A meadow

Intimate voices III Gustav Mahler's first symphony is an intimate journey through the composer's troubled childhood, his early love stories, his love for nature and poetry, and his longing for the beauty of eternity. It is the first installment in what will become an autobiographical body of works where he presents himself often vulnerable and fragile, sometimes full of despair and anguish, but also with heroic moments of greatness.

I have had few opportunities to conduct Mahler, but they have been always intense, gut-wrenching, demanding but ultimately rewarding experiences. My Mahler scores are heavily marked, and each time I approach them, new annotations will come to mind. As with Beethoven, one never truly finishes learning Mahler's music.

The first movement of this symphony, titled "Titan", was thought of by Mahler as a walk through a meadow. He writes birdcalls, distant fanfares from barracks, and even quotes one of his own songs in its entirety, "Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld" from "Songs of a Wayfarer". Mahler captures, as Beethoven did earlier, the feeling of going to the country, the sounds of the forest, the energy of nature.

PNG 2732 × 1537