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Symphony No. 1 in D major

Title

Erste Symphonie in D Dur

Date

1888 (see the chronology and notes below), revised 1893–1910

Movements

1. Langsam. Schleppend [leading to] Immer sehr gemächlich.

2. Kraftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell. (= 66.) [leading to]
Trio[:] Recht gemächlich. (Etwas langsamer als im Anfang. = 54.)
[At end:] Hier eine ziemliche Pause machen bevor der nächste Satz (N^o. 3) beginnt.

3. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen.
[At end:] Folgt sogleich N^o.4.

4. Stürmisch bewegt

The instruction concerning the pause after the Scherzo is an autograph addition in ACF₂ and the attacca instruction at the end of the fourth movement was first included in AF₂.

Programmes

1889 | 1891 |1893 | 1894 | 1896 | 1900

Scoring

Fl 1–4 (3–4 = picc 1–2), ob 1–4 (3 = ca), cl 1–3 in A/B/C (3 = bcl in B/cl in E), cl in E (= cl 4; [fourth movement:] mindestens doppelt besetzt), bsn 1–3 (3 = cbsn)

Hn 1–7 in F (in the finale possibly reinforced by an additional tpt and trb in bb. 656ff.), tpt 1–4 in F (in the finale, tpt 1 im ff doppelt besetzt, so a total of six players required), trb 1–3 (so four players required), tuba

Timp 1–2, bdrum, cymb, tam-tam, tr (3 players)

Harp, strings

See SMFS, 107–8 for a tabular summary of the gradual expansion of the instrumentation of the work in ACF₁, AF₂ and ACF₂. In May 1894 Mahler was hoping for a string section of 12,10,8,8,8 for the third performance (see GMRSB, 36; GMRSBE, 35).

Duration

c. 50 minutes (see also the note below)

Manuscripts

Autographs ([n.d.]; 1892–1903)

Copyist’s Manuscripts: orchestral material ([n.d.])

Copyist’s Manuscripts: full scores (?1889 –?1898)

Arrangement: piano solo (undated)

Printed Editions (1898–1920; 1968)

Full scores (1898; 1912)

Orchestral parts (1899; 1912–20)

Study score (1906)

Arrangement: piano duet (1898)

Blumine (1968)

Performance history

Performances (1889–1911)

Selected Historic Recordings (1939–1966)

