Listening To Gustav Mahler's Symphony No.5

Gustav Mahler's fifth symphony deals with the difficult emotions associated with grief and death. It is also an excellent example of Mahler's reusing of thematic material throughout a movement, and across into other movements.

Mahler was inspired by the triumph at the premiere of his third symphony in 1902, and hurried with his wife Alma to their lakehouse in Maiernigg where he completed his fifth symphony that summer. This was his first symphony completed after his marriage to Alma, and she helped to copy out the score.

In terms of expressive content and method of composition, this symphony is unlike his previous works. It seeks to describe the progressive emotional states of the grieving process. It is a psychodrama - inner reality is the only reality.This is in contrast to his previous four symphonies, which were narrative dramas in the 19th century program music style. Also, more than his previous works, the fifth symphony was conceived as an whole orchestral entity; it was composed in full score, rather than composed on piano then orchestrated.

The symphony has five movements which are grouped to form three larger parts. Part One contains movement's one and two, Part Two contains movement three, and Part Three contains movement's four and five.

A brief breakdown of each movements emotional landscape gives a clear picture of Mahler's use of contrasting moods, dynamics and scale for different emotional developments. In this symphony, the musical journey plots the progress of people's experience of the grieving process.

Movement One

The symphony opens with a stark funeral fanfare initiated by a solitary trumpet. This section is emotionally uncluttered, and represents the immediacy and presence of death. This theme is the binding element of the first movement, returning three times, always representing the presence of death.

We are then introduced to a numb and monotonous funeral march. This theme represents the necessary rituals of death such as washing and dressing a corpse, the funeral ceremony, and entombment. We, the living, the mourners, are numb and quiet as we are in the early stages where the grieving process has not yet begun. In the presence of death however, our emotions (represented by Mahler's music) will not remain calm for long. In the second section of this first movement, we are presented with a theme labelled 'wild' - the grieving theme. This theme represents the initial pain of grief, and the revelation that the ritual of death is real.

Around halfway through the movement we have a temporary quiet consolation where Mahler quotes a song he had recently composed based on 'now the sun will rise as brightly', the text of which is based on a collection called Kindertotenlieder - 'Songs on the Death of Children' by German Romantic poet Friedrich Rückert.

The various themes in this movement are surrounded by the funeral music; they convey the internal responses to a terrible external reality.

Movement Two

The first movement acts as a prelude to this stormy and agitated second movement. Reflecting on our loss, we are filled with fiery rage at being left behind, at death, and at the reality of our own mortality. Our fury exhausted, the storm theme, unsustainable, eventually falls away. Near the end of the second movement we hear a hymn in D major which provides a glimpse of joy - all things will pass. This however can also not be sustained, and the darker, more tragic music of this movement returns. We will hear the hymn again though, in the final movement of the symphony.

Movement Three

Mahler reactivates the living soul by activating the body through dance. Here the dances vary from the rustic landler (a relatively slow Austrian country dance in three time), to a melancholy Viennese waltz.

Movement Four

The lyricism of this movement balances the ferocity of the second movement, and allows us to acknowledge our loss and remember the dead. We can manage our grief to the extent we can remember the best without feeling our worst.

Movement Five

This is a brilliant compositional tour de force, which concludes with the hymn of the second movement. The hymn is no longer a promise of things to come, but a promise fulfulled. The message portrayed is 'life goes on and life is good if we choose to make it so.'

This symphony was panned by the critics as they didn't understand it. It is now recognised it as a 20th century masterwork.

Conclusion

This work meets a lot of the criteria set out in the course materials, the contrast of themes clearly lays out moments of the intimate and of the colossal. This symphony, unlike the first four, contains no vocal parts with Mahler instead choosing to get the message across using only imaginative orchestration. There is a very clear sense of journey and development in this work, with certain themes representing certain emotions, recurring in order to evoke a particular mood. I particularly like the hymn which is heard in two different contexts, first in the second movement where it appears as a ray of sunshine through the clouds, only to be overwhelmed by the storm, and in the fifth where it ultimately prevails and acts as a triumphant conclusion to the symphony, as if to say 'live for the moment and do it well'.