Mahler's Fifth Symphony
Yuliia Lebid
PhD | Experienced Educator | Instructional Designer | Curriculum Developer | Facilitator | Public Speaker | Lifelong Learning Advocate
Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911) was an outstanding Austrian composer who was destined to be on the verge of a historical break. His work became a bridge between the late Austro-German romanticism of the XIX century and the modernism of the early century.
Mahler-composer had only a relatively narrow circle of devoted admirers during his lifetime, and only half a century after his death he gained true recognition as one of the greatest symphonists of the XX century.??
The legacy of Mahler the composer is relatively small and almost entirely consists of songs and symphonies, but over the past half-century he has confidently entered the concert repertoire, and for several decades he has been one of the most performed composers.
During his lifetime, Gustav Mahler was known primarily as one of the greatest opera and symphony conductors of his time,
The conducting profession in those days was still young and had just begun to separate from composing. This was largely due to the talent of Hans von Bülow, who in the 1960s conducted a number of outstanding Wagner productions before devoting himself entirely to performing works by other composers.
Mahler's conducting career lasted more than thirty years, taking almost all his time and energy. Therefore, he wrote his own works only in his free time - most often in summer. Mahler's Fifth Symphony was also written mainly in the summer months between 1901 and 1902. Such a "dotted line" in Mahler's compositional work is a feature of the composer.
An important condition for Mahler to create music was solitude. "I ask nothing from fate, - the composer wrote when he was working on the Fifth Symphony, - only a quiet place and a few weeks a year when I could belong only to myself, and perhaps at least one good performance of my works so that I could hear them once”.
The composer's place of solitude while working on the Fifth Symphony was his own villa (which, according to his friends, he was very proud of), and a small "composing hut".
The years of his work on the Fifth Symphony were the years when Mahler was at the pinnacle of his conducting career and held two of the most important musical positions in the empire. He was the chief conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the director of the Court Opera in Vienna (for this position the composer even became a Catholic). During the 10 years that Mahler headed the Vienna Court Opera, it turned into one of the best European theaters. This time is called the Golden Age of Vienna Opera.
In total, Mahler conducted more than 2000 opera performances during his conducting career, but his long work in opera houses did not affect his genre preferences. In his work he did not turn to stage genres - he wrote neither operas nor ballets. The main legacy of the composer is nine symphonies (the tenth remained unfinished) and several vocal-symphonic cycles that are inextricably linked with the symphonies.?
All of Mahler's symphonies are connected with each other and also with his chamber vocal works. Thus in the Fifth Symphony, there is a noticeable resemblance to the "Trismus" of the Second Symphony. There is also a parallel to the bitterly ironic grotesque of the mournful march of the First Symphony, as well as distinct motifs from other works. Such connections give grounds to think that all of Mahler's symphonies can be perceived as a cycle.
Of course, it is not such a cycle as, for example, Schubert's cycle of songs "The Winter's Way", which was planned and in which, despite the fact that the initial idea of 12 songs was transformed into 24, the integrity of the idea is still present. In the case of Mahler, the symphonies and vocal collections can be considered as parts of a supercycle - one main work, a large-scale mega-opus, which became a projection of the spiritual and moral evolution of the composer, an expression of his deep experience of cognition of the world. Each of the symphonies continues the semantic line of the previous one.
During the period when the Fifth Symphony was written, Mahler's private life also underwent changes. He met Alma Schindler, the daughter of a famous Viennese landscape painter. Alma Mahler was eighteen years younger than her husband. Smart, erudite, talented, and incredibly beautiful, she became the composer's muse. The fourth movement of the Fifth Symphony - the most popular and most performed of Mahler's works - Adagietto - is dedicated to Alma.
While working on the Fifth Symphony, they got married and Alma was expecting their first child.
Alma was musically gifted and even wrote music, but her work was resisted by her husband, who said "one musician in the family is enough. As a creative person, she was inclined to have an affair on the side, but overall their marriage can be considered happy. Alma outlived Gustav by 40 years and in addition to her composer husband, she inspired the architect W. Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus Higher School of Construction and Artistic Design), the writer F. Werfel (author of the novel about Verdi), and the painter O. Kokoschka to create masterpieces.
That was the time when the Fifth Symphony was written.
Now a few facts about the symphony itself.
Mahler said that for him "to write a symphony means to build a new world with all the means of available technique. With this idea of "world-building" in music, Mahler essentially completes the tradition of the philosophical classical-romantic symphony of Beethoven - Schubert - Brahms - Bruckner, the symphony, which sought to provide an answer to the eternal questions of existence, to determine the place of man in the world.
Mahler's symphonies are titanic attempts to search for truth and achieve harmony, which often leads the composer to violate established conceptions of beauty, to a seeming lack of form, incoherence, and eclecticism.?The composer repeatedly stated that his music is written "from the heart," not to enliven elaborate rational schemes. "Only a strong experience makes me capable of creativity," he said.
