers his younger brother with the flower in his hat, steals the flower and kills the boy in his sleep. He returns to the castle to claim the queen's hand.

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A listening guide of Das Klagende Lied – Waldmärchen with Lew Smoley

A minstrel that runs through the forest finds a bone under a tree, and cuts a flute. When he plays the flute, the voice of the murdered youngest brother, who tells the story of his unfortunate death, sounds. The minstrel feels that he can not leave this story untold and goes on his way to the castle to reveal the true nature of the queen’s fiancée.

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A listening guide of Das Klagende Lied – Der Spielmann with Lew Smoley.

On the day that the minstrel arrives at the castle there is just a party going on for the occasion of the upcoming wedding of the queen and the eldest brother. The murderer is pale and feels guilty about the way he earned his royal engagement.

The minstrel plays the flute and the song of the murdered brother, the complaining song, sounds. The eldest brother takes the flute and plays it himself. Again the voice of his brother sounds and accuses him of the murder. The piece ends in chaos: the queen faints, the partygoers flee and the castle collapses.

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A listening guide of Das Klagende Lied – Die Hochzeitstück with Lew Smoley.

Revelge is the most intense and manic of the Wunderhorn settings, and also by far the most extended. It is a persistent march of a magnitude matching the great march movements of the symphonies. The speaker is a fallen drummer boy whose comrades pass him by on the march and leave him for dead. For most of the song, a persistent military rhythm in the trumpets is omnipresent, becoming obsessive in its insistence.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Revelge (Reveille) with Lew Smoley.

The most traditional of the songs was the last composed, “Liebst du um Schönheit.” It is the most clearly strophic in form, with the four stanzas presented in pairs, with a very brief orchestral interlude in the middle. The first three stanzas are clear variants of one another.

The fourth begins as if it were to continue in the same pattern, but underscores the central message of the song by stressing the words “liebe” (love) and “immer” (always) through rhythmic prolongation and emphasis on the upper register in the melody. Love must be for its own sake, not for beauty, youth or treasure.

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A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Liebst Du Um Schönheit with Lew Smoley.

Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder explores a more unusual theme. It warns the listener not to be too inquisitive about the process of creation, and suggests that the poet does not trust himself to inquire too much: only the finished work counts, not how it was achieved. 
The analogy made with the work of bees in the second stanza provides Mahler with the basis for his musical imagery. A brief introduction establishes a kind of perpetuum mobile with a subtle buzzing produced by an orchestra of muted strings, without double bass, single woodwinds and a horn, together with a harp. The two stanzas are variants of one another, but the first has an extra line, which repeats the text of the opening. In this repetition Mahler preserves the rhythm and some of the melodic features of his first vocal phrase, but shifts it to a different level and concludes with an upward rather than downward movement.

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A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Blicke Mir Nicht In Die Lieder with Lew Smoley.

Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft is perhaps unique in musically evoking a fragrance, the delicate fragrance of the lime tree with which the poet associates his love. The color of the setting is still more transparent, and much brighter than “Blicke mir nicht.” The orchestration again consists of single winds, horn and harp, but only violins and violas are called for, and a celesta has been added. The continuing even motion in the strings suggests the quiet wafting of the scent through the air.

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A listening guide of Rückert-Lieder – Ich Atmet’ Einen Linden Duft with Lew Smoley.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Verlorene Müh’ with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

Tamboursg’sell is the last composed of Mahler’s Wunderhorn settings. Like Revelge, it is sung by a doomed drummer. Rather than lying in the field, however, this drummer lies in prison. Where Revelge was manic, this song is more heavy and mournful. The drum rolls here are slower and more deliberate, and are balanced by lamenting woodwind trills. The song itself is most effective at a slow tempo.

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A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Der Tambourgsell with Lew Smoley.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Lob Des Hohen Verstandes with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Rheinlegendchen with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Lied des Verfogten Im Turm with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Das Irdische Leben with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Wer Hat Dies Liedlein Erdacht with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Trost Im Ungluck with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Der Schildwache Nachtlied with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

A listening guide of Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Wo Die Schonen Trompeten Blasen with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

Energisch, Stormily agitated – Energetic. The fourth movement is by far the most involved, and expansive. It brings back several elements from the first movement, unifying the symphony as a whole. The movement begins with an abrupt cymbal crash, a loud chord in the upper woodwinds, string and brass, and a bass drum hit, all in succession. This contrasts greatly with the end of the third movement. As the strings continue in a frenzy of notes, fragments of a theme in F minor appear, presented forcefully in the brass, before being played in entirety by the majority of winds:

The movement continues frantically until an expansive lyrical theme is presented in the strings. Eventually, the opening fragments in the brass emerge, and the energy picks up once more.

