Photo credit: Moritz Nähr

Gustav Mahler, one of the last great figures of the late Romantic movement, was at the same time one of the harbingers of twentieth-century music. Growing up Jewish but a convert to Catholicism, he faced culturally-ingrained anti-Semitism, and his volatile, eccentric, hypochondriacal personality made him a social outcast. Most of Mahler’s music expresses his battle against fate and the uncertainty of existence – which may explain how he could have written two of the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) immediately following the birth of his second daughter. In spite of his difficult personality, his brilliant conducting outweighed his negative qualities and his star rose quickly in the opera world.

Born in a small town in what is now the Czech Republic, Mahler showed early musical gifts. He entered the Vienna Conservatory at age 15 and in the summer of 1880, at 20, he landed the first of a series of minor conducting jobs in a summer theater in Austria, an apprenticeship which was essential for advancement in the world of opera. From 1891 to 1897, he was conductor at the Hamburg Opera and from 1894, of the subscription concerts there as well. By 1897 he was named Kapellmeister and then Director of the most prestigious musical organization of the time, the Vienna Hofoper. He left the post in acrimony in 1907, the result of Vienna’s virulent anti-Semitism and Mahler’s abrasive personality.

Such a meteoric rise and hectic schedule left little time for composing, usually only during the summer recess. Mahler, nevertheless, completed nine massive symphonies and numerous songs and song cycles. These works, especially the symphonies, were innovative and challenging; for nearly 50 years they were only occasionally performed. Only in the 1960s did they finally become standard fare in orchestra programs, championed by Leonard Bernstein. As late as 1972, however, Bernstein had to cajole and browbeat the Vienna Philharmonic to take Mahler’s music seriously.

Mahler created in his Fourth Symphony a work light in spirit and relatively simple in style, a relief from his usual musical complexity and melancholy philosophical underpinnings. While the extreme mood swings of his other symphonies expose the audience to an emotional roller coaster, the Fourth is easily digested – even charming. It is short for a Mahler symphony (55-60 minutes) and utilizes a more modest orchestra without trombones and tubas, although with extra woodwinds.

The symphony is of mixed vintage. Mahler composed the first three movements during the summers of 1899-1900, but he had already composed the fourth movement as a song for soprano solo and piano in 1892, which he immediately orchestrated. He used a fragment of it in the Third Symphony and finally the entire song as the conclusion to the Fourth

The central idea of the Fourth Symphony expresses a child’s view of heaven, with its promise of eternal peace and happiness set against the terror of death. The first movement, with its opening sleigh bell motive, creates a warm, cheerful atmosphere.

By contrast, the second movement sets the teeth on edge – as it was intended to do. It includes a solo violin tuned one step sharp to be played, as Mahler put it, “Wie eine Fiedel,” like a fiddle. Mahler intended the theme as “…the gruesome dance of death, led by a figure of popular demonology, Freund Hein spielt auf (Goodman Death leads the music). It is the mistuned fiddle of the skeletal figure of death.”

The following Adagio, a theme and set of free variations, is one of Mahler’s most beautiful, serene creations. Only towards the end, does its ethereal mood take on a slightly darker resonance in the concluding mysterious sound of pianissimo violin harmonics and flute.

The final movement is marked Sehr behaglich (very cozy or comfortable), reflected in the musical themes as well as the text. In sharp contrast to the massive endings of most of Mahler’s other symphonies, this symphony ends with a slow, peaceful fade. While seemingly incongruous with the rest of the Symphony, the soprano’s song – which, like many of Mahler’s songs, comes from the anthology of folk poetry Des Knabens Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn). It develops some of the programmatic elements in the rest of the work, including the opening sleigh bell motive and the dance of death in the Scherzo.

The Munich premiere took place in November 1901. Yet despite the relative accessibility of the music itself, it was a critical disaster. Both the critics and the public found the work confusing, neither a symphony nor program music – some even suggesting that it was a sick musical joke. Likewise, even admirers of the Symphony have seen it as a hybrid form combining program music using traditional symphonic sonata-allegro, scherzo and variation structures. One critic, in fact, stated the work should be played backwards, like the Hebrew Scriptures. Only the fact that the critic was himself Jewish saves this remark from being one of the innumerable anti-Semitic slights aimed at Mahler throughout his career in Germany and Vienna.

Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com