| An examination of the manuscripts associated with Mahler's Fourth Symphony is important for an understanding of the genesis and nature of his work. I attempt to separate the conceptual from the compositional history of the Fourth, starting with the composition of "Das himmlische Leben" in 1892 through the completion of the fair copy of the Symphony in 1901. "Das himmlische Leben" was one of Mahler's 5 Humoresken(1892), and later part of his "Lieder und Humoresken aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn." Although Mahler intended to include the song in the Third Symphony, he ultimately abandoned such a plan. As I am able to show in my investigation, thematic connections in the earliest sketches demonstrate that "Das himmlische Leben" was part of the Fourth Symphony from the very beginning.;The compositional history of the Fourth in this dissertation involves a consideration of Mahler's earliest plans for the Symphony and proceeds to a systematic investigation of the sketchbooks, preliminary sketches, short score, draft score, and fair copy. It is possible to observe the choices he made en route to the completed work, as he transformed his original intention to compose a six-movement Symphonic Humoresque into what became the four-movement Fourth Symphony. In the final chapters of this dissertation, I show how Mahler's sketches reveal his continual self-criticism, an aspect of his work that is evident in the various revisions of the Fourth undertaken during the decade between its completion and his death. |