Mahler then presents the initial motive, in the brass, this time in D major, and the horns play a full-forced altered version of the descending fourth pattern from the beginning of the symphony, as if heading to a climax.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 1 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

Solemnly and measured, without dragging, very simple, like a folk-tune, once again somewhat more agitated, as at the start. A funeral march based on the children’s song “Frère Jacques” (or “Bruder Jacob”). The third movement acts as the slow movement in the four-movement plan. The extra-musical idea behind it is that of a hunter’s funeral and a procession of animals that follows.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 1 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

Moving strongly, but not too quickly, restrained, a trio Ländler. The second movement is a modified minuet and trio. Mahler replaces the minuet with a Ländler, a 3/4 dance-form that was a precursor to the Austrian waltz. This is a popular structure in Mahler’s other symphonies, as well as Franz Schubert’s. One main theme repeats throughout the Ländler, and it gathers energy towards a hectic finish. The main melody outlines an A major chord.

The trio contains contrasting lyrical material; however, as it comes to a close, Mahler alludes again to the Ländler by interjecting brief rising material from the first section. Finally, the Ländler makes a formal return, shortened and orchestrated more heavily to close the movement.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 1 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

Blumine translates to ‘floral’, or ‘flower’, and some believe this movement was written for Johanna Richter (1858-1943), with whom Mahler was infatuated at the time. 
The style of this movement has much in common with Mahler’s earlier works but also shows the techniques and distinct style of his later compositions.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 1 - Blumine Movement with Lew Smoley.

The ink was barely dry on the score of his First Symphony in 1888 when Mahler began to toy with the idea of a new large symphonic work in c. The opening movement was soon completed and named Todtenfeier (Funeral Ceremony), but it then languished among his papers until 1891, the year in which he left the Budapest Opera to become conductor in Hamburg. There he attracted the attention of the great conductor Hans von Bulow (1830-1894), well known as a champion of new music. When Mahler played him Todtenfeier on the piano, however, Bulow covered his ears and groaned: “If what I have heard is music, I understand nothing about music. […]
Compared with this, Tristan is a Haydn symphony.”

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 2 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

Very restrained throughout, D major. The first movement is in modified sonata form, with a substantially slow introduction. The introduction begins eerily with a seven-octave drone in the strings on A, with the upper octaves being played on harmonics in the violins. A descending two-note motif is then presented by the woodwinds, and eventually establishes itself into the following repeated pattern:

This opening, in its minimalist nature and repeated descending motif, alludes to the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D minor. This theme is then interrupted by a fanfare-like material first presented in the clarinets, and later by offstage trumpets, indicated in the score as “In sehr weiter Entfernung aufgestellt” (At a very far distance). A slow melody is also played by the horns, and the descending two-note motif is sped up in the clarinet, imitating the sound of a cuckoo. This opening is very true to Mahler’s style, putting the emphasis on the winds, and not more traditionally on the strings.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 1 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

The Symphony No. 1 in D major by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)  was mainly composed between late 1887 and 03-1888, though it incorporates music Mahler had composed for previous works. It was composed while Mahler was the second conductor at the Leipzig Opera, Germany.

Although in his letters Mahler almost always referred to the work as a symphony, the first two performances described it as a ‘Symphonic poem’ or ‘Tone poem’.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 1 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

Boisterous timpani joined by blazing brass set the scene for the riotous fifth movement. The long, arduous first movement, after three shorter movements developmental in mood, is finally equalled by a substantial ‘daylight’ finale. The movement is a rondo combined with a set of eight variations, capped off by a dramatic coda. There are parodies of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) – Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Franz Lehar (1870-1948) – The Merry Widow.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 7 - 5th Movement with Lew Smoley.

Veni Creator Spiritus (“Come Creator Spirit”) is a hymn believed to have been written by Rabanus Maurus in the 9th century. When the original Latin text is used, it is normally sung in Gregorian Chant. As an invocation of the Holy Spirit, in the practice of the Roman Catholic Church it is sung during the liturgical celebration of the feast of Pentecost (at both Terce and Vespers).

