Fantasy, Denial, and Virtual Reality in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony

Abstract

The Fourth Symphony has almost invariably been seen as innocent and optimistic: an evocation of past elegance and a vision of future happiness. In this context the literary and musical text of the last movement is seen to prompt ‘retrospective enlightenment’ in performance, causing us to reappraise our understanding of the first three movements. Yet the musical surface is not entirely placid and untroubled: even the exposition of the first movement is rife with discontinuities in texture, orchestration and thematic development. This chapter will suggest that the first movement of the Fourth might profitably be seen as an elaborately-realised illusion. Seemingly hermetic, it resists outside threats, but is undermined from within by a corruption of its own processes. Various possible interpretations of the ‘threat’—suggested by historical and cultural circumstances—are offered.