Chronology

1880.03.05	‘Maitanz im Grünen’ completed
[?early 1880s]	A fragmentary piano duet resembling the opening of the second movement
1884.06.23	First performance in Kassel of Mahler’s incidental music to tableaux vivants based of Victor von Scheffel’s Der Trompeter von Sakkingen (one movement of which was incorporated into the five-movement version of the Symphony as Blumine).
1884.12.15/19	The texts of two of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen drafted (the piano and voice version was probably composed shortly thereafter).
1887.12	Mahler probably began composition of the Symphony
1888.01.05	Mahler wrote to Max Staegemann, Director of the Leipzig Neue Stadttheater requesting indulgence for a couple of months for ‘die gute Sache’ – apparently a request for a light work-load so that he could complete the Symphony
1888.02.14 [or 21]	Mahler was working on ‘einer großen Symphonie’ which he hopes to finish in February (GMLJ, 88; GMLJE, 50)
1888.03.??	Mahler hoped to complete a fair copy of the full score of the Symphony by the end of the month or the middle of April at the latest (GMLJ, 91; GMLJE, 51)
1888.03.09	Kaiser Wilhelm I died: with the Leipzig Stadttheater closed for ten days, Mahler was able to work uninterrupted on the Symphony
1888.03.28	Mahler announced he was about to complete the Symphony in a letter to Hans von Bülow (HLG1F, 271–2, fn 53; HLG1, 866, fn 39)
1888.05.11	Mahler expected the first performance to be in Dresden on 7 December 1888 (GMLJ, 96; GMLJE, 56)
1888.??.??	In a letter to Max Steinitzer asking about the possibility of a performance of the Symphony in Leipzig (GMB2, 72–3).
1888.07.31	Mahler wrote to Paul Bernhard Limburger, one of the directors of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, thanking him for the interest he had shown in his work – Mahler clearly hoped for a performance there (HLG1, 184).
1888.08.01	Mahler hoped to play through his Symphony to Ernst von Schuch in Dresden on 5 August (GMLJ, 98; GMLJE, 57)
1888.08	Mahler hoped to interest Hermann Levi in performing the work in Munich in the upcoming concert season; Richard Strauss may have played through the work with Levi at this time (GMRSB, 13; GMRSBE, 19). Towards the end of the month various Prague newspapers reported that the Symphony would be performed in Dresden and in Prague the following year; in September the Prager Abendblatt specifically referred to 7 December as the date of the Dresden performance (HLG1, 184).
?1888.09–1889.11	Mahler had a manuscript copy of the full score prepared – almost certainly ACF₁
1889.09.??	A delegation from the Budapest Philharmonic visited Mahler (by then Director of the Royal Opera in Budapest) to request one of his symphonic works for performance at the start of the new season, in November (ZRGMH, 75)
1889.11.20	Mahler conducted the première of the five-movement version of the Symphony in Budapest
1891.10.??	Mahler wrote to Dr Ludwig Strecker, offering the Symphony to Schotts for publication
1891.11.??	Mahler wrote to the conductor G.F. Kogel offering the Symphony for performance
1893.01.19	The revised score of the last (i.e. fifth) movement completed (AF₂)
1893.01.27	The revised score of the Scherzo (i.e. the third movement) completed (AF₂)
1893.08.16	The revised score of Blumine (i.e. the second movement completed (AF₂)
1893.10.23	Mahler conducted the revised five-movement version in Hamburg
1894.01.??	Strauss wrote to Mahler that he had asked Hans von Bronsart to include Mahler’s First Symphony in the thirtieth festival of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein (GMRSB, 23–4; GMRSBE, 27)
1894.02.02	Mahler sent a manuscript score to Hans von Bronsart for appraisal by the ADM
1894.03.12	Felix Draeseke completed his report on the Symphony for the ADM
1894.03	Between 23–26 March Eduard Lassen recommended Mahler’s Symphony for performance at the forthcoming ADM festival (IKRS, 91)
1894.05.17	A newly copied manuscript score (ACF₂), and a set of parts almost ready to be sent to Strauss (GMRSB, 37–8; GMRSBE, 36–7)
1894.06.03	Mahler conducted the five-movement version at the ADM Festival in Weimar
?1894–6	A new manuscript copy of the work (ACF₃), in four movements, prepared
1896.03.16	Mahler conducted the work as a four-movement symphony in Berlin
?1896–8	A manuscript of a revised four-movement version of the work (ACF₄) copied
1898, December	First edition of the full score printed (and published?) under the imprint of Weinberger
1899, ?January	First edition of the piano duet arrangement published under the imprint of Weinberger
1899, ?April	First edition of the orchestral parts published under the imprint of Weinberger
1906, April	First edition of the study score (PS₁), a revised version of the work, published
1909.12.16/17	Mahler conducted two performances in New York, his last of the work
1910.07.13	Mahler signed off a specially prepared proof copy of the PS₁ text into which he had entered his final revisions
1912, November	Second edition of the full score published by Universal Edition
1912–20	Second edition of the string parts published by Universal Edition when needed

Notes

Title

From the outset, Mahler almost always referred to this work in his correspondence as a symphony, but other sources employ a number of different titles which imply rather fluid allegiances to the genres of symphony and symphonic poem:

a) 1889 (handbill for première): Symphoniai költemény két részben [Symphonic Poem in two parts]

b) 1891 (letter to G.F. Kogel): ‘symphonic poem in two parts entitled “Aus dem Leben eines Einsamen”’

b) 1893 (ACF₂): Symphonie („Titan”) in 5 Sätzen (2 Abtheilungen)

c) 1893 (concert announcement and programme): ‘Titan’. Eine Tondichtung in Symphonieform

d) 1894 (concert programme): Titan. Symphonie in zwei Abtheilungen und fünf Sätzen

e) 1896 (ACF₃): Symphonie Nro 1

f) 1896 (concert handbill): Symphonie in D-dur für grosses Orchester

g) 1899 (first edition of the full score): SYMPHONIE N^o 1 in D-dur

The current publicists' fad for using the title ‘Titan’ for performances and recordings of the published score, is to be deprecated as anachronistic.