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 8 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

The movement is in sonata form. It begins with a slow introduction in B minor, launched by a dark melody played by a baritone horn. The accompanimental rhythm was said to have come to Mahler whilst rowing on the lake at Maiernigg after a period of compositional drought. The principal theme, presented by horns in unison in E minor, is accompanied similarly, though much faster and in a higher register.

The second theme is then presented by violins, accompanied by sweeping cello arpeggios. This theme is infected with chromatic sequences. At one point the violins reach an F#7, the highest F# on the piano. The exposition is wrapped up with a march theme from the introduction, which is followed by a repeat of the principal theme.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 7 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

There is an undercurrent of night about the spooky third movement; while “Scherzo” means “joke”, this movement is remarkably spooky and even grim. If the first ‘Nachtmusik’ possessed a friendly mood disguised in grotesqueries, this movement is a demon sneering at the listener. This movement is a most morbid and sarcastic mockery of the Viennese waltz.

The movement begins with a strange gesture: a pianissimo dialogue between timpani and pizzicato basses and cellos with sardonic interjections from the winds. After some buildup, the orchestra sets off on a threatening waltz, complete with unearthly woodwind shrieks and ghostly shimmerings from the basses, with a recurring “lamenting” theme in the woodwinds.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 7 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The second movement starts tumultuously and pushing forward in the key of a minor before gliding in a beautiful calm and cantabile theme in the key of f minor “in the rhythm of the funeral march” accompanied by lamentations of the wind instruments reminding on short fanfares. After the tumultuous returning to the key of a minor follows a short and melancholy interlude of cellos and bass drums, thereafter the reprise and development of the principal themes in an alternating game of chaotic tumults torn by inner conflicts and charming, lovely passages.

The still further pushing chaos finally leads to a relieving and brightly shining D major becoming stronger and stronger until its absolute climax but apparently for no reason it softly dies down, returns a while to a chaos in the key of F major before finally ebbing away in the key of a minor.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 5 - 2nd Movement wit Lew Smoley.

Very leisurely. Never hurry. Two sections alternate in this idyllic movement, so different in style, atmosphere and scale from the first that Mahler specified their separation by a few minutes’ pause. The first section is a graceful ländler in the major, the second a triplet theme in the minor. Mahler was particularly proud of the cello countermelody that accompanies the principal theme’s second exposition.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 2 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The third part of the symphony starts with the fourth movement, a tender Adagietto, one of the most intimate compositions of Mahler and certainly therefore one of the most famous, but also because Visconti used it in his film Death in Venice. After the rather trivial Scherzo, we encounter emotion and sensuality, it is pure poetry transformed into music.

One feels that after the Scherzo, there was a rupture out of which a new start arises and thus the Adagietto becomes the prelude of the last movement. The orchestration is in no way inferior to the tenderness of the composition divided in three parts: Strings are exclusively used to play a clear and longing tune accompanied by a harp playing in a way the role of a Basso Continuo. In the middle part, a bit more vivid, where the harp is missing, the accessory theme of the Finale is introduced. After the Glissando of the culminating point, the harp returns and the yearning tune reaches its highest emotion before the Adagietto softly dies away.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 5 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

The Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler was composed in 1901 and 1902, mostly during the summer months at Mahler’s cottage at Maiernigg. Among its most distinctive features are the trumpet solo that opens the work with the same rhythmic motive as used in the opening of Beethoven’s 5th symphony and the frequently performed Adagietto.

The musical canvas and emotional scope of the work, which lasts over an hour, are huge. The symphony is sometimes described as being in the key of C? minor since the first movement is in this key (the finale, however, is in D major). Mahler objected to the label: “From the order of the movements (where the usual first movement now comes second) it is difficult to speak of a key for the ‘whole Symphony’, and to avoid misunderstandings the key should best be omitted.”

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 5 - Intro with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

Symphony No. 3 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1893 and 1896. It is his longest piece and is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around ninety to one hundred minutes.

In its final form, the work has six movements, grouped into two Parts. The first movement alone, with a normal duration of a little more than thirty minutes, sometimes forty, forms Part One of the symphony. Part Two consists of the other five movements and has a duration of about sixty to seventy minutes.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

The symphony, particularly due to the extensive number of movements and their marked differences in character and construction, is a unique work. The opening movement, colossal in its conception (much like the symphony itself), roughly takes the shape of sonata form, insofar as there is an alternating presentation of two theme groups; however, the themes are varied and developed with each presentation, and the typical harmonic logic of the sonata form movement (particularly the tonic statement of second theme group material in the recapitulation) is changed.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

At the same speed as the Scherzo. In a wild outburst. The Scherzo’s “cry of despair” is recalled, then answered by a hesitant statement on the horns of the emerging “Resurrection” theme. There follows a “voice calling in the wilderness”, again on the horns, but this time offstage, before the contours are once again blurred by a descending triplet figure that works its way down through the orchestra.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 2 - 5th Movement with Lew Smoley.

Primeval Light. Very solemn but simple (In the manner of a chorale). After the “tormenting” questions of the opening movement and the grotesque dance of the Scherzo, humankind is freed from uncertainty and doubt. 
The Wunderhorn-Lied brings with it the first ray of a light that will shine in glory at the end of the finale. A solemn chorale, gently stated on the brass, affirms the innocent faith of childhood; later on, an expanded version of this same ascending theme will become the final movement’s “Resurrection” theme.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 2 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

With a gently flowing movement. The tragic, or at least pessimistic, the conception of this symphonic Scherzo seems worlds away from the humour of the Wunderhorn song in which St. Anthony preaches to the fishes, who understand nothing of his sermon and look on with a glazed expression. Yet they are sister works that use identical musical material.

Two timpani strokes, dominant-tonic, unleash the Scherzo’s “senseless agitation”, an uninterrupted and intentionally monotonous double ostinato in the treble and bass. The bulk of the material in the Trio in C major is likewise borrowed from the song. At the end of the movement, the “cry of despair” alluded to in the symphony’s programme is heard in a vast B flat minor climactic tutti.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 2 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

Symphony No. 9 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1908 and 1909, and was the last symphony he completed. Though the work is often described as being in the key of D major, the tonal scheme of the symphony as a whole is progressive. While the opening movement is in D major, the finale is in D-flat major.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 9 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler, sometimes referred to as the Tragische (“Tragic”), was composed between 1903 and 1904 (rev. 1906; scoring repeatedly revised). The work’s first performance was in Essen on 27-05-1906 and was conducted by Gustav Mahler. The tragic, even nihilistic, ending of No. 6 has been seen as unexpected, given that the symphony was composed at what was apparently an exceptionally happy time in Mahler’s life: he had married Alma Schindler in 1902, and during the course of the work’s composition his second daughter was born.

The symphony is far from the most popular of Mahler’s works. Statistics compiled by League of American Orchestras show that over the seven seasons in the U.S. and Canada ending with 2008-2009, the symphony was programmed considerably less often than Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 5. However, both Alban Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern (1883-1945) praised it when they first heard it: for Alban Berg, it was “the only sixth, despite the Pastoral”; while Anton Webern conducted it on more than one occasion. 

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 6 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

Very comfortably. Strophic. The fourth movement opens with a relaxed, bucolic scene in G major. A child, voiced by a soprano, presents a sunny, naive vision of Heaven and describes the feast being prepared for all the saints. The scene has its darker elements: the child makes it clear that the heavenly feast takes place at the expense of animals, including a sacrificed lamb. The child’s narrative is punctuated by faster passages recapitulating the first movement.

Unlike the final movement of traditional symphonies, the fourth movement of Mahler’s No. 4 is essentially a song, containing verses, with interludes, a prelude, and a postlude (a strophic structure). By the time the postlude is heard, there is a modulation to E major (the tonic major of the relative minor) and unusually stays in this key, ending the symphony away from the tonic of G major. Several ties to the Third Symphony can be heard in these passages as well.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 4 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

The andante provides a respite from the intensity of the rest of the work. Its main theme is an introspective ten-bar phrase in E-flat major, though it frequently touches on the minor mode as well. The orchestration is more delicate and reserved in this movement, making it all the more poignant when compared to the other three.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 6 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The both first movements are in the tragic and gloomy keys of c-sharp minor resp. a minor; The only programmatic indication, Trauermarsch (funeral march), is found in the first movement. The silence is broken by the solitary fanfare of a trumpet which is one of the three main themes of this movement.

Out of this comes the melancholy and heavy funeral march dominated by the strings; the woodwind players introduce the third theme in the key of a flat major thus lighting up the gloom in a charming way, but the calmly flowing motion, after other rapid fanfares, is suddenly interrupted by a wild and dramatic interlude.

