Mahler: Symphony No. 3

Peter Franklin (Author)

9780521379472, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 November 1991

144 pages, 3 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 0.9 cm, 0.19 kg

"...the writing is so engaging and insightful that many nonspecialists are likely to be inspired to study this work in depth." Choice

Mahler's Third Symphony was conceived as a musical picture of the natural world. This handbook describes the composition of Mahler's grandiose piece of philosophical programme music in the context of the ideas that inspired it and the artistic debates and social conflicts that it reflects. In this original and wide ranging account, Peter Franklin takes the Third Symphony as a representative modern European symphony of its period and evaluates it as the culmination of Mahler's early symphonic style and a as work whose contradictory effects mirror the complexity of contemporary social and musical manners. The music is described in detail, movement by movement, with chapters on the genesis, early performance and subsequent reception of the work.

List of plates
Preface
Part I. The Symphony in its World: 1. Background: progress, tradition and ideas
2. Reception: the early performances
Part II. The World in the Symphony: 3. Genesis and design
4. The music
Appendices
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH]