Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor was composed between 1901 and 19021. It is contemporary in particular of 3 of the Kindertotenlieder and shares the same funeral character, perhaps in connection with the serious health problems of the musician (intestinal bleeding early 1901). The score was then revised several times, the last one being from 1911. The first one took place however in Cologne on October 18th, 1904 with a very mixed success.

The five movements are:

Part I
I: Trauermarsch. In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt
II: Stürmisch bewegt. Mit größter Vehemenz
Part II
III: Scherzo. Kräftig, nicht zu schnell
Part III
IV: Adagietto. Sehr langsam
V: Rondo-Finale. Allegro - Allegro giocoso. Frisch

Partition revisions
The score was published in 1904, by the Peters Edition in Leipzig. A second "New Edition", incorporating the revisions that Mahler made in 1904, appeared in 1905. The final revisions made by Mahler in 1911 do not appear to have been published until 1964 (Ratz ed.), When the score was was re-published in the complete edition of Mahler's works. In 2001, the Peters Edition published a revised version (Kubik edition) as part of the new Critical Complete Edition series. This edition is the most accurate edition to date. Previous editions are no longer available.

History
An almost fatal intestinal bleeding in February 1901 confronts Mahler with his own death. Nothing is as before, a radical change in his style, in his musical narration is needed, ending his period "Wunderhorn" and beginning his period "Rückert" (named after the cycle of lieder he puts in music that same year). The funeral march ("Trauermarsch") that opens the work is therefore its own march, resigned, towards death. However, the general structure of the symphony, from the dark rhythm of march to the victorious climax of the chorale in the Rondo-Finale, shows a victory over death, a renewal against fatality. The meeting then the marriage with Alma Schindler during the composition of the Symphony is perhaps not unrelated to it: the Adagietto would indeed be, according to a source of the entourage of the composer, a love letter in music destined to Alma (the composer has however left no note or letter to validate this hypothesis).

Luchino Visconti's film Death in Venice (1971) helped to make the Adagietto of this symphony known to the general public.

Creation and reception
Symphony No. 5 was written between 1901 and 1902, at the time of the encounter and the rather hasty engagement between Mahler and Alma Schindler1. It was presented for the first time in public in Cologne with the Gürzenich Orchestra under the direction of the composer on October 18, 1904.

Although no period in Mahler's life could be unequivocally described as happy (he was not that kind of man), there is no doubt that the fifth symphony was conceived at a time of personal and professional satisfaction. substantielle.

Yet, typically, any sign of external pleasure or optimism is tended to be avoided, at least at the beginning of the symphony - ostensibly, and notoriously, it begins with a funeral march.

Mahler's friend, Natalie Bauer-Lechner, remembers the composer telling her about the symphony he wrote in his cabin in the woods (next to Mahler's lakeside villa, in the Austrian province of Carinthia) during the summer of 1901, and recorded in his journal:

"In the past few days Mahler spoke to me for the first time about his work this summer, his fifth symphony, and in particular the third movement:" The movement is immensely difficult to work because of its structure and artistic mastery supreme he demands in all his relations and details ... The human voice would be utterly out of place here. There is no appeal for words, everything is said in purely musical terms. It will be also a simple symphony in four movements, with each movement independent and complete in itself and in relation to the others only by the common atmosphere. ""

- Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Personal Diary