Mahler’s Symphony No. 3
Notes by TŌN cellist Shawn Thoma
When conductor Bruno Walter visited Gustav Mahler in the summer of 1896, he admired the alpine peaks of the Höllengebirge rising above Mahler’s composing hut in Steinbach am Attersee. Mahler said to him, “No need to look up there—I’ve composed it all away!” He had transmuted the grandeur of the mountains into his symphony he had just completed.
At the turn of the 20th century, Mahler lived in a time of restless ideas. Science and philosophy were challenging familiar ways of thinking, while art was reaching for greater scale, depth, and human expression. His first four symphonies were linked to narratives of heroic struggle, mortality, and spiritual renewal, but he chose not to publish them with these outlines. “No music is worth anything if you first have to tell the listener what experience lies behind it,” he said. This belief appears in another of his convictions: “The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.”
The Third Symphony traces a hierarchy from the outer to the inner world. The opening movement is raw and primeval, music of the earth itself. Flowers bloom in the second movement, and animals stir in the third. The fourth movement, setting Nietzsche’s poem “Midnight Song”, comes halfway through the work and places humanity between inanimate nature and the divine. It speaks of the deep pain and suffering in existence, but also of the profound joy that surpasses sorrow and longs for eternity. The fifth shifts instantly into light as children’s voices ring out in a playful folk poem from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection Mahler returned to often, celebrating forgiveness and “heavenly joy.” The final movement is a slow, serene adagio often heard as a portrait of divine love and transcendence. Here, Mahler gathers the threads of the preceding movements into music of profound peace and beauty.
As a musician, I feel cared for in this music. Mahler writes with a deep command of orchestration and the character of each instrument, coupled with a rare empathy for the musicians who bring them to life. No other composer’s music commands the same respect, and it draws complete commitment from everyone on stage. I have been fortunate to perform his Second and Fourth Symphonies, and each experience has stayed with me.