Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D major, performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of chief conductor Cristian Măcelaru. Recorded live on 17.06.2023 at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall.
Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 1 in D major
00:00:00 I. Langsam. Schleppend, im Anfang sehr gemächlich
00:16:35 II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell
00:24:24 III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen
00:34:48 IV. Stürmisch bewegt
WDR Symphony Orchestra
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor
In his series "Kurz und Klassik," chief conductor Cristian Măcelaru talks about Mahler's Symphony No. 1: • Gustav Mahler - Sinfon...
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Work introduction:
Gustav Mahler's 1st Symphony also owes its existence to love - in two respects. Before Mahler became director of the Vienna Court Opera, he passed through numerous posts at various opera houses. One of his early stations was Kassel. Here he fell in love, as unhappily as Bartók later did, with the singer Johanna Richter. Mahler wrote the texts and music of his "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" for Johanna.
A few years later, he had an engagement in Leipzig, where he began an affair with Marion von Weber, who was married to a grandson of the composer Carl Maria von Weber. In this emotional state of emergency, Mahler composed his 1st Symphony, for which he had already been collecting ideas in recent years. Now he puts it down on paper in a veritable furor within six weeks. In the first and third movements, he quotes two of the "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen": "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld" and (in addition to the minor variant of the canon "Frère Jacques") a passage from "Die zwei blauen Augen". For the time being, he still called the large orchestral work "symphonic poem in two parts". This five-movement first version included a second movement entitled "Blumine." The premiere in Budapest in 1889 failed hopelessly. Although some of the audience cheered Mahler ostentatiously, most concertgoers were left perplexed by the novel music. This experience prompted the composer to revise the work for a performance in Hamburg in 1894. In reference to the novel of the same name by Jean Paul, he now gave it the title "Titan, a tone poem in symphonic form." The movements also had their own names, and Mahler had also written a program. He later discarded this idea because he had experienced that the audience lost sight of the deeper idea of his music as a result. The final version with four movements (without the "Blumine" movement and without the title "Titan") first appeared in print in 1899. Mahler subjected it to two more minor proofreading passes, the last time in 1909, a good twenty years after its composition.
Text: Otto Hagedorn