Thus, Mahler's symphonies are not symphonies in the strict sense of the word.?They are rather contrasting episodes and very operatic in spirit. But they have amazingly lively moods, beautiful melodies, a very subtle sonic flavor - that's why we love them.?
The Fifth Symphony is a kind of transitional stage in Mahler's work. It is at the turn of two periods. The composer can no longer follow the old paths and finds new ones in it.
The first thing that attracts attention in the Fifth Symphony is that the composer changes his attitude towards programming. In the symphonies that preceded the Fifth, Mahler actively turned to the word and poetic text in the hope of clarifying the content of his works. Mahler deciphered their programs in detail and even included poetic texts performed by soloists or choirs. But the composer quickly became convinced that plot explanations only mislead the listener.
In the Fifth Symphony, the composer, for the first time in his creative practice, refuses any written explanations or external program elements. And at the same time, we know that this symphony had a program that the composer shared only with close people without fixing it on paper.
This statement by Mahler will help us better understand exactly how the composer wanted us to hear his work.?
Mahler wrote to one of his correspondents, "It would be most agreeable to me if you would allow me not to speak in words about my intentions, which I think I have expressed so clearly in music... And without a word, you would understand what was in my heart. From the very nature of the music, it's easy to see that behind the individual themes, a real event was dramatically played out. The parallelism between music and life goes, perhaps, deeper and farther than can be traced.
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The Fifth Symphony was the beginning of a new dramatic cycle of three major symphonies devoid of an explanatory word. Mahler wrote that the new opuses "pose riddles" that can only be solved by those who have solved the previous ones.?
Composing music for Mahler was a facsimile of the life of the soul, an expression of the inexpressible. "As long as I can express my experience in words, I will surely make no music of it," the composer said. "The need to express oneself musically and symphonically arises only where a vague feeling reigns at the door that leads to 'another world' - a world where things are no longer separated by place and time.?
Mahler felt himself to be "the instrument on which the universe plays”
The first movement of the symphony is called the Trauermarsch (Funeral march).
?The trumpet solo at the opening of the first movement quotes the Generalmarsch of the Austro-Hungarian Army
It is especially interesting to see what the conductors do at the beginning of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. It has many variations and how this symphony begins can say a lot about the conductor and the interpretation.
Let's listen to the introduction to the symphony performed by different orchestras under the direction of famous conductors.
2?? Сlaudio Abbado?
3?? Daniel Barenboim
The trumpet solo is followed by a somber, funeral march (the primary theme) which is twice interrupted by a calmer secondary theme. In this part, we hear a slowly developing story or funeral procession. The first theme grows slowly and anxiously as an expression of mournful despair. A sense of the need to live somehow, this unbearable heaviness of being. The measured pacing of the music seems to soothe us, but on the other hand, does not let this emotion escape.
2???? If the first part draws some external images, the second part is rather connected with the images of the inner life, and this life, in general, not the most cheerful: despair, tragedy.
3???? The third movement is the bustle whose world Mahler portrayed in the scherzo. The many short themes are replaced by intertwining melodies, first by the violins and oboe, then moving on to other instruments. Here again a contrast can be heard - a tranquil songful theme emerges. One melody succeeds another, and the motif of the opening bars completes this grandiose picture.
4?? The fourth movement of the symphony, Adagietto, was written exclusively for string orchestra and harp. After the third impetuous moving movement, some kind of contrast was needed, and Mahler wrote the adagietto, which subsequently became his most famous music.
It is elegant and surprisingly beautiful. The melody reminds one of a human voice that sings without words. Of all of Mahler's symphonies, the Fifth Symphony was the most performed, but it was the adagietto that gained fame thanks to Luchino Visconti and John Neumeier.
Luchino Visconti used it as the main soundtrack for his film “Death in Venice” (1971), based on the novel by Thomas Mann. Mahler's music is not just admirably suited to the landscapes of Venice. It sounds like an expression of an ideal of unattainable beauty - fundamentally unattainable while reconciling with reality. Visconti's painting gave new meaning to this music.
I think it will also be interesting to see how our contemporary Theodore Curenzis uses adagietto in his video about Venice?
Mahler accompanied Adagietto with the instruction to perform - very slowly. But "very slowly" is a rather relative concept. That is why we can see very different very slow adagietto's in the history of the work. Let's compare them.
2?? Claudio Abbado?
3?? Simon Rattle?
5??And finally, how does the 5th Symphony end?
In the final movement of the symphony, the composer returns to the traditional classicist rondo finale (which he had not previously used) with its uninterrupted movement, healthy merriment, and the predominance of folk-song intonations.
Also in this part of the symphony, principles of development new to Mahler appear - imitative polyphony. And this indicates that the symphony stands at a crossroads. Next, behind it, a new phase of creativity will begin.
The new path that the composer took in the Fifth Symphony also played a role in the biography of the work: Mahler was not entirely satisfied with it. For many years he returned to work on it, making significant changes, and in 1911, on the eve of his death, he reorchestrated it completely. The first performance of the Fifth Symphony took place on 18 October 1904 in Cologne under the baton of the composer.