Mahler Symphony No. 10 - 5th Movement - Listening Guide

Published: March 17, 2021, 10 p.m.

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The emotional weight of the symphony is resolved by the long final movement, which incorporates and ties together music from the earlier movements, whereby the opening passage of the symphony, now transferred to the horns, is found to be the answer to tame the savage dissonance that had racked the end of the first movement.

The music of the flute solo that was heard after the introductory funeral scene can now return to close the symphony peacefully, and unexpectedly, in the principal key of F-sharp major. The draft for this movement reveals that Mahler had originally written the ending in B-flat major, but in the process of revision worked the same music into F-sharp, the key of the first movement.

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A listening guide of Symphony No. 10 - 5th Movement with Lew Smoley

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