Symphony No. 5 (Mahler)
Encyclopedia
The Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor 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 funereal trumpet
solo that opens the work and the frequently performed Adagietto.
The musical canvas and emotional scope of the work, which lasts over an hour, are huge. After its premiere
, Mahler is reported to have said, “Nobody understood it. I wish I could conduct the first performance fifty years after my death.” Conductor Herbert von Karajan
said that when one hears Mahler's Fifth, “you forget that time has passed. A great performance of the Fifth is a transforming experience. The fantastic finale almost forces you to hold your breath.”
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). 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."
made up of:
1The part is written for a clarinet in D in the score, but as this instrument is now virtually obsolete, almost all clarinettists play this part on an E flat clarinet. In the Critical Edition of the score published in 2001 (see below), the editors have the second player taking the E flat clarinet part with the third doubling on bass clarinet only.
2Mahler uses a Solo obbligato Horn in the Scherzo. However, this is not counted as a seventh horn because only four other horns play in that movement.
, Leipzig
. A second "New edition", incorporating revisions that Mahler made in 1904, appeared in 1905. Final revisions made by Mahler in 1911 did not appear until 1964 (ed. Ratz), when the score was re-published in the Complete Edition of Mahler's works. In 2001, Edition Peters published a further revised edition (ed. Kubik) as part of the New Complete Critical Edition Series. This edition is the most accurate edition available so far. Previous editions have now gone out of print.
:
The first two movements constitute Part I of the symphony (as designated by Mahler in the score), the long Scherzo constitutes Part II, and the last two movements constitute Part III.
The piece is generally regarded as Mahler's most conventional symphony up to that point, but from such an unconventional composer it still had many peculiarities. It almost has a four movement structure, as the first two can easily be viewed as essentially a whole. The symphony also ends with a Rondo, in the classical style. Some peculiarities are the funeral march
that opens the piece (starting with a rhythmic figure that unmistakably references the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony
), and the Adagietto for harp and strings that interrupts the booming score.
A performance of the work takes around 70 minutes.
film Death in Venice
. However it was frequently performed on its own before then, chiefly because in the early 20th century music programmers did not believe whole Mahler symphonies would be acceptable to audiences. Indeed, the British
premiere of the entire Fifth Symphony came thirty-six years after the Adagietto alone had been introduced; that performance of the Adagietto was conducted by Henry Wood
at a Proms concert in 1909.
It lasts for approximately 10 minutes, and Mahler adds the instruction sehr langsam (very slowly). This has led to some conductors taking the movement well over its normal duration, in some cases nearly 12 minutes (viz. recordings by Eliahu Inbal
, Herbert von Karajan
, and Claudio Abbado
). However, in recent years the trend appears to have moved away from such extreme tempi, notably in the swiftly paced (9-1/2 minute) inaugural recording from Simon Rattle
as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
.
The Adagietto was also conducted by Leonard Bernstein
at the mass
at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
on 8 June 1968, the day of the burial of Robert Kennedy. Bernstein also briefly discusses this section along with the opening bars of the 2nd movement in his Charles Eliot Norton lectures
from 1973.
The Adagietto was the music used by figure skating ice dancers, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, from Canada, at the 2010 Winter Olympics. They performed their free dance to this music at both the Olympics and the 2010 World Championships. Virtue and Moir won the gold medal medal at both events.
n province of Carinthia
in June 1901. Mahler himself was delighted with his new-found status as the owner of a grand villa. According to friends, he could hardly believe how far he had come from his humble beginnings. He had one of the best jobs in the musical world as Director of the Vienna Court Opera and was the principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the world’s great orchestras. His own music was also starting to be successful. But he had not yet found the love of his life. This last missing element in his life fell into place later in 1901 when he met Alma Schindler. By the time he was back at his summer villa in summer 1902, they were married and she was expecting their first child.
On the negative side, Mahler had experienced severe health problems in February 1901 when he suffered a sudden major hemorrhaging and his doctor later told him that he had come within an hour of bleeding to death. The composer spent quite a while recuperating and doubtless was shaken by the experience.
