I have heard the Symphony number 5 by Gustav Mahler many times. Yet, when I listened to this work again today, it immediately got my attention, because the interpretation by conductor Valery Gergiev was very powerful.
In the first movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a solo trumpet fanfare opens the work. Perhaps Mahler wanted to show that the seed for this new work, composed in 1901, was the beginning of a new compositional style compared to his earlier four symphonies.
In what sense is the Fifth Symphony new? After a run of four unconventional symphonies, Mahler comes back to a more “normal” compositional design, one that could be described as symmetrical. In the First Symphony, the orchestra plays long passages from Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, and the Second, Third, and Fourth symphonies actually include singing.
While the Fifth also alludes to three of Mahler’s songs, it is essentially an instrumental conception and features no singers.
Please listen now, because the music communicates it so much better than words. Here is the Symphony #5 by VustV Mahler:
