Bob Draper ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Aaron Rabushka wrote:
>
>>How I did write my Symphony #1: starting with a scherzo followed by a
>>sonata-form movement, a passacaglia, and a mostly athematic epilogue.
>>Only your own imagination limits the options you have available.
>
>I assume that the sonata form movement is the first movement.
>
>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.

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 (and which is sufficiently different
for the IGMG to catalogue it as a separate work).  He composed mvts 2-3,
used an existing lied (Urlicht) for the fourht movement and then suffered
"composer's block" over the finale until the well-known incident at Hans
von Bulow's funeral in 1893 (3?)

Deryk Barker
[log in to unmask]