Much of the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony Number 4 is highly whimsical and colorful with many frenetic things happening in the strings and woodwinds, including a deep passage written in the cello part. There were many crazy periods in Mahler’s composing career that were characterized by huge activity crammed into a very little time. This is what this must sound like. This busyness is broken up with brief passages of G major string music that is very simplistic and beautiful.
The beginning of the piece candidly starts off with sleigh bells and a happy nature. The first movement is very string heavy. The texture goes from E minor, to G major, to D major. The cellos and violas have a very sweet, consonant melody duetted in sixths. It’s very calm and great in structure with smooth legato bowing contrasting with a few moments of detached bowing (bowing on every note in a different direction). Several sketches of the first and second themes of the score notate accurately the scope of up and down bows contrasting with the legato bows. The woodwinds accent the strings with their staccato passages.
Soon the sleigh bells come back with the flutes. This is then followed up by a beautiful and surging lines in G major. The sleigh bells return in this marching E minor quality. The music can keep you for hours. Frenetic activity like eighths, sixteenths, and some minor tremolos also are heard. Chromatic brass and woodwinds further paint a steady picture of what could have been a movie score. The strings keep the serious going with their various entrances. The trumpets dazzle with their nasal, muted quality. The main themes are carried mainly through the brass and the strings in different keys as the the movement swirls to a finish. The climax is breathtaking. This could be said of the whole symphony. Add some breathtaking string solos and duets and a soprano soloist in the later movements, it makes this another sparkling Mahler gem in his cannon of work. Also, take a the text of the soprano movement, talking about the beauty of heaven’s things dispensing blessings to the earth, the beauty of battle is there. The sleigh bells return and decorate the texture around the soprano’s singing. It’s well worth listening to keep.
