Mahler's Fifth Symphony

For those who are curious, here is some background on this particular symphony (gets more into the hardcore analysis stuff): http://inkpot.com/classical/mahsym5.html

And this is the version I listened to:
Quote: Conductor: Leonard Bernstein
Ensemble: Wiener Philharmoniker
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Catalog: #23608
Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
Number of Discs: 1
ASIN: B000001G9F


Now for my own impression of this rather wonderful piece of music:

I first heard this piece of music in February of 2005 as played by the New York Philharmonic on a concert tour. While I have long been a fan of classical music, particularly that of Beethoven, I am a latecomer to Mahler.

This piece of music blew me away.

At the time I first heard it, I was in heavy grief. My father had died just a little over a year before, and the anniversary of his death in mid-January stirred up my feelings of mourning again. I had also just (as I thought at the time) lost a friend who meant the world to me over a misunderstanding of great magnitude. I was in a pretty rough place emotionally.

From the opening muted trumpet solo of pure sorrow through the opening movements of the symphony, Mahler depicts the emotions of grief and loss perfectly in the language of music.

Listen for the horns in the opening movements. The horns equal loss. They cry and rage and quietly sob. The orchestra sometimes sobs and rages along with them, and sometimes the horns briefly play one melody while the orchestra plays another -- just as a person deeply in grief can be so confused. At times there is quiet contemplation, just as you sometimes sit down and quietly remember the person you loved so much. At one point the orchestra even breaks into what I call "demented carnival music". And yes -- when deep in grief sometimes you try to run away from it and lose yourself in either work or in forced play -- in frantic activity.

Yet in the third movement there are hints that happiness can still happen -- that there is still love and beauty in the world. But in the end, the grief still prevails.

The fourth movement is the famous adagio (slow movement) with the soothing and lovely harp music. Mahler wrote this as a love song, a courting gift, for the woman composer who captured his heart and whom he later married.

That love transforms the symphony.

I have always thought that the adagio represents not only love but also


acceptance.

You have accepted that the person you love so much is gone. And with that acceptance you realize that, even though you will always love that person and will never again receive their love in this lifetime -- you are still alive. You can still love. That there is still so much beauty in the world. Perhaps you can no longer share it with your lost one, but the value of life -- love -- beauty -- still exists.

The final movement, the fifth, begins with horns once again. But these horns are not sobbing with grief. This is the horn music Donaldson uses in Mordant's Need. These are the horns that Teresa Morgan hears throughout her story -- the horns that call her to life, to adventure, to duty to others -- to love.

And a work of profound, passionate grief has been transformed through love and acceptance into a work filled with life and with joy.