Minimalism? Gamelan? Electronic music? Hypnotic?
Breathe. Meditate. Stretch. Open. Enjoy.
Here is my own actual public performance of this beautiful Adagietto: https://youtu.be/4TPG40Hx3SQ
Searching for Gustav Mahler’s inspiration: Willem Mengelberg, Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Chailly, Bruno Walter, Bernard Haitink, Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert von Karajan, Rafael Kubelik, Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt, Gary Bertini, Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Otto Klemperer, George Szell, Erich Kleiber, Michael Gielen, Andris Nelsons, Marc Albrecht – Berliner Philharmoniker, Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Wiener Philharmoniker, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Cologne Radio Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.
https://www.christianbaldini.info
Text by Gilbert Kaplan
The Adagietto. For most music lovers, there is but one: the tender and supremely lyrical fourth movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Scored only for strings and harp and often performed as an independent work, it is surely the composer’s best-known piece. It has inspired more than 20 choreographers, among them Gerald Arpino, Maurice Bejart and John Neumeier, to create ballets and served as the principal theme for several films, including Luchino Visconti’s “Death in Venice.”
The Adagietto served as a love letter from the composer to Alma Schindler, probably shortly before they were married in 1902. The Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, in his personal copy of the Fifth Symphony, wrote: “This Adagietto was Gustav Mahler’s declaration of love for Alma! Instead of a letter, he sent her this in manuscript form; no other words accompanied it. She understood and wrote to him: He should come!!! (both of them told me this!).” Mengelberg’s own description of the Adagietto was “love, a love comes into his life.”
Performances of the Adagietto by the composer and his closest associates averaged about eight minutes. On recordings, Bernstein took some 11 minutes, and noted Mahler conductors today range upward to about 14 minutes (Bernard Haitink). In concert, Bernstein and Hermann Scherchen could take more than a quarter of an hour.
Mahler often complained that conductors tended to “exaggerate and distort” his indications — “the largo too slow, the presto too fast.” But in the case of the Adagietto, he left room for some confusion. The term “adagietto,” rarely used by composers, has left most conductors puzzled. And though the preferred definition in musical dictionaries is “slightly faster than adagio,” Mahler complicated matters further by adding “sehr langsam” (“very slow”).
Yet he could not have anticipated the distortions to which his Adagietto would be subjected over the decades.
Symphony No. 5 – Gustav Mahler
The work is in five movements, though Mahler grouped the movements into bigger parts:
Part I
1. Trauermarsch (Funeral march). In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt (At a measured pace. Strict. Like a funeral procession.) C♯ minor
2. Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz (Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence) A minor
Part II
3. Scherzo. Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (Strong and not too fast) D major
Part III
4. Adagietto. Sehr langsam (Very slow) F major
5. Rondo-Finale. Allegro – Allegro giocoso. Frisch (Fresh) D major