Monday 2 March 2015

Mahler - Symphony no.1

As I type this, it's actually snowing here in Glossop, even though it's officially spring. Well it is according to the Met Office. Summer migrants are on the way, and in the next couple of weeks there will be the first UK records of Wheatear, Sand Martin and Little Ringed Plover, and then by the end of the month they'll all start piling in. The average earliest arrival dates of summer migrants are listed here by the BTO.

There's about seven million pieces of music about spring, but the best (and I know this because I've listened to every single piece of music ever written about spring. Every one of them without exception), is the opening movement from the 1st Symphony by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Of course when I say it's the best, that was a throwaway sentence, next week I'll probably have another piece of bird-music about spring, and I'll say that's the best. The 'best' thing for you to do is to just dismiss everything I say.

The origins of Mahler's music about spring can be found in this song Ging heut Morgen übers Feld (I walked across the fields this morning). It's all about birds starting to sing, fields full of bluebells, and the world warming up and getting some colour back after a miserable winter. Have a listen to it, it's great, and there's a translation here. Mahler wrote that song in 1885 (it's from the Songs of a Wayfarer) and then used the melody in the first movement of this symphony, which he initially finished in 1888, but then over the next decade he made some big changes to it, until it arrived at the 1896 version which is played today.

Just in case the musical references to spring are too obscure, Mahler hammers the fact home for a quarter of an hour by having a Cuckoo singing throughout the whole movement. It first sings on clarinet after about two minutes in the video below, then you just can't shut it up.

As much as I love this piece, it's the Cuckoo that actually annoys me a bit. Cuckoos are brilliant, they're first class birds, but (and I'm aware that what I'm about to write makes me look like a bit of a twat) Mahler makes his Cuckoo sing the musical interval of a perfect fourth, whereas Cuckoos actually sing an interval of a major third. Honestly, have a listen to these Cuckoos on Xeno-Canto - from far eastern China, through Central Asia, Europe and right across to Scotland, they all sing a major third. Even Beethoven knew that, and he couldn't even hear anything. What's that, you don't care? Fair enough. Just enjoy the music then.








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