Gustav Mahler, 1860-1911. Symphony No. 1 in d, ``Titan''. Completed 1888, first performance November 20, 1889, in Budapest, revised 1892-3. Scored for 4 flutes (3rd and 4th doubling piccolo), 4 oboes (3rd doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), E flat clarinet, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 7 horns (plus optional ``horn reinforcements'' in the final movement), 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, tympani (2 players), triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, and strings.
Like many composers who pushed the boundaries of their art, Gustav Mahler had great difficulty winning the approval of audiences. Working with huge orchestral forces yet often writing for only two or three instruments at a time, stretching the boundaries of the traditional forms, and combining a nearly endless profusion of ideas with a canvas so broad that his Third Symphony is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest ever written, Mahler's output is often difficult to grasp even after repeated listening. It is thus not surprising, though unfortunate for posterity, that in his own lifetime he was far better known as a conductor than as a composer, and was able to devote only his summers to creating new music.
During the five years needed to compose his First Symphony, Mahler was also working on a group of four songs, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, or Songs of a Wayfarer, and some of the themes from those songs are also used in first and third movements of the symphony. This use of song-like material was characteristic of Mahler throughout his lifetime, and it achieves the pleasant result that most of his music leaves the listener filled with memories of wonderful melodies that seem to crop up endlessly, continually surprising one with their inventiveness.
Mahler did not limit himself to his own songs: folksong and traditional dances were also fair game, and the First Symphony contains one of the most famous examples, a setting of Frère Jacques in an unfamiliar minor key that tends to leave concertgoers simultaneously discomfited and intrigued. (Incidentally, the first appearance of this theme on the string bass is so challenging to play well that it has become a standard requirement in auditions. Watch carefully at the very beginning of the third movement, and you will be able to see how the musician must literally stretch himself to reach notes that fall in the normal range of the viola, not the bass.)
As would become the case for most of his future symphonies, Mahler's First was not particularly well received at its premiere. There were those who immediately understood the music and others who detested it, so that a lively controversy arose almost immediately after the final notes died out. In a letter to his friend Arnold Berliner, Mahler described its reception as ``a mixture of furious disapproval and wildest applause.--It is amusing to hear the clash of opinions in the street and in drawing-rooms.'' But the instrumentalists who performed it, wise musicians that they were, clearly had no trouble perceiving the lasting value of the work: in the same letter, Mahler commented, ``Orchestra retrospectively extremely satisfied with symphony as result of barrel of free beer.''
© 1998, Geoff Kuenning
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