To be clear from the outset: “Adagietto” isn’t a tempo indication.
Despite it being the title of the fourth and penultimate movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, it doesn’t call for an Adagietto tempo, whatever that might be. It doesn’t mean “slightly less slow than Adagio” or anything like it. No matter how many times you have heard the claim from whomever you’ve heard it (and that includes some musicians who should know better) the term refers to “an adagio”—the general term for a slow movement—“of small dimensions.” “Adagietto” means “Little Adagio.”
If it was a tempo indication like “Adagio” or “Andante,” then surely we’d find Adagiettos from Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert—but we don’t.
The sole instance of an “Adagietto,” found at the head of an earlier piece of music, belongs to an orchestral score by “Carmen” composer Georges Bizet. It’s the third movement of his Suite No. 1 from “L’Arlesienne.” Again, it’s the movement’s title, not a tempo indication. How do we know? Because the tempo given in the proper place for tempos (above the first measure of the score) is: “Adagio.”
If this “Adagietto” were to be played somewhere between “Adagio” and “Andante”—the fanciful definition of “Adagietto”—then the space occupied by the tempo marking would also read: Adagietto. But it doesn’t, because there is no such tempo marking. What Bizet clearly meant was that the piece is a small Adagio—small in length (34 measures) and small in scale (strings only, not full orchestra like the rest of the suite).
Mahler’s “Adagietto” is even more obviously not a tempo indication. The words in the place reserved for a tempo marking read, in German: “Sehr langsam”—very slow. Not “between andante and adagio,” but very slow. Period. It’s also is a small adagio, shorter than the movements around it and scored for only strings and harp.
Why is this important? Because Mahler’s Adagietto is one of the most ravishingly beautiful pieces of music ever created, and its comprehension shouldn’t be undercut by misunderstanding. The phrase “small adagio” suggests intimacy, closeness, and that’s precisely what makes this a love song beyond compare.
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) met Alma Schindler at a dinner party in Vienna on Nov. 7, 1901. They became engaged the following month and married in March 1902. He was 41, she was 22. Their courtship and wedding coincide exactly with Mahler’s composing his Symphony No. 5 between the summers of 1901 and 1902. The tender Adagietto, composed for Alma, became the work’s fourth movement.
Composer Gustav Mahler in 1892. (Public Domain)Although love’s advent certainly inspired “Adagietto,” the origins of the symphony as a whole date to before his fateful meeting with Alma. On Feb. 24, 1901, Gustav Mahler suffered an intestinal hemorrhage and nearly died. He later wrote: “While I was hovering on the border between life and death, I wondered whether it would not be better to have done with it at once, since everyone must come to that in the end.”
Little wonder, then, that Mahler’s next symphony opens with a funeral march. Mahler started sketching Symphony No. 5 in the summer of 1901. He was lucky to be alive and doubtlessly felt inclined to meditate on the meaning of a life that had nearly ended mere months before. What better way to address this than in a symphony that opens with death, then proceeds—in reverse—to consider the episodes in the dead man’s life. It ends in a triumphant finale that represents the protagonist’s cheery (and, considering what will come, falsely optimistic) beginning.
A Life, Remembered Backwards
Klaus Tennstedt’s version of Mahler’s Symphony No. V is by far the most spectacular, so we will use it with the London Philharmonic for reference here.
The five movements line up in reverse chronological order to tell the story of a man’s life:
Movement V (59:08): The last movement is a D major burst of joyous youth, a triumph that concludes with the opening notes of the chorale English speakers know as “How Brightly Shines the Morning Star” (1:14:09), which is hinted at in Movement II (26:43): a cloudless sky, a perfect beginning.
Movement IV (47:12): “Adagietto,” the protagonist falls in love. The caress of strings in flowing F major, the long arc of melody upon long arc of melody, careful shaping of a climax in the strings’ upper register—all this and more make “Adagietto” the symphonic movement most frequently performed as a stand-alone.
Movement III (29:02): Scherzo (Kräftig, nicht zu schnell), in bright and confident D major, is a folkish Landler or country dance, dominated by a solo obbligato horn in F that’s one of the great bravura parts for that instrument. Mahler tosses around many related themes in masterful counterpoint. While there are quiet, even reflective, pages in the scherzo, the overall mood is of vitality and adventure. The protagonist is at the peak of his life, and the thought of death is distant.
Movement II (13:49): (Stürmisch bewegt, mit grösster Vehemenz) is looking back on the protagonist’s life. We hear in the opening bars the tortuous defeat and stormy rage that dominated the last years of his life. And then, the strings intone a variant of the lament from the first movement. As the lament repeatedly interrupted the funeral fanfare in the first movement, so will the violent outbursts of this movement alternate with slower meditations until about halfway through. That’s when the woodwinds turn the theme into a bright march. Near the end—meaning, near the beginning of the period depicted in music—the brass latch onto a subject that becomes a triumphant chorale in pure, clear D major, suggesting vanished happiness.
Movement I (0:00): Trauermarsch—life has ended. A trumpet intones a triplet-laden funereal theme in C-sharp minor, half a step below Movement V’s D major. The orchestra takes up the funeral cry, which leads to a lament intoned by the strings. At length, the trumpet, with its distinctive triplet figure, reasserts itself, and again the song of lamentation ensues, varied this time and lengthened into something more personal than mere ritual. A third time the trumpet sounds the funeral call, but this time the orchestra takes off in an anguished cry of despair and outrage. Throughout the rest of the movement, the trumpet fanfare alternates with variations on the lament. One-by-one the variations display the facets of mourning a life, from shock and anger to fond memories and resignation.
This interpretation is entirely my own, but to me it seems quite obviously Mahler’s plan. Scholar Arvid Ashby neglected it entirely in his book, “Experiencing Mahler,” which I edited. I sneaked the idea into my preface. I trust that one day, music scholars will listen to this symphony and hear what is clearly there: a funeral march, defeat, triumph, a love song, and joyous youth. A life lived backward. Believe your ears.
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