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Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 3 in D minor by Gustav Mahler was written in sketch beginning in 1893, composed primarily in 1895,[1] and took final form in 1896.[2] Consisting of six movements, it is Mahler's longest composition and is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around 95 to 110 minutes. It was voted one of the ten greatest symphonies of all time in a survey of conductors carried out by the BBC Music Magazine.[3]

Symphony No. 3

D minor

1896 (1896): Steinbach

1898
  • Josef Weinberger

6

9 June 1902 (1902-06-09)

Krefeld

Gustav Mahler

Orchester des Allgemeines Deutschen Musikvereins

Text[edit]

Fourth movement[edit]

Text from Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra: the "Midnight Song"

Tonality[edit]

Peter Franklin from the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians represents the symphony's progressive tonal scheme as 'd/F—D'.[22] More casually it is described as being in D minor. The first movement certainly begins in this key but, by its end, has defined the relative F major as the tonic. The finale concludes in D major, the tonic major, which is not unusual for minor key, multi-movement works. Throughout the symphony, traditional tonality is employed in an enterprising manner with clear purpose .

First performance of the second movement: Nov. 9, 1896 , conducted by Artur Nikisch (repeated by him in Leipzig on Jan. 21, 1897).

Berlin

Performance of second, third and sixth movements: March 9, 1897, , conducted by Felix Weingartner.

Berlin

Premiere of the complete symphony: June 9, 1902, , cond. by the composer. (Between 1902 and 1907 Mahler conducted his symphony 15 times, cf. "Mahler's Concerts", by Knud Martner, New York 2010, p. 341).

Krefeld

Dutch premieres: Oct. 17, 1903 in ; five days later Mahler led the Amsterdam premiere with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Arnhem

premiere: May 9, 1914, Cincinnati May Festival, cond. by Ernst Kunwald.

American

premiere: Feb. 28, 1922, New York Philharmonic cond. by Willem Mengelberg.

New York

premiere: Nov. 29, 1947, BBC Symphony Orchestra in a broadcast cond. by Adrian Boult; this was not recorded by the BBC, but an off-air recording was made on acetate discs and transferred to CD in 2008: the earliest extant recording of the symphony.

British

First radio studio recording: 1950, , choirs, Vienna Symphony Orchestra cond. by F. Charles Adler.

Hilde Rössel-Majdan

First commercial recording: Apr. 27, 1952 , choirs, Vienna Symphony Orchestra cond. by F. Charles Adler on the SPA label. It is available for streaming on Spotify.

Hilde Rössel-Majdan

First public performance in Britain: Feb. 28, 1961, St. Pancras Town Hall, cond. by Bryan Fairfax.

Barham, Jeremy. 1998. "Mahler's Third Symphony and the Philosophy of Gustav Fechner: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Criticism, Analysis, and Interpretation". Ph.D. thesis. University of Surrey.

Filler, Susan M. 1976. "Editorial Problems in Symphonies of Gustav Mahler: A Study of the Sources of the Third and Tenth". PhD diss. Evanston: Northwestern University.

Franklin, Peter. 1977. "The Gestation of Mahler's Third Symphony". 58:439–446.

Music & Letters

Franklin, Peter. 1999. "A Stranger's Story: Programmes, Politics, and Mahler's Third Symphony". In The Mahler Companion, edited by Donald Mitchell and Andrew Nicholson, 171–186. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.  978-0-19-816376-3 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-19-924965-7 (pbk).

ISBN

Franklin, Peter. 1991. Mahler: Symphony No. 3. Cambridge Music Handbooks. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.  978-0-521-37947-2.

ISBN

Johnson, Steven Philip. 1989. "Thematic and Tonal Processes in Mahler's Third Symphony". Ph.D. diss. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles.

. 1995. Gustav Mahler, vol. 3: "Triumph and Disillusion (1904–1907)", revised edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-315160-4.

La Grange, Henry-Louis de

Micznik, Vera. 2005. 'Ways of Telling' in Mahler's Music: The Third Symphony as Narrative Text, In Perspectives on Gustav Mahler, edited by Jeremy Barham, 295–344. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate Publishers.  9780754607090.

ISBN

Pavlović, Milijana. 2010. "Return to Steinbach: An Unknown Sketch of Mahler's Third Symphony". Il Saggiatore Musicale 17:43-52.

Reilly, Edward R. 1986. A Re-examination of the Manuscripts of Mahler's Third Symphony. In Colloque International Gustav Mahler: 25, 26, 27 janvier 1985, edited by Henry-Louis de La Grange, 62–72. Paris: Association Gustav Mahler.

Williamson, John. 1980. Mahler's Compositional Process: Reflections on an Early Sketch for the Third Symphony's First Movement. 61:338–345.

Music & Letters

: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project

Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)