The returning to the second theme is followed by a reedition of the charming third theme this time in the key of b flat minor. Another interlude in a minor follows hinting the theme of the second movement and ends in a desperate climax. The dramatic and exciting movement is closed by a solitary trumpet signal and its flute echo, the final point is set by a single pizzicato tone of cellos and basses.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 5 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

The last movement is an extended sonata form, characterized by drastic changes in mood and tempo, the sudden change of glorious soaring melody to deep agony. The movement is punctuated by three hammer blows. Alma quoted her husband as saying that these were three mighty blows of fate befallen by the hero, “the third of which fells him like a tree”.

She identified these blows with three later events in Gustav Mahler’s own life: the death of his eldest daughter Maria Anna Mahler, the diagnosis of an eventually fatal heart condition, and his forced resignation from the Vienna Opera and departure from Vienna. When he revised the work, Mahler removed the last of these three hammer blows so that the music built to a sudden moment of stillness in place of the third blow.

Some modern performances restore the third strike of the hammer. The piece ends with the same rhythmic motif that appeared in the first movement, but the chord above it is a simple A minor triad, rather than A major turning into A minor. After the third ‘hammer blow’ passage, the music gropes in darkness and then the trombones and horns begin to offer consolation. However after they turn briefly to major they fade away and the final bars erupt in minor.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 6 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

In the tempo of a minuet. A major.

Mahler dedicated the second movement to “the flowers on the meadow”. In contrast to the violent forces of the first movement, it starts as a graceful Menuet but also features stormier episodes.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

Based on the poem Todtenfeier by Adam Mickiewicz.

With deeply serious and solemn expression. With this funeral march and the eloquence of its thematic material, the power of its architectural structures, the emotional thrust of its inspiration and its concision of thought, Mahler assumes for the first time the full stature of a symphonist in the great German tradition. The shadow of Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) hovers over the opening bars with a long tremolando and a first subject on the lower strings that is 43 bars long. Yet the composer’s distinctive voice asserts itself in such features as the dominant-tonic melodic intervals and the alternation between major and minor.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 2 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

Finally, the fifth movement is amazing; a long and continued tone of the F horn gives the signal to return to reality and cheerfulness. The gloomy atmosphere of the first two movements is blown away, the tender romance of the fourth movement is left behind. Serene calmness reigns, an exuberant Allegro romps around from one key to the other as if the depressions of before had never existed.

The true joy of life rules again, rising to new heights still higher until the grandiose, brightly shining climax in the key of D major. We are back to life again!

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 5 - 5th Movement with Lew Smoley.

The third movement, a scherzo, with alternating sections in 2/4 and 6/8 metre, quotes extensively from Mahler’s early song “Ablösung im Sommer” (Relief in Summer). In the trio section, a complete mood changes from playful to contemplative occurs with an offstage posthorn Bb (or flugelhorn Bb) solo. The reprise of the scherzo music is unusual, as it is interrupted several times by the posthorn melody. See The Post restaurant.


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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The first movement, which for the most part has the character of a march, features a motif consisting of an A major triad turning to A minor over a distinctive timpani rhythm. The chords are played by trumpets and oboes when first heard, with the trumpets sounding most loudly in the first chord and the oboes in the second. This motif, which some commentators have linked with fate, reappears in subsequent movements.
The first movement also features a soaring melody which the composer’s wife, Alma Mahler, claimed represented her. This melody is often called the “Alma theme”. A restatement of that theme at the movement’s end marks the happiest point of the symphony.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 6 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley from ClassicalPodcasts.com.

Very slowly, mysteriously. A minor. “Midnight song”.

At this point, in the sparsely instrumentated fourth movement, we hear an alto solo singing a setting of Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Midnight Song” from Also sprach Zarathustra “O Mensch! Gib acht!” (“O man! Take heed!”), with thematic material from the first movement woven into it.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

The scherzo marks a return to the unrelenting march rhythms of the first movement, though in a ‘triple-time’ metrical context. Its trio (the middle section), marked Altväterisch (‘old-fashioned’), is rhythmically irregular (4/8 switching to 3/8 and 3/4) and of a somewhat gentler character. According to Alma Mahler, in this movement Mahler “represented the unrhythmic games of the two little children, tottering in zigzags over the sand”. 
The chronology of its composition suggests otherwise. The movement was composed in the summer of 1903, when Maria Anna (born November 1902) was less than a year old. Anna Justine was born a year later in July 1904. Contemporary interpreters and conductors appear to have accepted Alma Mahler’s characterization nevertheless.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 6 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The cheerful fifth movement, “Es sungen drei Engel”, is one of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs, (whose text itself is loosely based on a 17th-century church hymn, which Paul Hindemithlater used in its original form in his Symphony “Mathis der Maler”) about the redemption of sins and comfort in belief. Here, a children’s choir imitating bells and a female chorus join the alto solo.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - 5th Movement with Lew Smoley.

