Symphony No. 3

The Genesis
This is somewhat easier to understand when you consider the fact that his theatrical work took up most of his time and energy. It was only during the summer months that he had the time to devote to his composition work. After completing his Second Symphony, Mahler suddenly became aware that he had now reached 34 years of age, yet his work had achieved very little in comparison to other great historical composers. He therefore felt the need to justify his career as a creator by devoting his summers not only to composing symphonies, but to creating real symphonic universes using “any technical means possible”. Anyway, contrary to appearances, the Third Symphony’s mammoth score was not born from the will to make it big, but from a formidable push of inspiration, like that of a creator, or even a genius of the first magnitude. A genre of inspiration not felt by many.

The Composition
At the beginning of the summer of 1895, Mahler once again settled down in his small cabin in Steinbach am Attersee, where the daily routine had already been well established for two years. In the small lakeside cabin, he would start work at 6:30 AM and spent most of his days there, sometimes late into the afternoon. It’s where he composed the delightful Menuet which he would later call Blumenstück [Flower Piece], the inspiration coming from the flower meadow surrounding his Häuschen. At that time, he already had an overall plan in mind, which was undoubtedly one of the most ambitious ever conceived by a symphonist. It begins with a slow, primeval opening, evocative of rocks and inanimate nature. It then passes through the more elaborate stages of evolution – flowers, animals, and mankind, before culminating in divine love, which Mahler considered a supremely transcendental force.

Several versions of this programme have remained. It should be noted that, unusually, Mahler developed the piece before starting its composition. Later, he would never disown it, even at a time when the publication of any explanatory text was prohibited during performances. The general title of the piece, which he vehemently denied having any connection to Shakespeare, was “A midsummer night’s dream” (this later was renamed “A Midsummer morning’s dream”). Later, after immersing himself into Nietzsche’s work, he replaced the title again with something he found in one of the poetry books: “My Happy Science” or “The Happy Science”. The first movement was initially called “Summer Marches In” or “Pan Awakes” and later on became “Bacchus In Procession”. It would appear that the initial Allegro, which was only composed the following year, had not yet been preceded by the long minor Introduction which he would name at a later date:

1. What the Rocks tell me. The other movements already bore their final titles:
2. What the Flowers tell me
3. What the Animals of the Forest tell me
4. What the Night tells me (which later became ‘What Man tells me’)
5. What the Cuckoo tells me (replaced by ‘Morning Bells’ and then ‘Angels’)
6. What Love tells me

For the Finale piece, Mahler would later add a subtitle: “Father, look upon my wounds! Let no creature be lost!” Mahler originally envisioned a seventh movement, “What the Child Tells Me” or Heavenly Life, which he had composed three years earlier, but he eventually dropped this, using it instead in his Fourth Symphony.

At times, the insane pride in his words plunged Mahler into a deep state of anguish. Because this time, he no longer saw the world in the same way as he had during the two previous symphonies, “from the point of view of the man who suffers and who fights”, but instead “transported himself to the very heart of existence, where you feel all the thrills of the world and those of God ”. Furthermore, he realised that his first movement lasted more than half an hour. He suspected people would think he was a fool, or in any case a megalomaniac who simply wanted to exceed the greatness of his previous symphony. And yet, carried away by the powerful influence which dragged him ever further, he felt compelled to continue. During this first summer of 1895, Mahler composed the following four movements again. Despite some hesitation about their order, he stuck very closely to the programme he had drafted in 1895. Furthemore, he was so proud of what he had done that he copied and sent them to all his friends in the months that followed. In short, there are no less than eight versions, all which bear a remarkably close resemblance to each other. For the first movement, the broadest of them all, he was happy to work on a few musical drafts in 1895 yet postponed their final composition until the following year. 

When making the decision to resume his work in 1896, he realised when arriving in Steinbach on 11th June that, in his rush to leave Hamburg, he had left the drafts of the first movement in his office drawer. A friend in Hamburg agreed to send them on to him, but he still spent the following eight days in a state of anxiety, worrying over the time he had lost and constantly fearing that the package would get lost. As was often the case, going back to work would be much more difficult than he expected because the transition from his life as a performer to that of a creator was never without its trials.

