I wrote:
>>It seems strange to me. I am not a composer but if I were to write a late
>>romantic symphony I'd start with the first movement after deriving the
>>structure.
Deryk Barker replied:
>Mahler's 4th is derived from the finale, Das himmlische Leben, which was
>composed first...and he'd previously intended to use it as the finale of
>the 3rd, which it also predates and to which it also contributes material.
>
>OTOH his second begins with a movement which was initially composed as
>a standalone tone poem, Totenfeier ...
It is interesting to see how the creative process can work in different
ways in different people.
Because I have (in my view) a scientific logical mind, its easy to assume
that everyone will take a logical view but of coure life's not that simple.
Some symphonies are simply cobbled together. Haydn's "La Chase" springs
to mind. Yet the end product is quite successful in my view.
Bob Draper
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