With so much going on in an artist’s life it is no surprise that the music Mahler started writing in summer 1901 was noticeably different from the music he had previously written. With hindsight we can see that this was the beginning of what was to become Mahler’s middle period. Symphonies five, six and seven all belong to this period and have much in common, and are also markedly different from the first four, which all have strong links to vocal music. For example, symphonies two, three and four all include singers, whereas none of the middle three symphonies have them. The middle symphonies are pure orchestral works and are, by Mahler’s standards, taut and lean. As his wife said of the composer at this time, “he was at the height of his powers”.
Nostalgia begins to creep into the music during Mahler’s middle period. The first four symphonies were written during the composer’s twenties and thirties. The middle three were written by a man in his forties while the last works were written in the shadow of some terrible personal tragedies that struck Mahler in 1907. This nostalgia in Mahler’s music is often linked with music associated with the composer’s love of nature. This is particularly true in the sixth and seventh symphonies where Mahler includes distant cowbells in the orchestra. In the fifth symphony this longing is most clearly heard in the middle movement with its solo horn.
Counterpoint
also becomes a more important element in Mahler’s music from the fifth symphony onwards. The ability to write good counterpoint was highly cherished by Baroque
composers and Johann Sebastian Bach
is regarded as the greatest composer of contrapuntal music. Thus, it is only logical that Bach played an important part in Mahler’s musical life at this time. He was a subscriber to the edition of Bach’s collected works that was being published at the turn of the century, later conducting and arranging works by Bach. Mahler’s renewed interest in counterpoint can best be heard in the third and the final movements of the fifth symphony.
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
was composed in 1901 and 1902, mostly during the summer months at Mahler's cottage at Maiernigg. Among its most distinctive features are the funereal trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
solo that opens the work and the frequently performed Adagietto.
The musical canvas and emotional scope of the work, which lasts over an hour, are huge. After its premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
, Mahler is reported to have said, “Nobody understood it. I wish I could conduct the first performance fifty years after my death.” Conductor Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
said that when one hears Mahler's Fifth, “you forget that time has passed. A great performance of the Fifth is a transforming experience. The fantastic finale almost forces you to hold your breath.”
The symphony is sometimes described as being in the key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
of C minor since the first movement is in this key (the finale, however, is in D). 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."
Instrumentation
The piece is scored for a large orchestraOrchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
made up of:
- woodwindWoodwind instrumentA woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against a sharp edge or through a reed, causing the air within its resonator to vibrate...
s: 4 fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s (3rd & 4th doubling piccoloPiccoloThe piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
s; for the last two bars of the Scherzo, all four flutes play piccolo), 3 oboeOboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s (3rd doubling English horn), 3 clarinetClarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s in B-flat (3rd doubling clarinet in D1 and bass clarinetBass clarinetThe bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
), 3 bassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s (3rd doubling contrabassoonContrabassoonThe contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
) - brassBrass instrumentA brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
: 6 hornHorn (instrument)The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s in F2, 4 trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s in B-flat and F, 3 tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, tubaTubaThe tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the... - percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
: timpaniTimpaniTimpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, bass drumBass drumBass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, snare drumSnare drumThe snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
, cymbalCymbalCymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, triangleTriangle (instrument)The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, tam-tam, whipWhip (instrument)In music, a whip or slapstick is a percussion instrument consisting of two wooden boards joined by a hinge at one end. When the boards are brought together rapidly, the sound is reminiscent of the crack of a whip. It is often used in modern orchestras, bands, and percussion ensembles.There are...
, glockenspielGlockenspielA glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone... - stringsString sectionThe string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
: harpHarpThe harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
, violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s I, II, violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
s, violoncellos, double bassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
es
1The part is written for a clarinet in D in the score, but as this instrument is now virtually obsolete, almost all clarinettists play this part on an E flat clarinet. In the Critical Edition of the score published in 2001 (see below), the editors have the second player taking the E flat clarinet part with the third doubling on bass clarinet only.
2Mahler uses a Solo obbligato Horn in the Scherzo. However, this is not counted as a seventh horn because only four other horns play in that movement.