For now, the introduction was still known as a separate movement, but its meaning was gradually changing: it would no longer depict soulless and lifeless nature, or the image of being trapped in winter, but on the contrary it portrayed the overwhelming heat of summer, when “not a breath stirs, all life is suspended, and the sun-drenched air trembles and vibrates”. “Captive life—struggling for release from the clutches of lifeless, rigid nature”. Mahler believed that music alone could “capture its essence.” To depict the procession of Bacchus and its violent outbursts, he thought of hiring a harmony orchestra with his repertoire of “military music”, reminiscent of his childhood in Iglau. He would eventually successfully replicate these characteristic sounds. At the end of the 19th century, a romantic century where the originality of material had taken on an emphatic force, it was considered incredibly audacious to introduce the insolent “predictability” of barely popular stylised music into a symphonic fresco.

Thanks to Mahler’s correspondence and the journal kept by Natalie Bauer-Lechner, we are well informed about the composition of the Third Symphony. A letter to his mistress of the moment, the singer Anna von Mildenburg, demonstrates both his lucidity and enthusiasm: “My Symphony will be something that the world has never heard before! In it, nature itself acquires a voice and tells secrets so profound that they are perhaps only glimpsed in dreams! I’m telling you; some passages almost scare me. Sometimes I wonder if it really should be written. ” Despite all his anxieties, Mahler remained convinced that “the world will one day take note of all of this”, knowing full well that “men will have to work a long time at cracking the nuts that I’m shaking down from the tree for them”.

The Particell for the first movement was completed on 11th July 1896 (in other words, in less than a month!). Shortly after, in Steinbach, Mahler received a visit from his young follower, Bruno Walter, to whom he had written previously about a new piece of work that would once again bring “his arid and brutal nature” to the fore and which would “exceed all acceptable limits”, and be filled with “banality” and “unnecessary noise”. Let us not forget that he had only just had his fingers burnt by the almost unanimously hostile reception of his Second Symphony in Berlin the previous December.

It is therefore no real surprise that the Third Symphony, with its profound conception and dominant ideology, is somewhat tinged with pantheism. After all, Mahler’s attitude towards the human condition, in terms of life and death, would always be influenced by Eastern philosophies as opposed to the Judaism of its ancestors and the Christianity to which Mahler eventually would convert. The Song of the Earth is today proof of this, with the final adieu illuminated by a comforting thought of the eternal renewal of nature in the spring So strong in their softness and so overwhelming in their acceptance of the law of destiny, these pages are vastly superior to a simple poetic idea. They demonstrate a genuinely mystical thought process and answer nagging questions about destiny and the human condition, questions which Mahler asked himself throughout his lifetime.

The First Performance
The second movement was created in Berlin on 9th November 1896 during a partial performance by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Arthur Nikisch. It was subsequently replayed in several cities in Germany. Then, on 9th March 1897, the same orchestra, this time directed by Felix Weingartner, performed the second, third and sixth movements. The whistles and booing did not quite drown out the applause, but it was very close. The next day, the press in the German capital surpassed itself. They described the performance as a “tragicomedy”, saying Mahler lacked any talent or imagination and that it was full of his usual “banalities”, and “recollections”. He was referred to as a “joke”, a “musical comedian”. It was the Finale that particularly attracted criticism with its “religious and mystical undertones”. One of the “infernal judges” described the main theme as a “shapeless tapeworm that winds its way throughout the whole piece”.

It was not until Monday 9th June 1902 at 8.00 PM, six years after its actual completion, that the Third Symphony was performed in its entirety by the Cologne Orchestra and the contralto Luise Geller-Wolter. It took place during the Crefeld Festival in the Rhineland and was conducted by Mahler. This concert, in the presence of Richard Strauss, Max von Schillings, Engelbert Humperdinck, Eugen d’Albert, Willem Mengelberg and many others, represented Mahler’s first real triumph as a composer. It was the final Adagio, its contemplative power and its refined lyricism that actually won over the listeners who were usually too ill-prepared and hostile to hear everything it had to offer. In the eyes of one critic, it was the “most beautiful slow movement ever composed since Beethoven” and was crowned a triumph. It would open up a whole new era in Mahler’s career and life. Once again, the genius’s audacity paid off.

The Third Symphony, the longest by Gustav Mahler, is made up of six movements:

1. Kräftig. Entschieden.
2. Tempo di Menuetto. Sehr mässig
3. Scherzando. Ohne Hast.
4. Sehr langsam. Misterioso. Durchaus ppp [Texte by Friedrich Nietzsche].
5. Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck [Texte from “Des Knabenwunderhorn”].
6. Ruhevoll. Empfunden.