ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical
KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette and I'll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to "Major and Minor Masterpieces," where we focus each week on a
broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies
and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
Today's theme is "Somewhat Smaller Mahler."
If you know anything at all about composer-conductor Gustav Mahler, you know he
composed massive symphonies; he completed nine and was working on a tenth when
he died in 1911 at the age of 51. Two of those symphonies, however, come in at less
than an hour, which is what makes it possible to shoehorn them both into today's two-
hour program.
The Symphony No. 1 in D major premiered in a five-movement version in 1889, with
Mahler recycling themes from his song cycle "Songs of a Wayfarer." Various revisions
followed, including the excising of a whole movement (titled "Blumine," with a gorgeous
trumpet solo that is now often performed as a separate concert piece) and Mahler's
jettisoning of an initial title, "The Titan."
A performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra was my first exposure to Mahler's music; I
was captivated in particular by the third movement: Inspired by Moritz von Schwind's
woodcut "The Hunter's Funeral Procession," with the forest animals bearing the bier of
the dead hunter, a minor-key version of the children's tune "Frère Jacques."
Let's hear it played by the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson
Thomas in a live 2001 performance at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall.
(GUSTAV MAHLER'S SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN D MAJOR)
ERIC: You heard the San Francisco Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas
perform Gustav Mahler's First Symphony on today's edition of Major and Minor
Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH "BOITEG" CIESLIŃSKI'S "FIRST VIOLIN")
---PROGRAM BREAK---
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH "BOITEG" CIESLIŃSKI'S "FIRST VIOLIN")
Mahler's Fourth Symphony, his shortest, premiered in 1902. It features themes from
another song cycle, "Das Knaben Wunderhorn," or "The Youth's Magic Horn," from
which Mahler extracted the poem sung by a soprano, representing a child's view of
heaven, that comprises the fourth and final movement. Mahler scored it without heavy
brass (no trombones or tuba), but with a busy percussion section that includes cymbals,
sleigh bells, triangle, tam-tam and glockenspiel.
James Levine conducts the Chicago Symphony with soprano Judith Blegen in Gustav
Mahler's Symphony No. 4.
(GUSTAV MAHLER'S SYMPHONY NO. 4)
ERIC: Soprano Judith Blegen joined James Levine and the Chicago Symphony in
Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH "BOITEG" CIESLIŃSKI'S "FIRST VIOLIN")
Thanks for tuning in this week. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. Our transition and credit music is by
our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio
and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
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The recordings:
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco
Symphony, San Francisco Symphony live recording, 811936-0002-2
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4, Judith Blegen, soprano; conductor James Levine,
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, RCA Red Seal, 59413-2