The Music Plays On — Mahler Symphony №4
I’ve decided to honor the decision by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw to have an online version of the Mahler Festival by offering my favorite performances of the symphony that the festival is broadcasting each day.
Gustav Mahler ascended to the throne of the conducting profession in 1897, when he became the General Music Director of the Vienna Court Opera, now the Vienna State Opera. It was music’s most prestigious position and with it came an enormous responsibility. Mahler was everywhere and ran the opera house with an iron fist. Modern stage direction, lighting, set design were all in their infancy in opera and Mahler held a tight grip on all of it!
His fourth symphony, composed during the summers of 1899 and 1900, was the first he composed after being hired in this position, and it’s interesting that the subject matter and general mood of the symphony is in direct opposition to the hectic conducting life he had at the time. Also, rather than working in a little ‘hut’ behind a small hotel at Steinbach am Attersee, Mahler could now afford to rent a villa. He chose the Villa Kerry, a 30-minute walk above the the lake, Altaussee. Unfortunately, the weather for most of that summer was cold and wet and it turned that this villa was in earshot of the local bandstand. He was only able to compose part of the symphony at the very end of his holiday symphony.
The following summer (1900) was spent in his newly built composing hut on the property where his villa was being built, in Maiernigg, a tiny village on the shores of the Wörthersee.
Like Beethoven’s Symphony №4 in relation to his Symphony №3 ‘Eroica,’ Mahler’s Symphony №4 is restrained and classical in size and structure compared to his gargantuan Symphony №3. It has the standard four movements, but it retains one special characteristic that was unique to the previous three symphonies — there is a vocal soloist. For the last movement, Mahler uses Das himmlische Leben…
