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. . . and since you're a Lieder fan, maybe you can help me with this . . .

I ordinarily do not care for Mahler at all, but somebody gave me a recording of des Knabens Wunderhorn with Fischer-Diskau and Schwartzkopf, and darned if I don't like it a lot. Is it atypical of his music, or am I just prejudiced against Mahler's symphonies?

Mahler's lieder are wonderful, and he had no problem with stealing wholesale from his lieder for his early symphonies. I came to his symphonies during my college years, and I am still in love with some of them. All his songs are exceptional, but many are just plain morbid, such as "Songs on the Death of Children".

I started writing about the symphonies, but I quickly realized I was going to end up with an entry the length of a scholarly paper. I love the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th. The 6th and 7th leave me cold, and I have mixed feelings about the 8th in spite of the magnificent choral work.

I would recomend starting with the 1st and listening to it about 5 times to get the shape of the work. If you can, find the 5-movement version with the extra slow movement (Blumine) that Mahler removed at publication time. He quotes from Blumine extensively in the finale, so the 4-movement version doesn't quite add up.

From there, move to the 2nd, which is still my favorite. I could write an entire thread about that symphony and the cross-quoting from his lieder and the work of other composers that he uses as the musical version of literary allusion.

(Dangerous subject to get me started on.)