MAHLER ’ S TITAN
a Mahler clique ) applauded warmly . For in what was probably the most remarkable and daring first symphony ever written ( only Berlioz ’ s Symphonie fantastique can match its shock value ), Mahler revealed himself as fully and radically himself , and audiences simply were not ready for that .
Strangely , Mahler had expected an easy success . As he later told his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner : “ Naively , I imagined it would be child ’ s play for performers and listeners , and would have such immediate appeal that I should be able to live on the profits and go on composing .” Yet he was also fully aware of the originality of his artistic vision . Of his first two symphonies he wrote : “ My whole life is contained in them : I have set down in them my experience and suffering … to anyone who knows how to listen , my whole life will become clear .”
When Mahler was composing this work , he would have dearly loved to have been able “ to live on the profits ,” for he was leading a rather precarious existence . There were no summers off or peaceful cottages deep in the woods for him then , and any composing he accomplished had to be done in odd hours , often late at night . He jumped rapidly from one opera house to another , as assistant and eventually conductor . Symphony No . 1 was composed during the winter of 1887 – 1888 in moments stolen from his work as co-conductor of the Leipzig Stadttheater ; by May , he had been forced to resign . In September , he signed a contract with the Royal Opera House in Budapest , but that too lasted little more than a year .
The symphony the Budapest audience heard was different from the one we hear today . Already an innovator in matters of symphonic form , Mahler had originally created a five-movement work , including a slow movement , “ Blumine ,” that he eventually tossed out . He called it a “ Symphonic Poem .” The subtitle “ Titan ,” after a novel by Jean Paul Richter , was later added , then dropped as Mahler grew uneasy with having non-musical programs attached to his symphonies . Unsatisfied , he returned many times to revise this work : reducing it to the conventional four movements and refining its orchestration . The version we hear now is his last word from 1906 .
Mahler admitted the work was inspired by a passionate love : “ The symphony begins where the love affair ends ; it is based on the affair which preceded the symphony in the emotional life of the composer .” It also incorporated themes from the composer ’ s early song cycle , Songs of a Wayfarer , written in 1884 .
Mahler marked the slow introduction to the first movement “ Wie ein Naturlaut ”—“ like a sound of nature .” He compared it to life awakening on a beautiful spring morning . A quiet pedal on A , stretching from highest violins to lowest basses , hovers expectantly . Gradually , little motives come to life : a pattern of descending notes in various woodwinds , a military fanfare on the clarinets ( Mahler grew up in an army garrison town ), woodwind bird calls . Then the tempo accelerates , the key solidifies on D major , and we hear in the cellos the jaunty walking theme of the second song of the Wayfarer cycle , in which the disappointed lover strides out into the countryside to drown his grief in nature ’ s beauty . Notice how parts of the theme are tossed chamber-music style from instrument to instrument ; this is a Mahler trademark you will hear throughout the work . Later , the walking song returns and gradually builds to a big climax , the only loud moment in this subtle movement . En route to this climax , listen for a series of heavily accented , downward swoops in the violins ; this anguished music will return much later in the symphony ’ s finale .
The second movement is a robust peasant ländler dance based on the composer ’ s 1880 song , “ Hans und Grethe ,” and likely inspired by his rural Bohemian childhood . The clattering sounds are the violas and cellos striking the strings with the wooden part of their bows . The middle section is very sentimental , even a little boozy , with lurching glissandos for the strings and some tipsy dissonant harmonies for the woodwinds .
The funeral-march third movement in D minor is what really outraged Mahler ’ s first audiences , for it mixes tragedy and levity , “ vulgar ” music with “ serious ” symphonic themes in a schizophrenic manner unique to this composer . The stifled sound of a muted solo bass lugubriously introduces the German children ’ s song “ Brüder Martin ” ( better known to us as “ Frère Jacques ”) as a funeral dirge , which spreads solemnly in canon through the orchestra . Then Mahler abruptly launches an incongruous episode of up-tempo popular music , circa 1880 , mingling traces of klezmer with the schmaltz of a Hungarian gypsy cafe . And then amid all this craziness , he offers up a lyrical section of great peace and loveliness , using the melody of the last of the Wayfarer songs , in which the unhappy lover finds solace under a linden tree .
“ The cry of a wounded heart ” ( Mahler ’ s description ) assaults us in the screaming , violently dissonant opening of the finale . Hysteria reigns for many moments , only to yield unexpectedly to peace : one of Mahler ’ s most beautiful spun-out melodies shared between the cellos and violins . The frenzy returns , but trumpet fanfares hint of triumph to come . But first we return to the slow morning music with which the symphony began . In a final struggle , the heavy downward-swooping violin motive from that movement finds resolution in the trumpet victory theme . Following Mahler ’ s instructions , the seven horn players rise to their feet and play “ as if to drown out the entire orchestra ” in one of the most thrilling conclusions in the symphonic repertoire .
Instrumentation : Four flutes including two piccolos , four oboes including English horn , three bassoons including contrabassoon , seven horns , four trumpets , three trombones , tuba , two timpani , percussion harp and strings .
Notes by Janet E . Bedell , © 2018
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