Bernstein, Lawrence F. - Inside Mahler's Second Symphony

This guide introduces concertgoers, serious listeners, and music students to Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony, one of the composer's most popular and most powerful works. It examines the symphony from several perspectives: Mahler's struggle to create what he called the New Symphony; his innovative approaches to traditional musical form; how he addressed the daunting challenges of writing music on a monumental scale; and how he dealt with the ineluctable force of Beethoven's symphonic precedent, especially that of the Ninth Symphony.

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CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables
List of Music Examples
List of Audio Examples
Acknowledgements
Preface
The Recording
How to Use this Book
Part One: Preliminaries
Chapter 1 Setting the Stage for the Second Symphony
Part Two: The Five Movements
Chapter 2 First Movement: The Opening and a Two-part Exposition
Chapter 3 First Movement: Development and Recapitulation
Chapter 4 The Second Movement
Chapter 5 A Song Serves as a Study for the Third Movement
Chapter 6 The Third Movement: Scherzo and Trio
Chapter 7 The Fourth Movement: Urlicht
Chapter 8 How to Complete the Symphony
Chapter 9 The Last Movement, Part 1: References to Judgment and the Airing of Themes
Chapter 10 The Last Movement, Part 2: Judgment in Action, Musical Development, and Some Continuing Enigmas
Chapter 11 The Last Movement, Part 3: Collapse, Climactic Resolution, a Stunning Reversal, and Celebration
Appendices
Appendix 1 The Formal Template for the First Movement: Sonata Form
Appendix 2 Second-Movement Forms
Appendix 3 The Origins, Character, and Form of the Scherzo
Appendix 4 Complete Performances of Each Movement
Glossary
Bibliography
Index