Luogo e data di registrazione		Herkules-Saal, München (Germania) - maggio 1967
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Executive Producer		Otto Gerdes
	Recording Producer		Hans Weber
	Balance Engineer		Heinz Wildhagen
	Prima Edizione LP		Deutsche Grammophon - 139 337/38 - (2 LP's) - durata 57' 45" & 35' 45" - (p) 1967 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		Deutsche Grammophon - 429 042-2 - (10 CD's - 3° & 4°,1) - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Note		Illustration auf der Taschenvorderseite: "Der Kuss", Gemälde von Gustav Klimt, Österreichische Galerie, Wien

Mahler's Third Symphony is his most imposing as regards its dimensions and formal layout. At the same time it is the most audacious and variegated, and the richest in surprises. The contradictions and contrasts which it contains are also the most striking. It glances, enraptured, toward the loftiest realms of poetic feeling, and also turns, unabashed, to everyday and commonplace things which cannot be ignored in the comprehensive picture of the world which this Symphony unrolls. In short the Third is, in every respect, a Symphony of superlatives, and the listener will appreciate it to the full, deriving inspiration, exaltation and satisfaction from it, only if he, for his part, is prepared to receive superlative impressions, and to give himself over to the heights and depths of its artistic manifestations. The composition of the Third Symphony followed closely upon that of the Second, which is resembles structurally in that both works consist of a powerful and positively overwhelming first movement followed by a succession of shorter and often more loosely constructed movements, which are related musically and in the ideas underlying them. In the Third Symphony the first movement is so predominant that Mahler expressly described it as the "First Part" of the work, the five remaining movements comprising the Second Part. Mahler's original heading to the first movement of the Third Symphony was: "Pan awakens. Summer approaches". Nevertheless it seems preferable to revert to the composer's original movement titles, thinking here in terms of Pan's awakening and the approach of summer. We must not, however, be perturbed by the fact that not every section of the movement can be regarded in this light. There is a great deal in this massive tonal edifice which can best be understood and assimilated in a purely musical sense, beginning with the grandiose entry of the eight horns, which clare out the folksong-like principal subject of the first movement. Then follow sombre and gripping episodes in D minor with the growling trills of the double bassoon and the lightning flashes of the trumpet calls, the broad-spanned melody of the trombone's lament and the strange woodwind chords which summon up the tender voice of the solo violin, together with the fascinating episode when the instrumental voices of the orchestra seem to lose themselves altogether, then gradually reassemble, busily group themselves, and finally stride forward in march tempo, loud, gay and unconstrained. The whole movement is a magnificent picture in sound, triumphal in its basic mood, adorned with many touches of characterization, humour and caricature, the primitive and earthy, the human and all-too-human, the bestial and diabolical, with scenes of boisterous junketing and also a distant, unhampered view of the stars. In the first movement of the Third Symphony the inanimate evolves into something living, while the second part of the work is dominated by the idea of what has come into being. The characteristic features of this second part do not evolve, but already exist. The subjects with which these movements are concerned - flowers, animals, human beings, angels and Divine love - each appears in accordance with the nature of its own being. The individual movements are entitled: "What the flowers in the meadow told me", "What the woodland creatures tell me", "What man tells me", "What the angels tell me", and finally "What love tells me". The original conception of the work even included a seventh movement, to be entitled "What the child tells me", founded on the song from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" telling of life in heaven. Mahler withdrew this form the Third Symphony, but he did not discard it. On the contrary, the child's idea of heavenly life was given a symphonic context, spiritual and musical foundations, of its own: an entire Symphony came into being, the Fourth, in which this "Wunderhorn" song forms the last movement. Mahler is said to have remarked of the minuet-like movement which opens the second part of the work that it was most carefree thing he had ever written, and certainly one might well believe that the hand which wrote this music indeed moved with greater retaxion and ease following the immense exertions which had gone before. It is a flower piece, charming, lovable with beatifully flowing melodie lines and delicate tone colouring. Mahler also gave a poetic explanation of the more lively episodes in this movement: he said that the music does not always reflect the serenity of flowers, but that everything suddenly becomes extremely serious and menacing. A storm seems to sweep across the meadow, so that leaves and blossoms tremble on their stalks as though begging for deliverance in a higher realm. This flower piece gives place to one concerning the animal kingdom - a higher level of organic existence is attained. This movement is also in the nature of a scherzo, but while the flower piece was a contemplative scherzo, the animal piece is active and of remarkable dynamic force. Once again this piece is based musically on a "Wunderhorn" song, telling of a cuckoo which has dropped dead by a hollow willow tree. The motives of this song are so vivid, so close to nature that they seem to cast their spell over the whole world of living creatures in the woodland. And while in the flower movement the wind blew across the meadow and gave rise to a tempestuous Trio, the exact opposite occurs in this piece concerned with the creatures of the woods: here the Trio brings the bustle of activity to a standstill; all listen intently, a posthorn is heard from the distant road, and the postillion plays a sweedy sentimental tune suggesting a folk song. This is a dreamlike moment of high poetry, the music conjuring up a vision in the spirit of Eichendorff. In the next movement it is a passage by Nietzsche, the "Drunken Song" from "Zarathustra", which impels Mahler to express through the medium of music what man tells him. What we hear is a piece of music definitely impressionistic in character. Touches of tone colour, sounds of nature, mysteriously swaying bass figures, tender melodic phrases which emerge and die away again until the violins enter with a rapt song. The many details are brought together into a wonderful whole, accompanying the alto voice with extreme tenderness. The next movement, which follows without a break, again takes up into a higher sphere, to the angels. At the beginning bells ring out and children's voices are heard, then the female chorus sing the "Wunderhorn" song "Three angels were singing a sweet song". Admirable above all is the aptness of touch which enabled Mahler to create a credible atmosphere of folk music, inventing tunes which sound as though we had always known them, but every note of which is actually original, and bears the stamp of his personality. While he was composing the Symphony Mahler wrote in a letter about the last movement, a solemn Adagio in D major: "I might also call this movement 'What God tells me', in the sense that God can be comprehended only as love. And so my work forms a musical poem concerned with all the scages of evolution stepwise order. It begins with inanimate nature, and rises progressively to the love of God". Mahler's words are the best aid to an understanding of this earnest and raptly hymnlike Adagio movement, which concludes the Symphony with rich euphony of orchestral sound. The Third Symphony was composed during the years 1895 and 1896. Its first performance took place in 1902 on the initiative of Richard Strauss, at the Krefeld Musical Festival. Heinrich Kralik