In my early childhood in the forest of Iglau, it moved me oddly and impressed itself upon me. For I do not care whether the ringing comes from such noises or in the thousandfold song of the birds, in the howling of the storm, in the rippling of the waves or in the crackling of the fire. Just so, from different directions, the themes must come.
Gustav Mahler’s themes did come from all directions, and just as easily they flow every which way. Cascades of scales, cracks of booming brass, and parades of fantastical forest creatures populate Mahler’s first symphony, a work inspired by everything that bloomed around the composer. He was moved by nature throughout his career, but Mahler was also influenced by the art and literature he consumed.
We know Mahler as a talented symphonist, a monumental conductor, and an avid outdoorsman. But Mahler was also a voracious reader and drew some of his musical inspiration from what he read. Mahler was particularly fond of Fyodor Dostoyevsky—he once commented that reading Dostoyevsky was more important than learning counterpoint—as well as the German author Jean Paul. The symphony’s nickname, Titan, might be borrowed from Jean Paul’s book of the same name. Paul’s novel aimed to critique and dispel leading German philosophies in the early 1800s; its characters point out differences of cultural opinion and challenge controversial issues. Each character is set in his own way, and all eventually have their downfall. It is the protagonist, the Titan, who survives only by realizing that a holistic approach to thought—not abiding by any one definitive philosophy—creates a lasting hero. Mahler treats his melodies this way, pitting them against one another, challenging each one, and ultimately transforming them completely. His phrases squabble amongst themselves in a way that seems to reflect the ultimate conclusion of Paul’s book, though it is debatable if Mahler’s Titan was actually inspired by the novel. Perhaps more important than literary references are Mahler’s references to other compositions.
Symphony No. 1 is a pastiche of Mahler’s own earlier works as well as quotes—“building blocks,” as he would call them—from other composers’ music. Titan unfurls into its own atmospheric musical setting: violin harmonics shimmer like still water in early morning sunlight. Falling fourths emit from the woodwinds and clarinets burst into a quiet fanfare. Mahler called this the waking up of nature, and the image is certainly clear. The descending interval speeds up, and soon the orchestral bird calls open into a pastoral cello melody that is nothing short of divine. But before the forest illustration comes to light, Mahler recalls the first breath of Beethoven’s Ninth. Beethoven opens his final symphony with more excitable strings as well as falling fourths and fifths, but Mahler seems to capture Beethoven’s moment, stretching it into a new, but not unrelated, tapestry of sound. It is Mahler’s own musical Big Bang; the late, great Maestro Beethoven is proverbially passing the baton to Gustav Mahler at the onset of his own symphonic odyssey.
The orchestra is fully jubilant at the end of the first movement; the last bars are a hearty laugh from the whole ensemble. Ever more genial, the second movement, Kräftig bewegt, begins with a rousing peasant dance led by celli and basses. Their heavy quarter-note figure motivates the folksy movement, which soon transforms into a beautifully elegant waltz. A horn call wafts in from the distance, and we are led right back to the village pub, arm-in-arm with our pesante strings.
Just as the excitement peaks at the end of the second movement, all stops. A funeral procession marches in from the forest shadows. A somber timpani plods away, and a grim refrain comes from the highest register of a solo double bass. The “Brother Martin” theme exists in a minor mode here, and we are faced with the fullest extent of what would become Mahler’s uncanny ability to juxtapose the beautiful with the grotesque. Not only is he grinding the exuberant second movement into an immediately mournful third, Mahler is painting an otherwise happy children’s melody into the image of death. The procession descends into the shadows and soon a forest grows around the gloomy melody. The bass solo is echoed by bassoon, klezmer-esque clarinets interject, and pizzicato strings soon enter to underscore the trudging timpani.
Mahler’s orchestral funeral procession is based on a wood cutting in which animals carry a human hunter to his death. A book of children’s fairy tales depicts the scene: “the beasts of the forest accompany the dead woodsman’s coffin to the grave, with hares carrying a small banner, with a band of Bohemian musicians, in front, and the procession escorted by music-making cats, toads, crows, etc., with stags, roes, foxes, and other four-legged and feathered creatures of the forest in comic postures.”
Deeper in the forest, harp gurgles from a babbling brook and the sun finally appears. The looming darkness dispels; new melodies roll through the orchestra, and Mahler’s compositional landscape becomes lush while remaining malleable. But soon, all stops once more. The funeral procession returns, as if the forest is warning the Titan that his death is inevitable. As the procession continues its course, the forest seems to grow yet more magical and fantastical, rooting tighter around the Titan. A tam-tam strike—Death personified—heralds a final oboe refrain, underscored by the ever-marching timpani. Although bleak, there is something boyishly charming in Mahler’s juxtaposition of the fantastical and disturbing. At the heart of Mahler’s third movement is a kernel of childhood wonder; this is Mahler, the storyteller.
Cymbals crash, winds shriek, and intense strings clutch our newly deceased Titan—completely anguished—and drag him to what can only be described as the musical underworld. Here is another literary reference: Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. And this time, the literary reference is just as important as its musical counterpart. The wailing winds at the onset of this movement attack our hero from above with pointy, descending triplets. This chromatic figure is yet another “building block” employed by Mahler; they are pulled straight from Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony. A perfect addition to a movement Mahler described as Dal inferno del paradiso.
The fourth movement, in all of its intensity, is always reaching towards the symphonic end goal: D Major, the Paradiso. The hellish theme eventually bleeds into a stunningly nostalgic violin melody, as if our hero is looking back across his life journey. Finally our Titan ascends with confidence, and the orchestra breaks into a triumphant stride led by brilliant French horns and trumpets. Symphony No. 1 ends with fortissimo triplets and a whirlwind of trills: the orchestra’s final reach towards Paradise.