Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., RIP
The Third Sunday of Advent

Music of the Week: Mahler - Symphony #1

I haven’t done much listening this week since Tuesday afternoon when I listened to Mahler’s 2nd. So, since I’ve been on the subject of Mahler, I’m going to cheat a little and pull a comment on his 1st from an old Sunday Night Journal. I was writing about a concert I’d attended and I had this to say about the symphony:

This was as enthralling a musical experience as I’ve ever had. It had been so long since I’d heard the symphony that it sounded fresh, and I found it to be even better than I remembered. Mahler originally saw the work as depicting an artist’s innocent exuberance, rejection, disillusionment, suffering, and rebirth, but I hear something else. From my vantage point in the early 21st century I hear this late 19th century work as a prophecy of what the next hundred years would bring. The third movement in particular, Frere Jacques transmuted into a funeral march that turns slightly deranged as it goes on, seemed a window opening onto the distant vista of Germany’s impending madness. And the putative triumph of the fourth movement seemed overwrought and unsound, a victory likely to prove temporary.

You can read the entire post here; it’s mainly a tribute to the Mobile Symphony and other small orchestras. I always recommend this symphony to anyone who doesn’t know Mahler, because it’s of a manageable length and very melodic (the opening is magical to me). However, the discussion here of the 2nd indicated that my view is not shared by everyone.

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