PROGRAM NOTES     	 	
gave the movement (he deleted the title before publication): Freund Hein spielt auf, or “Friend Hein 
strikes up,” “Friend Hein” being a euphemistic name for Death in German folklore. The scherzo-type 
movement, in the style of the Ländler (an Austrian folk dance), features a solo violin tuned one whole 
tone higher than usual, producing a brighter, shriller sound. The character of the music, though 
somewhat grotesque, is never frightening. The main melody, with the retuned violin, alternates with 
two gentler “trios” or middle sections. 
The slow movement, which stands in third place, seems to come from a completely different world. 
It begins as a hymn-like Adagio that brings to mind such Beethovenian models as the Adagio of 
the Ninth Symphony. It is a set of variations on a simple and serene major-mode theme, twice 
interrupted by passionate interludes in the minor mode. The great conductor Bruno Walter, who in 
his youth had worked closely with Mahler, recalled that the composer had mentioned the image of 
a “tombstone on which was carved an image of the departed” as an inspiration. The main melody 
of the movement arises from an image of absolute immobility and increases gradually in volume 
as the subsequent variations become more and more animated. Finally, the great moment arrives: 
the music has almost faded into complete silence when suddenly we hear a veritable explosion 
in a surprising new key (E major after G major), and the horns burst in with a theme from the first 
movement. It is like a sudden and isolated flash of lightning, after which the music returns to is 
initial tranquility  as the violins play a melody to which Mahler was to return in his song “Ich bin der 
Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I have become lost to the world”).
The song that became the last movement was written seven or eight years before the rest of the 
symphony. Originally called “Das himmlische Leben,” it originally served as a counterpart to a tragic 
piece entitled “Das irdische Leben” (“Life on earth”). The poem describes life in Heaven as a child 
would imagine it; yet naïveté is combined with some deliciously subtle irony. The music captures this 
duality perfectly, as it makes allusions to folksong while also using such un-folksong-like elements 
as long melismas (many notes sung to the same syllable) and sudden key changes. The narration 
of Heaven’s delights is punctuated with a return of the sleigh-bell music we heard earlier in the first 
movement. In the last section, the music suddenly modulates from G major to E major (the same 
succession of keys that brought about the great “explosion” in the third movement). Here, however, 
the melody becomes ever softer and sweeter as the words, after describing heavenly food and drink, 
turn to heavenly music. Which is exactly what Mahler gave us in the final measures of the symphony.
© P. L., Ph. D., Program Annotator, The Cleveland Orchestra (1990-2007),  
Visiting Associate Professor, Bard College (2007-2024)
srsymphony.org	
2026-2027 Season   23

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