Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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 program 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 the work as both the culmination of Mahler's early symphonic style and a 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.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of plates (p. ix)
• Preface (p. xi)
• Part I The symphony in its world (p. 1)
• 1 Background: progress, tradition and ideas (p. 3)
• Music and nineteenth-century culture (p. 4)
• McGrath's approach (p. 8)
• Radical conservatism (p. 10)
• Inspiration and Nature (Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche) (p. 12)
• The programme and popularization (p. 18)
• 2 Reception: the early performances (p. 21)
• Early performances of movements from the Third Symphony (p. 23)
• The first performances of the complete symphony (p. 26)
• The Third in Vienna (p. 30)
• Part II The world in the symphony (p. 35)
• 3 Genesis and design (p. 37)
• Meaning and the reinterpretation of form (p. 38)
• The evolving conception (p. 41)
• 4 The music (p. 53)
• Movement 2 (p. 54)
• Movement 3 (p. 59)
• Movement 4, Movement 5, Movement 6 (p. 66)
• Movement 1 (p. 77)
• Appendix I The 1896 manuscript and the first published score (p. 91)
• Appendix II Two early sketches for the Third Symphony (p. 100)
• Notes (p. 105)
• Select bibliography (p. 119)
• Index (p. 122)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Another admirable monograph in the ^D["Cambrige Music Handbooks^D]" series, this pithy volume rewards careful reading. The book is in two parts--^D["The Symphony in Its World,^D]" which places Mahler's opus in context and discusses the sources of its inspiration, and ^D["The World in the Symphony,^D]" a discussion of the music itself. Mahler's 1896 work, one of the longest (and largest) symphonies ever written, is not generally considered ^D["canonical,^D]" but it proves to be an excellent subject for close study. Its completion marked a pivotal time in Mahler's career and an examination of the circumstances surrounding its genesis and early performances yields many insights into the musical politics of the period. Mahler's seeming ambivalence about the ^D["programmatic^D]" origins of his first three symphonies is shown to have been motivated by a desire to have them accepted by establishment critics, who favored ^D["absolute^D]" music. The commentary on the music itself assumes a thorough acquaintance with the score on the part of the reader. Ordinarily this would limit readership to Mahler specialists, but the writing is so engaging and insightful that many nonspecialists are likely to be inspired to study this work in depth. Highly recommended for graduate students and faculty.