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 was written in Year 1904 and Year 1905, with repeated revisions to the scoring. Although the symphony is often described as being in the key of E minor, its tonal scheme is more complicated. The symphony’s Movement 1: Langsam (Adagio) – Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo moves from B minor (introduction) to E minor. The work ends with Movement 5: Rondo-Finale in C Major.

This symphony concludes the trio of Mahlers ‘middle’ instrumental symphonies (No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7).

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 7 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

Of the great finale, Bruno Walter wrote, “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.

The movement begins very softly with a broad D-major chorale melody, which slowly builds to a loud and majestic conclusion culminating on repeated D major chords with bold statements on the timpani.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 3 - 6th Movement with Lew Smoley.

The movement opens with horns calling to each other. The second horn is muted, however, to create the illusion of distance. Scampering woodwinds imitating somewhat grotesque bird calls pass off into the distance, as the trumpets sound the major-minor seal from the sixth symphony. The horns introduce a rich, somewhat bucolic (A) theme, surrounded by dancing strings and a march rhythm from his song “Revelge”.

This theme leads to some confusion about the key, as it switches between C major and C minor every few beats. The rural mood is heightened by a gentle, rustic dance for the (B) section – typical of Mahler at his most carefree and childlike – as well as by the gentle clanking of distant cow-bells in the returns of the introductory section. The malicious (C) theme, upon its return, is arabesqued by the Revelge rhythms and bird calls from earlier in the movement.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 7 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The Symphony No. 4 in G major by Gustav Mahler was written in 1899 and 1900, though it incorporates a song originally written in 1892. The song, “Das himmlische Leben”, presents a child’s vision of Heaven. It is sung by a soprano in the work’s fourth and last movement. Although typically described as being in the key of G major, the symphony employs a progressive tonal scheme (‘(b)/G–E’).

Mahler’s first four symphonies are often referred to as the “Wunderhorn” symphonies because many of their themes originate in earlier songs by Mahler on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn). The fourth symphony is built around a single song, “Das himmlische Leben”. It is prefigured in various ways in the first three movements and sung in its entirety by a solo soprano in the fourth movement.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 4 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

The fourth movement (the second ‘Nachtmusik’) contrasts with the first in that it illustrates a more intimate and ‘human’ scene. With its ‘amoroso’ marking and reduced orchestration (trombones, tuba and trumpets are silent and the woodwinds are reduced by half) this movement has been described as ‘a long stretch of chamber music set amidst this huge orchestral work’.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 7 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley.

Moderately, not rushed, Sonata form. Flutes and sleigh bells open the unusually restrained first movement (and used later with a melodic theme known commonly as the ‘bell theme’, which helps define sections throughout the movement) often described as possessing classical poise. As would be expected for the first movement of a symphony, the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 is in sonata form.

A listening guide of Symphony No. 4 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

“Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving” (Gustav Mahler).

• Part I is based on the (sacred) Latin text of a 9th-century Christian hymn for Pentecost, Veni creator spiritus (“Come, Creator Spirit”).
• Part II is a setting of the words from the (secular) closing scene of Goethe’s Faust. The depiction of an ideal of redemption through eternal womanhood (das Ewige-Weibliche).

The two parts are unified by a common idea, that of redemption through the power of love, a unity conveyed through shared musical themes.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 8 - Intro with Lew Smoley.

Leisurely moving, without haste. Scherzo and Trio. The second movement is a scherzo that features a part for a solo violin whose strings are tuned a tone higher than usual. The violin depicts Freund Hein, (lit. “Friend Henry”) a figure from medieval German art; Hain (or Hein) is a traditional German personification of death, invented by poet Matthias Claudius.

