Classical Music | Orchestral Music

Recorded on 07/01/2009, uploaded on 08/19/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

At the turn of the century, Mahler’s career was firmly taking root with his appointments as director of the Vienna Court Opera and principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. Even his music, at this time, was beginning to be successful. With this new success, Mahler built a lakeside villa in the Austrian province of Carinthia in June 1901. That summer he also began work on his Fifth Symphony. Besides the successes of his professional life, Mahler’s personal life also underwent changes during this period. In February 1901, Mahler succumbed to serious health problems. According to his doctor, he nearly bled to death due to major hemorrhaging, and was a long time recovering. However, later that year, he met Alma Schindler, stepdaughter of the painter Carl Moll, and by the following March, they were married with Alma expecting their first child. Both incidents had an effect on the composition of the Fifth Symphony, while the former had a lasting effect on the composer’s output for several years. Mahler’s style changed with the composition of the Fifth Symphony, marking the beginning of his middle period. The lure of the voice and vocal music, which was featured in the Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies, was abandoned for purely orchestral sonorities, and a greater interest in counterpoint emerged, inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. As for Alma, she inspired the beautiful Adagietto fourth movement, which has become Mahler’s most memorable piece of music, taking on a life of its own separate from the symphony itself.

In five movements, the Fifth Symphony is one of Mahler’s most conventional works, yet its length (which is over an hour) and its other peculiarities maintain his reputation as an unconventional composer. The first movement is an austere funeral march in C-sharp minor, an unusual selection for sure for the opening movement of a symphony. However, its relation to the succeeding stormy second movement in A minor, with which it forms Part I of the symphony, casts it in the role as an extended introduction to a much more conventional dramatic and tense movement. Following this opening duo, the Scherzo forms by itself the second part of the symphony, and is the work’s longest single movement. In the brilliant key of D major, it is a joyous movement somewhere between a rondo and sonata form. The famous Adagietto, in F major, then begins the third and final part of the work, and is followed by the lively Rondo-Finale in D major.

The first edition of the score appeared in 1904, yet Mahler continued to revise the work until 1911. These last revisions, however, did not appear in print until 1964 with the Complete Edition of Mahler’s music.      Joseph DuBose

Courtesy of The International Festival-Institute at Round Top

Located in historic Round Top, Texas, The James Dick Foundation for the Performing Arts and its sole project, The International Festival-Institute at Round Top, were founded in 1971 by world-renowned concert pianist James Dick. Begun with a handful of gifted young pianists in rented space on the town square, the project is now an internationally acclaimed European-styled music institute for aspiring young musicians and distinguished faculty. Over a thirty eight year period and with the help of its patrons and friends, The James Dick Foundation for the Performing Arts has developed superb year round education and performance programs.