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Happy birthday Lillian!! (4/6)

Some fun notes (livetweets) about the Mahler, because this 1984 Chicago Symphony recording (conducted by Georg Solti) is 55:52 long and I don't have time to talk between movements--

Movement I:

• You can hear the same four-note motif that shows up in Castlevania as Simon's theme.
• Also showing up is the two-note motif the oboe will come back with later in the 3rd movement. Actually, the 3rd movement echos this 1st movement a ton. Note that movements 1 and 3 are in the keys of D major and D minor, respectively
• This movement is specifically "langsam, schleppend" or "slowly, dragging" which it really isn't for the most part!

Movement II:

• "Kräftig bewegt" is very accurate here- "strongly moving"
• Gosh this movement is so German
• But then we get the segue into the second half, which has such a different tone...it's so sweet and lovely and Romantic with a capital R!
• Of course, we return to a repeat of the movement's opening for a super cool buildup to the movement's end

Movement III:

• Yes, that is a double bass soloing a minor key version of Frére Jacques (which Mahler refers to as Bruder Martin) which turns into a frenzied funeral march
• I always imagine a bunch of Disney-style forest animals parading the death of a hunter when I listen to this movement. maybe that says something about me. Oh my gosh I just checked Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't giving y'all wrong translations and it says that was, in fact, the extra-musical idea behind this movement. I discovered this piece many years ago listening to a Great Courses CD on classical music and that would explain that. Phew, I'm not insane.

Movement IV:

• Holy supervillain entrance jumpscare, Batman. Have I mentioned how much I love this symphony?
• Definitely some mirroring of the first movement in vibes-- both movements really serve to unite the work
• The finale gets me every time. Thanks for listening, y'all! <3