Roger Hecht replies to Robert Stumpf:

>>I was thinking...a habit I don't recommend, about Mahler as I have been
>>listening to his 5th by Barbirolli, and began to wonder what is "typcial
>>Mahler"? I mean, if you had to select one of his symphonies as "typical"
>>as perhaps an introduction to his 'sound world' which one and why?
>
>Maybe this one.  And I've always thought of it as such.  For "why", I'll
>leave it to the imagination and Tony Duggan.  But it seems like all the
>elements are here.

A lot of them are there, true.  But a lot of them are there in other works
too.  The big problem with naming the Fifth is the "new" orchestral style
that arrives with it which maintains quite a change from what had gone
before.  There are no voices in it either.

Tony Duggan, England.
Mahler recordings: survey
http://www.musicweb.force9.co.uk/music/Mahler/