Symphony No. 4 in G major by Gustav Mahler was written in 1899 and 1900, though it incorporates a song originally written in 1892. The song, "Das himmlische Leben", presents a child's vision of Heaven. It is sung by a soprano in the work's fourth and last movement. Although typically described as being in the key of G major, the symphony employs a progressive tonal scheme ('(b)/G—E').
Contents
Composition
Mahler's first four symphonies are often referred to as the "Wunderhorn" symphonies because many of their themes originate in earlier songs by Mahler on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Boy's Magic Horn""). The fourth symphony is built around a single song, "Das himmlische Leben". It is prefigured in various ways in the first three movements and sung in its entirety by a solo soprano in the fourth movement.
Mahler composed "Das himmlische Leben" as a freestanding piece in 1892. The title is Mahler's own: in the Wunderhorn collection the poem is called "Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen" (an idiomatic expression akin to "there's not a cloud in the sky"). Several years later Mahler considered using the song as the seventh and final movement of his Symphony No. 3. While motifs from "Das himmlische Leben" are found in the Symphony No. 4, Mahler eventually decided not to include it in that work and, instead, made the song the goal and source of his Symphony No. 4. This symphony thus presents a thematic fulfilment of the musical world of No. 3, which is part of the larger tetralogy of the first four symphonies, as Mahler described them to Natalie Bauer-Lechner. Early plans in which the Symphony was projected as a six-movement work included another Wunderhorn song, "Das irdische Leben" ("Earthly Life") as a somber pendant to "Das himmlische Leben", offering a tableau of childhood starvation in juxtaposition to heavenly abundance, but Mahler later decided on a simpler structure for the score.
Structure
A typical performance of the symphony lasts about an hour, making it one of Mahler's shorter symphonies. The performing forces are also small by Mahler's usual standard. These features have made it the most frequently-performed Mahler symphony, though in recent years the First has gained ground.
The movements of the symphony:
Flutes and sleigh bells open the unusually restrained first movement (and used later with a melodic theme known commonly as the 'bell theme', which helps define sections throughout the movement) often described as possessing classical poise.
As would be expected for the first movement of a symphony, the first movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 is in sonata form.
The primary theme:
The secondary theme:
The second movement is a scherzo that features a part for a solo violin whose strings are tuned a whole tone higher than usual.
The violin depicts Freund Hein, (lit. "Friend Henry") a figure from medieval German art; Hain (or Hein) is a traditional German personification of death, invented by poet Matthias Claudius. Freund Hein is a skeleton who plays the fiddle and leads a Totentanz or "danse macabre". According to Mahler's widow, Alma, Mahler took inspiration for this movement from an 1872 painting by the Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin entitled Self-Portrait with Death playing the Fiddle. The scherzo represents his dance and the unusual tuning of the violin adds tension to its sound and contributes to the music's ghostly character.
The third movement is a solemn processional march cast as a set of variations. Mahler uses the theme and variation structure in a more unconventional way. This movement can be divided into five main sections: A1 – B1 – A2 – B2 – A3 – coda. The theme is presented in the first 16 bars of A1,
but the true variations do not appear until section A3, although the theme is developed slightly within the preceding sections; sections A1, A2, B1 and B2 are in bar form. This movement remains mostly in G major, but does modulate to D minor, E minor and E major; the B2 section has a rather unstable tonality, being more chromatic and moving through many keys.
The fourth movement opens with a relaxed, bucolic scene in G major.
A child, voiced by a soprano, presents a sunny, naive vision of Heaven and describes the feast being prepared for all the saints.
The scene has its darker elements: the child makes it clear that the heavenly feast takes place at the expense of animals, including a sacrificed lamb. The child's narrative is punctuated by faster passages recapitulating the first movement. Unlike the final movement of traditional symphonies, the fourth movement of Mahler's No. 4 is essentially a song, containing verses, with interludes, a prelude and a postlude (a strophic structure). By the time the postlude is heard, there is a modulation to E major (the tonic major of the relative minor) and unusually stays in this key, ending the symphony away from the tonic of G major. Several ties to Symphony No. 3 can be heard in these passages as well.
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for a fairly small orchestra by Mahler's standards, without trombones or tuba.