Freund Hein is a skeleton who plays the fiddle and leads a Totentanz or “danse macabre”. According to Mahler’s widow, Alma, Mahler took inspiration for this movement from an 1872 painting by the Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901) entitled Self-Portrait with Death playing the Fiddle (violin solo). The scherzo represents his dance and the unusual tuning of the violin adds tension to its sound and contributes to the music’s ghostly character.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 4 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The second part of the symphony follows the narrative of the final stages in Goethe’s poem-the journey of Faust’s soul, rescued from the clutches of Mephistopheles, on to its final ascent into heaven.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 8 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

Peacefully, somewhat slowly. Theme and variations. The third movement is a solemn processional march cast as a set of variations. Mahler uses the theme and variation structure in a more unconventional way.

This movement can be divided into five main sections: A1 – B1 – A2 – B2 – A3 – CODA. The theme is presented in the first 16 bars of A1, but the true variations don’t appear until section A3, although the theme is developed slightly within the preceding sections; sections A1, A2, B1, and B2 are in bar form. This movement remains mostly in G major, but does modulate to D minor, E minor, and E major; the B2 section has a rather unstable tonality, being more chromatic and moving through many keys.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 4 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

As the second part of the symphony follows the above-mentioned third movement, the Scherzo. Totally unexpected, the character of the symphony seems to change: A joyful and exuberant, nearly burlesque atmosphere, caused by the typical Mahlerian rural valses, seems to spread, but it does not seem to be serious, rather forced, nearly exaggerated, as if one tries to chase away a depression by artificial cheerfulness, to turn towards a life full of force and energy in order not having to listen to the inner tragic.

The irony which often can be found in Mahler’s other Scherzi is completely missing, instead, tragic sighs of the wind instruments are heard among the valses over and over again, the joyful motion is interrupted by phases of deep thoughtfulness where wistful wind phrases imitate each other like echoes. In a sharp and vehement ending, the Scherzo stops abruptly.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 5 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The Purgatorio movement (originally entitled Purgatorio oder Inferno (Purgatory or Hell)) but the word “Inferno” was struck out, is a brief vignette presenting a struggle between alternately bleak and carefree melodies with a perpetuum mobile accompaniment, that are soon subverted by a diabolical undercurrent of more cynical music.

The short movement fails to end in limbo though, as after a brief recapitulation a sudden harp arpeggio and gong stroke pull the rug out from under it; it is consigned to perdition by a final grim utterance from the double basses.

“Purgatorio oder Inferno“. 

On the title page of the short score. The title page was cut in two with scissors or a razor blade. The word “Pergatorio” might have been suggested to Mahler by the identical title of a set of poems by Siegfried Lipiner (1856-1911). Because Alma had always disliked him she would have destroyed Mahler’s reference to him. However, the word “Purgatorio” was very appropriate, considering Mahler’s present ordeal.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley

The scene is now set for the peculiarities of the second scherzo, which has a somewhat driven and harried character, and this also has significant connections to Mahler’s recent work: the sorrowful first movement of Das Lied von der Erde, Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde. There is an annotation on the cover of the draft to the effect that in this movement “The Devil dances with me”, and at the very end Mahler wrote “Ah! God! Farewell my lyre!”.

Cooke’s version finishes with a percussion coda employing both timpanists, bass drum, and a large military drum which is to be muffled, that leads directly into the final slow movement. This scherzo does not resemble the second scherzo in spirit; it is far more grave and sinister. Some consider it to be Mahler’s last “Horror Scherzo”.

The use of the military drum stems from a funeral procession that Mahler once observed: one day in the winter of 1907 when the Mahlers were staying in New York, the cortége of a deceased fire chief passed way below their hotel window, and from high up the only sound that could be heard was the muffled stroke of a large bass drum. The introduction to the fifth movement re-enacts this scene as a rising line on tubas supported by two double bassoons slowly tries to make headway and is repeatedly negated by the loud (but muffled) drum strokes.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley 

The very opening of the symphony (which is in the key of F-sharp major) maintains a connection with the final movement of the Ninth. A long, bleak Andante melody for violas alone leads to the exposition of the slow first theme in the strings. This theme is developed and another, lighter theme is exposed. The music dies away and the violas repeat the opening theme.

