- Symphony #3.
Gustav Mahler said that his music, particularly the symphonies, represent “The whole world”.
For the past two days I have listened to Mahler’s Symphony #3, which was composed at the village of Steinbach on the Attersee in Austria. I visited this village and the composition site, and I have a sense now why this music is so spiritual for me.
The symphony begins with Mahler’s description of “The Summer Marches in” with a theme in the horns reminiscent of Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture. This music, however, is in a minor key, as it continues and develops.
The second movement is all about “What the flowers in the meadow tell me”, and the third movement is about animals. Humans emerge is the symphony’s 4th movement, where there the contralto Anna Larsson sings, based on text by Friedrich Nietzsche.
The fifth movement is the world of angels, in which we get to hear a wonderful choir of young children and women: “Three angels sing a sweet song”. Indeed, what a wonderful song Mahler gives us, and the conductor is seen smiling as the great music unfolds.
The final movement is titled “Langsam. Ruhevol. Empfunden. (Slow. Calm. With deep feeling.) Mahler’s instruction in the score is that the performers should present this music in “Blissful trust”.
For me this listening period was really healing and spiritual. It really is beyond the ability of description in words. As the last sound fills the hall where this music was recorded in Switzerland, the audience is in a stunned silence for a few seconds, as though to allow us to continue to enjoy the silence that follows.
Here is the beginning of the final movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, with Claudio Abbado conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra:
And next, here is the entire symphony, conducted by a much younger Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1998:
Tags: Gustav Mahler, Symphony #3, Claudio Abbado, Lucern Festival Orchestra, Anna Larsson