this movement is one of my favorite of all mahler movements. i get the ending stuck in my head all the time. i don't know how appropriate for beginnings this is, but i decided to get it out of my system because it's been there for several days.
the symphony was composed from 1895-6, and really out of order. the first movement was composed last, and it's basically the first half of a 1.5 hour symphony (the beginning of which is pretty fun if you listen to it with an ear to the last movement of brahms 1).
originally the entire symphony had this big program attached to it and every movement came with a "what the [flowers, animals, man, child, angels, love] tell(s) me" subtitle. (this scherzo was originally "what the cuckoo tells me," then later "what the animals tell me"). the subtitles were dropped later in the typical debate about the value of program - mahler said that the attempt to "provide non-musicians with something to hold on to... the expressive content of the various movements" had failed and "led only to misinterpretations of the most horrendous sort" (Steinberg). so don't take the titles too seriously, basically.
there's an interesting abstractionism even in the original titles, as programmatic as they might be. "what love tells me" (the original subtitle of the sixth and last movement) isn't exactly a plotted storyline. so you might say that having the subtitles couldn't hurt too much. but their lack of specificity is also a double-edged sword: why have them if they provide so little real direction - or worse, if they appear to refer to such platitudes that people can only misinterpret the composer's actual, much more subtle intention? that danger is probably greatest in this movement. "what the animals in the forest tell me" is liable to lend itself to all sorts of kitschy assignments as to what instrument represents which animal's or tree's voice, which sections are indicative of wind rustling leaves, etc. once those sorts of cute assignments get ingrained, one's attention might forever be focused on "oh cool, there is the clarinet cuckoo" rather than whatever more subtle or holistic experience mahler had in mind.
ok, this is actually getting lengthier than i intended, so here are some notes about the actual movement.
it basically rips the entirety of a song he wrote for das knaben wunderhorn, titled Ablösung im Sommer. i'm only linking the video because i don't think it's that important. you can also find the text here. (from this it's readily apparent where the original "cuckoo" subtitle came from, and maybe find a bit of the semi-morbid playfulness, but other than that i'm not convinced the text should really be the lens for this movement).
the melody is simple enough but starting at 2:49 with the addition of the flowery violin descant (if you will) he layers it on and makes it much more chromatic and twisted and difficult to hear the original seed (i like the big chromatic scale at 3:57). big affinity for chromatic downwards twists in the whole movement. also note the tattoo of
there's a really dramatic offstage posthorn solo that comes up twice, probably everyone's favorite moment(s) of the whole piece. starts off with a fanfare of fourths and fifths and octaves and then goes into an extended song.
my personal favorite moment of the piece is at the end of the second posthorn solo, which starts at about 4:35. i like the big compression of the motif depicted above leading into the e-flat minor crash and the big harp flourishes. the subsequent trombone soli is apparently a reference to brass music in the finale of the 2nd symphony.
i don't know why, but i find the last about 20 bars super compelling, i think because of the rhythms, and also because of the use of the c major triad to c-e-aflat (what is that? augmented six in the parallel minor? my theory is out of commission =/).
ok, this took way longer than i wanted it to oops.
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