当我是一个孩子时我像孩子一样说话，像孩子一样理解，像孩子一样思考。但当我成为一个大人时，我收起了那些孩子气的东西。——《哥林多前书第13章第11节》
1901年2月24日是古斯塔夫·马勒一生中不平凡的一天。下午，这位40岁的作曲家和指挥家带领维也纳爱乐乐团首次演出了他的前任总监安东·布鲁克纳的第五交响曲。当晚他在维也纳歌剧院指挥了上演莫扎特魔笛的盛大晚会。一个年轻的名叫阿尔玛·辛德勒的女人座在观众席中，她将在不到一年的时间之内成为马勒的妻子。看完了他的指挥之后，她报告似地对她的同伴说到：“那张脸，那些惨白的皱纹，那像燃烧的煤球一样的眼睛，这个男人不能在这样下去了。” 那天晚些时候，马勒醒来发现自己倒在血泊之中。医生被呼叫过来，一个外科医生发现如果他晚到了半个小时的话，一切就会太迟了。马勒被诊断为上消化道严重出血。
血被止住了，一周后手术成功进行。但是马勒却被迫停止工作，在维也纳的一家医院和家里康复了一个多月。疼痛还在继续，还需要在6月进行第二场手术。虽然马勒是否面临生命危险还存在争议，但他给朋友的口信中清楚的表明，他相信他面临着致命的危险。“你知道昨晚我差点死去，当我看到两位医生的脸时我以为这是我的弥留之际。当我徘徊在生与死的边界上时，我在想是不是就这样结束会更好，因为每个人都会迎来这样的结局”。并不意外地，马勒从这场危机中解脱出来，他的观点也改变了。他的学生，指挥家布鲁诺·沃尔塔在他身上看到了无比深刻的现实与清醒。与死神的擦肩而过以及随后的术后抑郁正好发生在马勒即将步入中年之际，这无疑使他成熟，并重新评估他自身的存在以及迄今为止的成就。
几代人以来，音乐家们都希望从约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫的音乐中寻找到愉悦的指引和安慰，马勒也不例外。在他康复的过程中，他将自己沉浸在这位伟大的巴洛克大师的作品中，从中得到了解脱和新生。基于巴赫无与伦比的技术技巧，马勒惊叹于这种被他称作奇迹般的自由。在巴赫的音乐中，每一个细胞都完全统一，好像世界就在上帝手中，没有比这更欢愉的事情了。巴赫作为作曲家，他的作品代表了被称为“绝对音乐”的最高水平。马勒转向巴赫的怀抱，不仅奠定了他第五交响曲大部分内容的基调，产生的前景也影响了他接下来两部交响曲的布局。三部纯粹器乐的，非标题的音乐，组成了他第二段创作期的核心内容。
尽管马勒所有的作品都提出了最基本的存在的问题，他提出这些问题的方式却随时间变化。在他前四部交响曲中提出的深刻问题，面临着很大程度上诗意的神秘背景。青年的魔法号角营造出来的瑰丽氛围以及一本马勒最喜欢的民间诗歌集贯穿在这四部曲中。在其中寻找出的文本和叙述直接说明了这些特别的标题音乐中蕴含的内容。但是作曲家在1901年上半年的遭遇给他的艺术视角带来了翻天覆地的变化。在给朋友的一封信中他描述了他对第五交响曲的计划，它不属于浪漫或者神秘元素，它绝对没有人声。它不需要语言，一切都将在纯粹的音乐中表现。它将是一首真正的交响乐，每个乐章相互独立、完整，乐章之间仅仅依靠情绪联系在一起。
马勒的第五交响曲大部分写于1901和1902年的夏天的麦亚尼希，一座位于奥地利南部卡林西亚州的湖边小镇。作为一个自承为假日作曲家的人，他的原创性工作通常局限于这些暑假当中。其它更程序化的作曲工作，像编曲和誊抄通常都在常规的乐季当中进行。马勒的指挥工作占据了他大部分时间，留给他的空闲已经不足以产生新的想法了。因此，重新拾起他的创作动力会遇到许多困难，直到1901年的7月上旬，马勒才能够认真地开始谱写这首交响曲。然而一旦开始，之后的进度非常迅速。到那个夏天结束时，他完成了第一乐章葬礼进行曲，这与他早期的交响曲中的那些毫无关联的绝望形成了鲜明的对比。风暴般激烈的第二乐章为第一部分收尾，庞大的819小节的谐谑曲构成了乐曲第二部分。用马勒的话来说这是一部出色的复调杰作，其中的要素都是必要而经过了充分的融合和转化。乐曲的第三部分，也是最后一部分完成于第二年夏天，由两个乐章组成。为弦乐和竖琴而作的柔板——被认为是马勒献给新婚妻子阿尔玛的无言情歌，和另一个狂欢的终曲——回应巴赫的拥抱。
尽管这首曲子1904年10月在科隆的首演并不成功，但马勒没有退缩：“我现在的创作就像是一个成年人，一个有正确经验的人。虽然我的热情达不到以前的高度，但我完全掌控着我的力量和技术。我感到我是情感表达的主人，能够实现任何我想做的事情。”
When I’m a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away those childish things. ーFirst Corinthians chapter 13 verse 11
February 24 1901 was an eventful day in the life of Gustav Mahler. In the afternoon, the 40 year old composer and conductor led the Vienna philharmonic in their first performance of fifth symphony by his former mentor Anton Bruckner, that evening he conducted a gala performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Vienna Opera. A young woman named Alma Schindler who would become Mahler’s wife in less than one year later was in the audience. After watching him conduct, she reportedly said to her companions: that face those pale cheeks those eyes like burning coals, this man can’t go on like that. Later that night, Mahler awake to find himself lying in a pool of blood. A doctor was called and then a surgeon who noted that if he’d arrived a half hour later, it would’ve been too late. A severe hemorrhage in Mahler’s upper intestinal tract was diagnosed and the bleeding was eventually stopped. A successful operation was performed a week later but Maher was forced to abandon professional activities for more than a month while convalescing at a Vienna hospital and then at home. Painful symptoms continued required a second operation in June. While the extent to which Mahler’s life was actually in danger has been debated, a remark that he made to his friend clearly indicated that he believed the peril he’d faced was mortal. You know last night I nearly passed away, when I saw the faces of the two doctors I thought my last hour had come. While I was hovering on the border between life and death I wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to be done with it at once, since everyone must come to that in the end. Unsurprisingly Mahler appears to have emerged form this crisis with altered perspectives. His disciple the conductor Bruno Volta noted in him a deepen realism and sobriety. The fact that this brush with mortality and bouts of post-operative depression that followed occurred just as Mahler was entering midlife certainly made him ripe for a reassessment of both his existence and his accomplishments to date.