Revisions of the score
The score appeared first in print in 1904 at PetersEdition Peters
Edition Peters, also known as C.F.Peters Musikverlag, is a German music publishing house, founded in Leipzig in 1800.From the 1860s it was largely run by members the Hinrichsen family, who were Jewish. The company was confiscated by the Nazis and administered by the "Trustee of Jewish Property"....
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
. A second "New edition", incorporating revisions that Mahler made in 1904, appeared in 1905. Final revisions made by Mahler in 1911 did not appear until 1964 (ed. Ratz), when the score was re-published in the Complete Edition of Mahler's works. In 2001, Edition Peters published a further revised edition (ed. Kubik) as part of the New Complete Critical Edition Series. This edition is the most accurate edition available so far. Previous editions have now gone out of print.
Structure
The work is in five movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
:
- Trauermarsch (Funeral March). In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt (C-sharp minor)
- Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz (Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence) (A minorA minorA minor is a minor scale based on A, consisting of the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G...
) - Scherzo. Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (D majorD majorD major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....
) - Adagietto. Sehr langsam (F majorF majorF major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...
) - Rondo-Finale. Allegro - Allegro giocoso. Frisch (D major)
The first two movements constitute Part I of the symphony (as designated by Mahler in the score), the long Scherzo constitutes Part II, and the last two movements constitute Part III.
The piece is generally regarded as Mahler's most conventional symphony up to that point, but from such an unconventional composer it still had many peculiarities. It almost has a four movement structure, as the first two can easily be viewed as essentially a whole. The symphony also ends with a Rondo, in the classical style. Some peculiarities are the funeral march
Funeral march
A funeral march is a march, usually in a minor key, in a slow "simple duple" metre, imitating the solemn pace of a funeral procession. Some such marches are often considered appropriate for use during funerals and other sombre occasions, the most well-known being that of Chopin...
that opens the piece (starting with a rhythmic figure that unmistakably references the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1804–08. This symphony is one of the most popular and best-known compositions in all of classical music, and one of the most often played symphonies. It comprises four movements: an opening sonata, an andante, and a fast...
), and the Adagietto for harp and strings that interrupts the booming score.
A performance of the work takes around 70 minutes.
Adagietto
The fourth movement is arguably Mahler's most famous single piece of music, and is the most frequently performed extract from Mahler's works. It is perhaps best known for its use in the 1971 Luchino ViscontiLuchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
film Death in Venice
Death in Venice (film)
Death in Venice is a 1971 film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Dirk Bogarde and Björn Andrésen. The film is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann.-Plot:...
. However it was frequently performed on its own before then, chiefly because in the early 20th century music programmers did not believe whole Mahler symphonies would be acceptable to audiences. Indeed, the British
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
premiere of the entire Fifth Symphony came thirty-six years after the Adagietto alone had been introduced; that performance of the Adagietto was conducted by Henry Wood
Henry Wood (conductor)
Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...
at a Proms concert in 1909.
It lasts for approximately 10 minutes, and Mahler adds the instruction sehr langsam (very slowly). This has led to some conductors taking the movement well over its normal duration, in some cases nearly 12 minutes (viz. recordings by Eliahu Inbal
Eliahu Inbal
Eliahu Inbal is an Israeli conductor.Inbal studied violin at the Israeli Academy of Music and took composition lessons with Paul Ben-Haim...
, Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
, and Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
). However, in recent years the trend appears to have moved away from such extreme tempi, notably in the swiftly paced (9-1/2 minute) inaugural recording from Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
The Berlin Philharmonic, German: , formerly Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester , is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. In 2006, a group of ten European media outlets voted the Berlin Philharmonic number three on a list of "top ten European Orchestras", after the Vienna Philharmonic and the...
.
The Adagietto was also conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
at the mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
The Cathedral of St. Patrick is a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church in the United States...
on 8 June 1968, the day of the burial of Robert Kennedy. Bernstein also briefly discusses this section along with the opening bars of the 2nd movement in his Charles Eliot Norton lectures
Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense" and named for the university's former professor of fine arts. Distinguished creative figures and scholars in the arts, including painting,...
from 1973.
