In my work on the Mahler’s Third Symphony, I found myself trying to decide if the two “parts” in that piece truly balanced each other. Part of the problem there was that none of the five movements in the second “part” seemed to have much to do with each other. Now, Mahler seems to have addressed my concern. This movement, the second, when taken with the first movement, the funeral march, does give a sense of motivic and harmonic unity.
The music opens in a new key, a minor, with new motivic material that, as so often in Mahler, will prove to be bracketing material that offsets the various sections of the movement. The most important thematic element of this movement appears in the pick-up to m. 9, a rising ninth. This ninth appears throughout this volatile, stormy movement and provides a cohesiveness to an otherwise far-ranging utterance. The rising ninth in this instance begins a thematic element that is also part of this bracketing material, a four-bar idea that fills in the ninth in a propulsive, expansive manner. This theme often fills in for the bracketing material at lower-level formal boundaries.
The key of a minor dominates the music for the first few pages, and the four-bar idea and the rising ninth seem to be the main idea of the movement. By m. 67, however, the music has begun to pull itself apart, and ends over a pedal C with a flourish of eighth-notes in the woodwinds that leads to a timpani roll on C, which proves to be the dominant pitch for the next key area.
Surprisingly, the new key brings back old material. Rather than a simple return of material from earlier in this movement, the theme from the funeral march returns in the cellos in m. 78, with interjections of the rising ninth motive. An accompanimental motive now begins to appear, three eighth-notes leading to the downbeat. In this part of the music, too, is a typically Mahlerian approach to cadences, a chromatically ascending bassline, that reaffirms, for example, F-major in m. 109.
In measure 117, more first movement material returns, the half-note tied to triplet motive that is now given to the first violins and cellos. The music continues to an interesting doubling of clarinets, bassoons and violas in m. 129, and with continued appearance of the accompaniment motive. The music builds to a deceptive cadence in m. 141 that brings back the a-minor bracket material. No sooner does this material appear than it is restated a step lower, leading toward an ultimate harmonic goal of e-flat minor, which is arrived at following a roll on the dominant, Bb. Over this roll, beginning in m. 188, is a cello passage that is cadenza-like in character, leading to another chromatic ascent to the tonic in m. 214.
At this moment, the funeral march theme is restated, a step lower than it first appeared in this movement. Mahler appears to use the descending second as a harmonic motive in this movement, a statistically rare choice in common-practice music, but highly suggestive of the falling-fifth sequence that has been a hallmark of music since Bach’s time.
The developmental section that follows is motivically mixed, and the result is that Mahler is abel to create music that is highly cohesive, yet incredibly stormy in its swirling, unrelenting effect. The music moves to C-flat major, then enharmonically to B-major. At m. 266, the second theme of the first movement reappears in the woodwinds. This recall of ideas and motives in combination with the material new to this movement justifies calling it and the previous movement together a “part,” at least to a much greater extent than in Mahler’s previous work.
In measure 288, there is a shift to A-flat major, the enharmonic parallel major to B-major’s relative minor. The music is largely compound in feel, but Mahler chooses to use triplets rather than change the meter–Brahms would have written this section in 6/4.
A recapitulation of sorts happens at m. 322, but not in the original key, rather in C-minor. An absolutely delicious effect happens at mm. 340-1 with unison ascending rips in the horns and low strings over longer values in the trombones and middle woodwinds.
At m. 356, the first theme of the movement reappears, now in e minor, lower than the first statement by a step again. This entire section builds for pages to a titanic moment at measure 428, where the low brass and basses intone a theme that combines the triplet rhythm with the opening segment of the propulsive music of the bracket material. The music from here on out is a process of building to the next climax–first, a D-major chorale at m. 464, then another chorale at measure 500 (marked “Highpoint” in the score!).
Mahler doesn’t just arrive at this last climax, though, he maintains it for several pages, until m. 539, which is a relieving moment. For almost the first time in this movement, the full orchestra is in rhythmic unison, a refreshing contrast in a piece that has been highly contrapuntal until now.
The music relaxes into a coda, which beginns in earnest at measure 557. The propulsive theme that opened the movement dissolves into the rising ninth motive, which is passing around the orchestra, even to a tuba solo, and the music ends in the same place as it began, in a minor.