Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.2 (Movement V) Movement V At Mahler’s funeral on 22nd May 1911, fellow composer and friend J.B. Fӧrster recalled that, although Mahler had requested no music to be played at the service, nature had its own ideas: “Only somewhere in a tree a bird sang Read more…
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.2 (Movement IV) Movement IV Although added very late in the compositional process, the fourth movement plays a key role in the dramaturgy of the symphony. After the riotous Scherzo, this movement calmly opens, not with the orchestra, but with a human voice. The movement is composed Read more…
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.2 (Movement III) Movement III Also composed in the summer of 1893, the third movement was originally labelled as the second movement, as it bears many similarities to Todtenfeier. This movement is the first of the symphony to take musical and literary inspiration from Mahler’s Des Read more…
Alexander von Zemlinsky: Symphony No. 1 Context Born in Vienna in 1871, Alexander von Zemlinsky was tutored by some of the ‘great’ composers of the Romantic period – Gustav Mahler and Johannes Brahms. After the premiere of Zemlinsky’s First Symphony, Brahms supported the young composer until his own death in 1897. Read more…
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No.2 Context In 1901, Jean Sibelius left his home country and travelled to Italy and stayed in a mountain villa near Rapallo. Baron Axel Carpelan raised funds for Sibelius to take this trip, and it was in this villa that he started work on his Second Symphony. Read more…
Carl Nielsen: Symphony No.2 ‘The Four Temperaments’ Context Carl Nielsen was born in 1865 on the island of Funen (the third-largest island that is a part of Denmark). The Nielsen family were incredibly poor, however, his parents were keen musicians, with his father playing cornet and his mother, a singer. Read more…
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No.1 Context Few popular large scale works have taken longer to compose than Johannes Brahms’ First Symphony. The German composer spent just over 21 years to end with what we know as his First Symphony. Sketches for the symphony date back to 1854, with the premiere of Read more…
Rued Langgaard: Symphony No. 1 “Klippepastoraler” Context Rued Langgaard was born in 1893 to a pair of highly musical parents. His father, Siegfriend Langgaard was a known composer and highly skilled chamber musician, and his mother Emma Langgaard was also a highly skilled pianist. It was his mother who introduced Read more…
Nikolai Myakovsky: Symphony No.10 Context The aptly named “Father of the Soviet Symphony”, Nikolai Myakovsky, composed 27 symphonies in total. The tenth, composed between 1926-27, Myakovsky was inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Bronze Horseman. The story tells of a man whose fiancé is drowned by the 1824 River Neva Read more…
Amy Beach: Gaelic Symphony Context In 1896, Amy Beach premiered her First Symphony – Gaelic Symphony. This was a massive milestone in women’s music as Beach became the first American woman to compose and then further publish a symphony. In 1900 Beach was the soloist for the premiere of her Read more…