The Adagietto was the music used by figure skating ice dancers, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, from Canada, at the 2010 Winter Olympics. They performed their free dance to this music at both the Olympics and the 2010 World Championships. Virtue and Moir won the gold medal medal at both events.
Composition
Mahler wrote his fifth symphony during the summers of 1901 and 1902. This was a time of great change for the composer. On the positive side he moved into his own lakeside villa in the southern AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n province of Carinthia
Carinthia (state)
Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...
in June 1901. Mahler himself was delighted with his new-found status as the owner of a grand villa. According to friends, he could hardly believe how far he had come from his humble beginnings. He had one of the best jobs in the musical world as Director of the Vienna Court Opera and was the principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the world’s great orchestras. His own music was also starting to be successful. But he had not yet found the love of his life. This last missing element in his life fell into place later in 1901 when he met Alma Schindler. By the time he was back at his summer villa in summer 1902, they were married and she was expecting their first child.
On the negative side, Mahler had experienced severe health problems in February 1901 when he suffered a sudden major hemorrhaging and his doctor later told him that he had come within an hour of bleeding to death. The composer spent quite a while recuperating and doubtless was shaken by the experience.
With so much going on in an artist’s life it is no surprise that the music Mahler started writing in summer 1901 was noticeably different from the music he had previously written. With hindsight we can see that this was the beginning of what was to become Mahler’s middle period. Symphonies five, six and seven all belong to this period and have much in common, and are also markedly different from the first four, which all have strong links to vocal music. For example, symphonies two, three and four all include singers, whereas none of the middle three symphonies have them. The middle symphonies are pure orchestral works and are, by Mahler’s standards, taut and lean. As his wife said of the composer at this time, “he was at the height of his powers”.
Nostalgia begins to creep into the music during Mahler’s middle period. The first four symphonies were written during the composer’s twenties and thirties. The middle three were written by a man in his forties while the last works were written in the shadow of some terrible personal tragedies that struck Mahler in 1907. This nostalgia in Mahler’s music is often linked with music associated with the composer’s love of nature. This is particularly true in the sixth and seventh symphonies where Mahler includes distant cowbells in the orchestra. In the fifth symphony this longing is most clearly heard in the middle movement with its solo horn.
Counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
also becomes a more important element in Mahler’s music from the fifth symphony onwards. The ability to write good counterpoint was highly cherished by Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
composers and Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
is regarded as the greatest composer of contrapuntal music. Thus, it is only logical that Bach played an important part in Mahler’s musical life at this time. He was a subscriber to the edition of Bach’s collected works that was being published at the turn of the century, later conducting and arranging works by Bach. Mahler’s renewed interest in counterpoint can best be heard in the third and the final movements of the fifth symphony.
Premieres
- World premiere: October 18, 1904, CologneCologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
- conducted by the composer. - United States premiere: March 24, 1905, Cincinnati - conducted by Frank Van der StuckenFrank Van der StuckenFrank Valentine Van der Stucken was an American composer and conductor, and founder of the Cincinnati Symphony in 1895.-Biography:...
. - EnglishEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
premieres:- Of Adagietto only: August 31, 1909, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
- conducted by Henry WoodHenry Wood (conductor)Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...
during a Proms concert. - Of complete work: October 21, 1945, London - London Philharmonic OrchestraLondon Philharmonic OrchestraThe London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
conducted by Heinz Unger.
- Of Adagietto only: August 31, 1909, London
External links
- Analysis from Andante.com
- Analysis from Everything2.com
- Opening Trumpet solo from Mahler's Fifth Symphony
- Horn solo from Mahler's Fifth Symphony
- Free recording of Adagietto by the Columbia University Orchestra
- Free recording of the complete symphony by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.
- Gilbert KaplanGilbert KaplanGilbert Edmund Kaplan is an American businessman, former journalist and amateur conductor.He founded the magazine Institutional Investor in 1965. He was publisher of the magazine until 1990, and editor-in-chief for three more years, although he sold it in 1984 for $72 million...
: In One Note of Mahler, a World of Meaning. New York Times, 17 March 2002 (online)