Beethoven Sympyhony No 6 Pastorale @ Amazon.com
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Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911) was an Austrian composer and conductor. He finished nine symphonies and left a tenth unfinished. He worked his way up through a great deal of opera houses in Europe until he became conductor of the Vienna Court Opera, one of the most esteemed opera houses in Europe. He was best known in his lifetime as a conductor, and it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that his music became more well known. This was partly due to his music being very progressed (for the times), complex, most of the symphonies need a very huge orchestra, and the works are lengthy. It also didn’t help his cause when his music was banned for the duration of the Nazi era in Europe because of his Jewish heritage. Composing for Mahler remained a part-time action for most of his life, undertaken for the duration of the opera and concert off-season. Later in life he would do his composing in a little hut that he had built by the lake and away from his main house. The 1st Symphony was finished in 1888. He in the first place called it a two-part tone poem but after the premiere he made extensive revisions and called it his original symphony. One of the conclusions he made was to reduce it to a more traditionalisti 4 motion symphony when he eradicated one of the middle movements. The symphony calls for a very big orchestra, over 100 players. Mahler was mainly influenced by a book of German folk poems called Des Knaben Wunderhorn, or The Youth’s Magic Horn. He set a lot of of these poems to music allround his life beginning with four songs that he called Lieder eines fahrended Gesellen, or Songs of a Wayfarer. The opening motion of the basi symphony uses the music of one of these songs, Ging heut’ Morgen übers Feld, or I Went This morning Over The Field. The second motion is a German Ländler, while the third motion shows Mahler at his morose best. The opening of the third motion is the folksong Frere Jaque (Bruder Martin in German) played in the minor key as a funeral march. Mahler’s inspiration for this was a visual he had of a group of animals of all description marching with the corpse of a hunter for burial. This motion likewise uses one of the songs from Lieder eines fahrended Gesellen. The final motion is the most complex as a good deal of of the antecedently heard music is brought back and interspersed with new themes. Mahler once said, “A symphony ought to be like the world. It must comprise everything.” His music is big in each sense of the word. Big in expression, forces used, length and complexity. And each one of his symphonies is like a world unto itself. |
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