Mahler composed the piano score of his Fifth Symphony during the summer months of 1901 and 1902 and did the initial orchestration during the fall of 1902, but thereafter he continually revised the work. According to his wife Alma, “from the Fifth onward, he found it impossible to satisfy himself; the Fifth was differently orchestrated for practically every performance.” After the official world premiere in Cologne in 1904, with Mahler conducting the Gürzenich Orchestra, there were numerous important changes, and the same pattern followed performances in Amsterdam (1906), Vienna (1908) and Munich (1909). Shortly before his death, Mahler declared, “I have finished the Fifth. I actually had to re-orchestrate it completely. Evidently the routines I had established with the first four symphonies were entirely inadequate for this one – for a wholly new style demands a new technique.”
That “new style” stemmed in large part from Mahler’s new-found and deep acquaintance with the music of Bach, a style that conductor Bruno Walter called “intensified polyphony”. Compared with his earlier symphonies, the orchestral fabric has become more complicated – more instruments playing more different lines at the same time. Mahler’s style is now generally less lyrical, more angular and hard-edged. Hymns of love, childlike faith and quasi-religious messages tend to be replaced by moods of tragic irony, bitterness and cynicism.
Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor is in five movements, further grouped into three large units, with a huge scherzo serving as the fulcrum to a pair of movements on either side.
0:00 (Prelude)
PART I
I.Trauermarsch 0:45
II. Stürmisch bewegt 13:22
PART II
III. Scherzo. Kräftig, nicht zu schnell 27:50
PART III
IV. Adagietto 45:10
V. Rondo-Finale 54:41
Applause 1:09:22
The opening movement starts with a funeral march, a type of music found in all of Mahler’s symphonies except the Fourth, Eighth and Ninth. The second movement shares many qualities with the first, both emotionally and thematically. Easily identifiable variants and transformations of the first movement’s melodic material can be found.
The despair and anguish of Part I are abruptly dismissed by the life-affirming third movement, Scherzo (Part II) – the longest and most complex scherzo Mahler ever wrote.
Part III consists of the fourth movement, Adagietto and the Finale. In the Adagietto, scored only for strings and harp, we return to a romantic dream world familiar from Mahler’s earlier works, a world of quiet contemplation, benign simplicity, inner peace and escape from harsh reality. The Adagietto is surely the most famous single movement in all Mahler, a phenomenon dating back to its prominent use in the popular film Death in Venice (1971).
A single note from the horn dispels the romantic mood, and the merry Rondo-Finale is on its way. The interconnectedness of the final two movements is seen not only in the first four notes of the rondo theme (an exact inversion of the first four notes of the Adagietto theme), but in the use of the Adagietto theme as the subject of a fugal episode. Some of Mahler’s most vibrant, exuberant, wildly extroverted music is found in this Finale. Near the end the brass chorale is recalled, heard previously in the second movement but now bursting forth in full glory and triumph. The metamorphosis from grief and death to joy and life is complete. (Robert Markow)
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Lawrence Renes, conductor
This concert was recorded live at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore, on 3 Mar 2023.
Audio & video production: msm-productions (Singapore)
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