Vill's book, originally a Ph.D. dissertation (Frankfurt am Main, 1974), emphasizes the texts of songs and their changes as compared to the original. In a second part the author gives programmatic interpretations of the first four symphonies, in which quotations from folk songs and from Mahler's own songs are of major importance, even if the texts are not quoted with the tunes. The meaning given to these tunes by the original words and various statements by Mahler together with formal procedures--including transformation of the quoted material--allow two kinds of conclusions: either they lead to a concrete interpretation or reflect some of the musical ambiguity.

Works: Mahler: Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 3, Symphony No. 4.

Index Classifications: 1800s, 1900s

Contributed by: Andreas Giger