Symphony 4 - Mahler (1860-1911)

Bedächtig. Nicht eilen: In gemächlicher Bewegung: Ruhevoll: Sehr behaglich

Mahler was content that with his Fourth Symphony he had created a work that everyone could like and understand. He wrote to his wife Alma, "My Fourth ... is all humour, naive etc. It is that part of me which is still the hardest for you to accept and which in any case only the fewest of the few will comprehend for the rest of time". On another occasion he stated, "The thousand little pieces of mosaic that make up the picture are shaken up and it becomes unrecognisable, as in a kaleidoscope, as though a rainbow suddenly disintegrated into millions of dancing drops so that the whole edifice seems to rock and evolve." It was, however, greeted with considerable hostility by the critics and took some time before its acceptance by audiences. Peter Gutmann writes in his Classical Notes, "It's hard to believe nowadays that such a thoroughly lovely work encountered indifference and hostility from both audiences and critics.

The 1901 Munich première, led by the composer, was booed and condemned as baffling and tasteless. The local antipathy may have stemmed from thwarted expectations for a colossal successor to Mahler's earlier work or perhaps the lack of insightful programmatic guidance, but clearly was fuelled by the enmity created by his reforms at the Vienna Court Opera and further stoked by anti-Semitism (even though Mahler had converted to Catholicism as a condition of the Vienna post - an irrelevant detail to devoted bigots). Yet, even in America, that cradle of tolerance and free thinking, a 1904 New York concert was greeted as a ‘drooling and emasculated musical monstrosity, … the most painful musical torture to which [the critic] has been compelled to submit.’"

In spite of this inauspicious start, Mahler's Fourth Symphony was the work which helped bring about the acceptance of his music in our times. Written for smaller orchestral resources than previous works, no heavy brass for instance, the music is mostly light and serene, full of appealing melodies, with the many playful moments disturbed only briefly by hints of darkness. But the concept was not a stepping back by Mahler from his first three mighty symphonies. This work is full of innovation with the sleigh bells taking us straight into a world of childlike simplicity, the folk fiddler in the second movement and the Finale’s sung verses taken from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn), a collection of folk tales that according to Goethe, "has its place in every household". It reveals, in its broad sweep, the composer's personal vision of nature; his grotesque sense of humour; his integration of song into symphonic music and his sublime skill with the orchestra in his search for the meaning behind the great questions of life.

The Norfolk Symphony Orchestra is a registered Charity No. 263422