Symphony No. 1 in D major
Composed 1889/1898; Duration: 56 minutes
First BPO Performance: November 17 & 19, 1957 (Josef Krips, conductor)
Last BPO Performance: May 29-30, 2015 (JoAnn Falletta, conductor)
The original work, like Mahler’s career at the time, was much messier than the version we know today. During Mahler’s early years as an opera conductor during the 1880s, he held one unhappy and short-lived post after another, such as the year in Kassel, Germany, made worse by an unrealized love interest. The result was the original poetry and their eventual settings that would become Songs of the Wayfarer. Indeed, Mahler would move through conductorships at opera houses in Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, Hamburg, often navigating fraught political climates.
The conservative audience in Budapest may not have been accepting of the Jewish conductor-turned-composer’s massive symphony, but it may be more insightful to consider the possibility that it just wasn’t that good. At its premiere, the work was presented as a sort of quasi-symphonic poem in two halves, and the movements had descriptive titles with specific narrative connotations influenced by E.T.A. Hoffmann and medieval Italian poetry. The premiere also included an extra movement, an Andante titled Blumine that was recycled from an earlier work and is believed to have been dedicated to his aforementioned love interest. Ultimately, the audience was vexed, and even a colleague from his Vienna Conservatory days commented that “like many conductors before him, [Mahler] had proved not to be a composer.”
A significant stumble out of the gate for the aspiring symphonist, Mahler was undeterred. His income came from his success on the podium leading world-class operatic productions, and as such, he did not bear the burden of composing for money and could rely on his growing experience to fine-tune his works. For a decade, as he composed his next two symphonies, he continued to lead revised performances of his first symphony, dropping Blumine and the esoteric programmatic narrative, overhauling the orchestration, and adding—then dropping—the title “Titan” for its 1898 publication, leaving a mature, succinct, four-movement symphony. Later works would experiment with form, orchestration, and program, but his “Titan” (yes, the nickname stuck) would be largely a standard symphony that stood out for its quality—an ideal opening act for a remarkable symphonist.
High strings softly resonate as a foreboding Brahmsian figure descends, only to be interrupted by distant fanfare, first by clarinets, then offstage trumpets. The descending figure becomes a cuckoo, then a folksy melody—specifically, the song “I Went this Morning Over the Field" from Songs of the Wayfarer, which drives home the dawning allusion while creating a carefree atmosphere that contrasts the sober opening. The development resembles the opening in its humming strings and unsettled fragments, with melodic episodes emerging, such as a new horn fanfare. The mood becomes harrowing, building into a victorious climax and thrilling conclusion.
For his second movement, rather than the Classical minuet or modern scherzo, Mahler opts for his oft-used Ländler, a folksy dance that inspired the development of the waltz. Here, the dance has the unrestrained joy reminiscent of those he heard in the transient Bohemian village of his youth. The intimate trio section maintains an energetic lift and references to the now-deleted Blumine movement, and is naturally bookended by the hectic Ländler.
The third movement opens with stoic timpani and a demanding solo from the contrabass, who in the plaintive high register, presents a minor-keyed "Frère Jacques" (or "Bruder Jakob" in the German-language tradition) that proceeds in the round. The use of a nursery song for a funeral march is quintessential grim Mahlerian irony, only furthered by the music to follow: a Czech folk band enters the picture. The timpani is replaced by the harp, which leads the music, as if daydreaming, to another Wayfarer melody, "The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved." The funeral march returns, and the movement’s themes layer in near-cacophony, eventually fading as it processes away.
A shock of crash symbols, and the frenzied finale takes off. Later abandoned, the massive, stormy movement’s original title provides some insight into Mahler’s psychology: “Dall'inferno al Paradiso (From Hell to Heaven), as the sudden expression of a deeply wounded heart.” A forcefully militant first theme makes way for the second, a long, luxurious melody. Elements from the opening movement emerge, and the development section is a near-faithful recollection of the work’s opening, until the forceful theme creeps in, leading to a terrifying climax. But the clouds break for the sunny, triumphant conclusion.