With slight variation, the opening adagio is repeated and developed in a growing intensity. This also soon dies away, leaving several variations upon the more light second theme. This works up to the climax: an extremely powerful variation upon the first theme. This intense restatement culminates in a terrifying dissonance. The music after this massive outburst becomes very quiet and does not suggest any resolution to the darkness of the climax.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley

The second movement, the first of two brilliant Scherzo movements, consists of two main ideas, the first of which is notated in consistently changing metres, which would have proved a challenge to Mahler’s conducting technique had he lived to perform the symphony. This alternates with a joyful and typically Mahlerian Ländler.

It is almost certainly this movement Paul Stefan (1879-1943) had in mind when he described the symphony as containing “gaiety, even exuberance” (Cooke’s translation).

Movement 2: Scherzo. Schnelle Viertel

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley

Symphony No. 10 was written in the summer of 1910, and was his final composition. At the time of Mahler’s death the composition was substantially complete in the form of a continuous draft; but not being fully elaborated at every point, and mostly not orchestrated, it was not performable in that state. Only the first movement is regarded as reasonably complete and performable as Mahler intended. Perhaps as a reflection of the inner turmoil he was dealing with at the time (Mahler knew he had a failing heart and his wife had committed infidelity), the 10th Symphony is arguably his most musically dissonant work.

Mahler started his work on his Tenth Symphony 07-1910 in Toblach, and ended his efforts in September the same year. He never managed to complete the orchestral draft before his premature death at the age of fifty from a streptococcal infection of the blood.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - Intro with Lew Smoley

The final movement, marked zurückhaltend (“very slowly and held back”; literally, “reservedly”), opens with only strings. Commentators have noted the similarity of the opening theme in particular to the hymn tune Eventide (Abide With Me is a well-known Christian hymn composed by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847).

But most importantly it incorporates a direct quote from the Rondo-Burleske’s middle section. Here it becomes an elegy. After several impassioned climaxes the movement becomes increasingly fragmented and the coda ends quietly.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 9 - 4th Movement with Lew Smoley

The third movement, in the form of a rondo, displays the final maturation of Mahler’s contrapuntal skills. It opens with a dissonant theme in the trumpet which is treated in the form of a double fugue. The following five-note motif introduced by strings in unison recalls of Symphony No. 5, Movement 2: Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz.

There are two similar fugues in the movement, of which the final is unique in that it presents the subject in subsequent fifths instead of the fifth and the octave as most fugues do. The violent contrapuntal music is leads twice by a sarcastic parody of Viennese popular music at the time, such as that of Franz Franz Lehar (1870-1948).

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 9 - 3rd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The second movement is a series of dances, and opens with a rustic Ländler, which becomes distorted to the point that it no longer resembles a dance. It contains shades Mahler’s Symphony no.4, Movement 2: In gemächlicher Bewegung, in the distortion of a traditional dance into a bitter and sarcastic one.

Traditional chord sequences are altered into near-unrecognizable variations, turning the rustic yet gradually decaying C major introductory Ländler into a vicious whole-tone waltz, saturated with chromaticism and frenetic rhythms. Strewn amidst these sarcastic dances is a slower and calmer Ländler which reintroduces the “sighing” motif from the first movement. The movement ends with a cheeky pianissimo nod from the piccolo and contrabassoon. 

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 9 - 2nd Movement with Lew Smoley.

The first movement embraces a loose sonata form. The key areas provide a continuation of the tonal juxtaposition displayed in earlier works (notably the Symphonies No. 6 and No. 7). The work opens with a hesitant, syncopated rhythmic motif (which Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) suggested is a depiction of Mahler’s irregular heartbeat, which is heard throughout the movement).

The brief introduction also presents two other ideas: a three-note motif announced by the harp that provides much of the musical basis for the rest of the movement, and a muted horn fanfare that is also heard later. The main theme quotes the opening motif of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)‘s Piano Sonata No. 26 “Les Adieux”, Op. 81a, which coincidentally marked a turning point in Mahler’s early musical career as he performed “Les Adieux” during his graduation recital in college.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 9 - 1st Movement with Lew Smoley.

The emotional weight of the symphony is resolved by the long final movement, which incorporates and ties together music from the earlier movements, whereby the opening passage of the symphony, now transferred to the horns, is found to be the answer to tame the savage dissonance that had racked the end of the first movement.

The music of the flute solo that was heard after the introductory funeral scene can now return to close the symphony peacefully, and unexpectedly, in the principal key of F-sharp major. The draft for this movement reveals that Mahler had originally written the ending in B-flat major, but in the process of revision worked the same music into F-sharp, the key of the first movement.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - 5th Movement with Lew Smoley