Dates of Composition

Henry-Louis de La Grange points out (HLG1, 746) that both Natalie Bauer-Lechner and Guido Adler claimed that the Symphony was sketched in 1885, and this finds support in one of the more extensive reviews of the première (August Beer, Pester Lloyd, 321 (21 November 1889); see DM2, 151–4 for a facsimile and translation):

Mahler nöthigt uns umso größere Achtung mit seiner Symphonischen Dichtung ab, als er daß werke bereits vor nahezu einem Luftrum fertig im Pult liegen hatte und somit in einem Alter an die hochsten Probleme sich herangewagt, wo andere junge Talente kaum das musikalische Stammeln überwanden haben.

With his Symphonic Poem Mahler demands all the more respect in that he put the finished work into his desk almost five years ago, so that at an age when other young talents have barely overcome their musical stammers he was pitting himself against the loftiest problems.

It is clear that various Budapest critics were briefed about the new work – not least its programmatic content – in preparation for the première, so it is by no means impossible that Beer had this information directly from Mahler. Two of the works that fed material into the Symphony were completed in 1884 so Mahler could have been working on the latter the following year. On the other hand Beer may have misunderstood what Mahler was saying, and there is no direct reference to a Symphony in his surviving correspondence from this period, and the tone of his letters in early 1888 do not suggest his creative work was on a project resumed.

Blumine

At its first performance in 1889 and up to c. 1896, the work included an additional movement, usually known as Blumine, the title it bears in the autograph full score of the 1893 version of the Symphony (AF₂). It was included in the first three performances, in which it was placed second as it is in AF₂ and ACF₂. It is not present in the earliest surviving manuscript, an incomplete copyist's manuscript that also lacks the slow movement (ACF₁), but there is as strong circumstantial evidence that it was present when the manuscript was bound, though placed third (or, less likely, fourth) in the movement sequence. As early as 1893 there seems to have been some doubt as to whether Blumine would be used in the revised version that Mahler prepared that year; it was eventually re-incorporated into AF₂at a relatively late stage. The definitive decision to exclude the movement was made between the Weimar (1894) and Berlin (1896) performances.

Literary and other Sources

a) The overall title adopted in 1893–4, ‘Titan’, is almost certainly an allusion to the novel of the same name, written in 1800–2 by one of Mahler’s favourite authors, Jean-Paul. To what extent this source had an impact on the design or content of the symphony is not entirely clear. According to Bruno Walter, who first got to know the composer in the autumn of 1894, it was more a matter of a general tribute (BWGM, 95–6; BWGME, 140–1 [revised below] – for the significance of Walter’s reference to another Jean Paul novel, Siebenkäs, see the discussion later in this section):

Von Mahlers Liebe zu Jean Paul zeugt schon die Benennung der ersten Symphonie nach Titan. Über den großen Roman sprachen wir oft und namentlich die Gestalt des Roquairol, deren Einfluß im Trauermarsch der Ersten zu spüren ist, war uns Gegenstand eingehender Erörterung. Mahler behauptete, daß jeder begabte Mensch einen solchen Roquairol, das heißt den sich selbst spiegelnden, zersetzenden, höhnischen, gefährdeten Geist mehr oder weniger in sich trage und erst nach dessen Überwindung durch entschiedene Tätigkeit in den Besitz seiner gesunden produktiven Kräfte gelange. Im komplizierten wilden Humor Schoppes fand Mahler sich wie im heimischen Element; sein Lieblingswerk war der Siebenkäs, den er für Jean Pauls vollkommenste Schöpfung erklärte.

Mahler’s fondness for Jean Paul is proved by the very fact that he named his first symphony after Titan. We often talked about the great novel and the figure of Roquairol, especially, whose influence may be sensed in the funeral march of the First was for us the subject of detailed discussion. Mahler asserted that, more or less, every gifted man carried within himself such a Roquairol – that is to say, a self-reflecting, decomposing, scoffing, and imperilling spirit – and that he could gain the full mastery of his real productive powers only after having overcome it. He felt very much at home in the wildly complicated humour of Schoppe. His favourite work was Der Siebenkäs, which he pronounced to be Jean Paul’s most perfect creation.

This assessment is supported by another of Mahler’s artistic colleagues from the Hamburg years, J.B. Foerster who commented (JBFDP, 409f.):

Überdies hatte die Symphonie damals [1894] noch ihren ursprünglichen Namen Titan, der ganz angetan war, öde Witzlein und auch Mißverständnisse herauszufordern. Mahler stützte sich in der Empfindung auf Eindrücke, die er bei der Lesung Jean Paul empfangen hatte, und ließ aus Dankbarkeit den Titel des Buches, von dem ihm die meisten Anregungen gekommen waren.

Moreover at that time [1894] the Symphony still had its original title Titan, which was rather likely to provoke tedious jokes and misunderstandings. Mahler had drawn on feelings inspired by impressions that he had received from the reading of Jean Paul, and read with gratitude the title of the book from which he had received the most stimulation.

However, another (and rather more ambivalent) observer of Mahler in his early Hamburg years was the critic Ferdinand Pfohl, who suggest that the choice of title did not reflect any very serious thought on the part of the composer (FPGM, 17–8)

Als Gustav Mahler an seiner ersten Sinfonie arbeitete", spielte er mir aus den Skizzen und aus den eben fertig gewordenen Sätzen mehrfach das Wesentliche vor. Er suchte krampfartig nach einem großartigen und kühnen Titel für diese seine erste Sinfonie. »Ich beschwöre Sie, schaffen Sie mir einen Namen für die Sinfonie!« Ich sagte ihm: »Nennen Sie sie doch >Natur-Sinfonie< oder so ähnlich und legen Sie dem dritten [recte: vierten] Satz die Bezeichnung bei: >Trauermarsch in Callots Manier<, denn er ist höchst absonderlich: grotesk, bizarr, ein phantastisches Schauspiel...« Aber er zögerte, denn er besaß die »Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier« [von E. Th. A. Hoffmann] nicht. Der Zufall will es, daß ich am gleichen Tag im Schaufenster einer Buchhandlung eine schöne Ausgabe dieser berühmten Fantasiestücke ausgestellt finde; ich kaufe sie und bringe sie ihm.

When Mahler was working on his First Symphony he frequently played me the essential ideas from the sketches or from the already completed movements. He frantically sought an imposing and audacious title for this, his first symphony. 'I implore you, give me name for the Symphony!' I replied 'Just call it "Nature Symphony" or something similar, and, because it is very bizarre – grotesque, bizarre, a fantastic scene – add the designation "Funeral March in Callots Manier" to the third [recte: fourth] movement. But he hesitated, because he did not have the "Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier" [by E. T. A. Hoffmann]. As luck would have it, the same day I found an attractive edition of the famous Fantasiestücke displayed in the window of a bookshop. I bought it and took it to him.

Einige Tage später teilt mir Mahler mit, daß er nun endgültig für seine Sinfonie einen Charaktertitel gefunden habe. »Ich nenne sie: Titan ... « Den Namen hatte ihm einer seiner musikbegeisterten Freunde eingeblasen. Aber als dann die Sinfonie unter dem hohl aufgedonnerten Titel in Hamburg und später in Weimar aufgeführt und mit einer sehr abfälligen, fast schon vernichtenden Kritik bedacht worden war, tilgte Mahler die nicht sehr glückliche Bezeichnung.

A few days later Mahler told me that he he had finally found a characteristic title for his Symphony. 'I am calling it "Titan"...' One of his music-loving friends had suggested it to him. However, when the Symphony was played in Hamburg and later Weimar under that vainly dressed-up title, and had been subjected to very disapproving, almost completely annihilating criticism, Mahler erased the not very happy label.

If Pfohl’s tacit assumption was correct, the title 'Titan' had nothing to do with Jean-Paul, and that seems to have been what Mahler told Nathalie Bauer-Lechner in 1900 (NBL, 148–9; NBL2, 173–5; NBLE, 157–8):

Mahler hatte seine Erste ursprünglich „Titan“ genannt, dann aber diesen Titel, wie alle Überschriften seiner Werke, längst gestrichen, weil sie ihm als Andeutungen eines Programms ausgelegt und mißdeutet wurden. So brachte man ihm seinen „Titan“ mit dem Jean Paul’schen in Verbindung. Er hatte aber einfach einen kraftvoll-heldenhaften Menschen im Sinne, sein Leben und Leiden, Ringen und Unterliegen gegen das Geschick, „wozu die wahre, höhere Auflösung erst die Zweite bringt“.

Originally, Mahler had called his First Symphony ‘Titan’. But he has long ago eradicated this title, and all other superscriptions of his works, because he found that people misinterpreted them as indications of a programme. For instance, they connected his ‘Titan’ with Jean Paul’. But all he had in mind was a powerfully heroic individual, his life and suffering, struggles and defeat at the hands of fate. ‘The true, higher redemption comes only in the Second Symphony.’

b) The subtitle for the Part I of the Symphony given in the handbill for the Hamburg performance in 1893 alludes to Blumen-, Frucht- und Dornenstücke oder Ehestand, Tod und Hochzeit des Armenadvokaten F. St. Siebenkäs im Reichsmarktflecken Kuhschnappel by Jean Paul, published in 1796–7.

c) The title used for the second (later deleted) movement, Blumine, may be an allusion to Jean Paul’s Herbst-Blumine, oder gesammelte Werkchen aus Zeitschriften (3 vols, 1810–20).

d) As early as 1889 Mahler told a journalist that the funeral march drew on a picture called ‘Hunter's Funeral’ and the the 1893 Hamburg programme for the fourth (third) movement refers to a ‘parodistic picture, known to all children in Austria, ‘The Hunter’s Funeral’ from an old book of children’s fairy tales’; these and all the subsequent references are probably to ‘Wie die Thiere den Jäger begraben’ a woodcut after a drawing by Moritz von Schwind (1804–71) (from Münchner Bilderbogen No. 44: Die guten Freunde (Munich, 1850):

Related Works

a) The first movement incorporates complete passages from ‘Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld’, the second song of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.

b) Blumine, the eventually-deleted second movement, was originally composed as one of the numbers in Mahler’s incidental music to tableaux vivants based on Scheffel’s Der Trompeter von Säkkingen.

c) The central section of the third movement is a purely orchestral version of the closing section of the final song of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, ‘Die zwei blauen Augen’ (bb. 37–67).

Quotations and Self-Borrowings

a) The second movement uses material with a strong resemblance to ‘Maitanz im Grünen’ in Mahler’s early collection of 5 Lieder für Tenorstimme (of which only three were composed); this song was later published as ‘Hans und Grete’ in Lieder und Gesänge (1892).

b) The main section of the third movement is based on a minor-mode version of the famous round Bruder Martin.

c) Constantin Floros has suggested that the finale of the Symphony alludes to Liszt’s Dante Symphony in both overall design (epitomised by Mahler’s movement heading D'all Inferno al Paradiso) and motivic elements, and that the chorale (bb. 296–304) is ‘nothing more than a rhythmic variation of the Grail theme from Wagner’s Parsifal which is [itself] shaped from Liszt’s Cross symbol and the Dresden Amen’ (see CFGM, II/247–65; CFGME 43–48).

d) The finale (bb. 340–6) re-uses in slightly modified form the climactic gesture from Das klagende Lied (Der Spielmann, bb. 451–7).

Duration

In 1894 Mahler’s own estimate of the duration of the symphony (i.e. the five-movement version, with no repeats in the first movement or scherzo) – offered in a letter of 24 April to Hans von Bronsart – was 48 minutes. This is broadly in line with three timings that appear in performers' annotations to Mahler’s orchestral part set (GMPO₂) used for later performances of the four-movement version.

Critical Edition

SWIa: Gustav Mahler, Symphonie Nr. 1 in vier Sätzen für großes Orchester (Revidierte Ausgabe), Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Band I, ed. Erwin Ratz (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1967)

SWIb: Gustav Mahler, Symphonie Nr. 1 in vier Sätzen für großes Orchester (Verbesserte Ausgabe), Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Band I, ed. Sander Wilkens (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1992)

Supplementary Material

Symphony No. 1 – Outline stemma: scores and parts

Symphony No. 1 - The original movement order

Symphony No. 1 – The double bass solo revisited