For generations musicians have turn to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach for enjoyment instruction and consolation and Mahler was no exception. During his recovery he plunged into the great baroque master’s work and emerged refreshed. Marveling at what he called this miraculous freedom which is based on his unparallel skill and technique. In Bach all the cells are united as the world is in God. There’s never been playfully greater than this. This renewed embrace of Bach as composers whose arts represents the highest standard of so called absolute music would not only fundamentally determine much of the content in Mahler’s fifth symphony, the outlook it generated also give rise to the two symphonies that followed. Resulting in a trilogy of purely instrumental, non-programmatic symphonies that formed the core of his second creative period. While all of Maler’s works address basic existential questions. The manner of that address changed over time. The profound issues raised in his first four symphonies are confronted with a largely poetic mystical context. The fanciful atmosphere of Des Knaben Wunderhorn or the youth’s magic horn and an anthology of folk poems and songs that was one of Mahler’s favorite books is pervasive in this tetralogy and the narratives and texts he found in this collection directly inform the substance of this explicitly programmatic works. But the composer’s experiences during the first half of 1901 brought about a decisive shift in his artistic vision. A change he described in a letter to a friend about his plans for his fifth symphony. Neither romantic or mystical elements belong and human voice has absolutely no place in it. It doesn’t need words, for everything is to be expressed in pure music. It would be a proper symphony, each movement independent, complete in itself and linked to the others solely by affinity of mood.
Mahler’s fifth was primarily written during the summer month of 1901 and 1902 in Mayance. A lakeside hamlet in southern Austrian province Carinthia. As a self-described holiday composer, his creative work was usually confined to these summer vacation periods while the more functional aspects of composition such as orchestration and copying took place during the regular concert season when Mahler’s conducting schedule occupied much of his time and left him in a frame of mind that wasn’t conducive to developing new ideas. As a result reestablishing his creative momentum was often a struggle and Mahler wasn’t able to begin composing this symphony in earnest until early July of 1901. Once begun, however, the work proceeded quickly. By the end of that summer he completed the opening funeral march which in its unrelating despair stands in contrast to those in his early symphonies. The vehement stormy second movement that closed the work’s first part and the massive 819 bar scherzo that forms the entirely of the symphony’s second and a brilliant masterpiece of polyphony in which the material is in Mahler’s words, so thoroughly needed that there is not a single grain in it which isn’t blended and transformed. The work’s third and final part was written the following summer and consists of two movements, an adagietto for strings and harp that is thought to be an instrumental love song for Mahler’s new wife Alma, and a Ronda-Finale that is a veritable orgy of joyous Bahian counterpart. Although the symphony’s premier in Cologne in Oct of 1904 was unsuccessful, Mahler remained undeterred. My present creative work is that of an adult, a man of right experience. Although I no longer attain my former heights of enthusiasm, I’m now in full command of my powers and technique. I feel that I’m master of my means of expression and capable of carrying out anything to which I put my hand.
Transcribed and translated from Boston Symphony Orchestra Channel by Kane 28/3
