John Smyth wrote:

>Joel writes regarding Mahler's possible early influences:
>
>>This makes me wonder if there is a body of such pieces by lesser
>>composers of the latter 19th century by which Mahler was influenced,
>>or whether he specifically knew those of Schumann.
>
>I have "heard" Mahler in the expanded orchestrations of Beethoven's late
>String Quartets, such as Bernstein's with the VPO on DG.  (Also in some
>of Schubert's late Quartets).  You might want to try these out!

No question about that influence...the most famous instance of course,
is the connection between the start of the D-major finale of Mahler 3
and the D-flat major slow movement of Beethoven Op. 135..change the
key signatures, re-bar the Beethoven into 4-4 and you have instant
Mahler...Ages ago, my conducting teacher in Boston, Richard Burgin, also
a fine Mahler conductor [concertmaster and associate conductor of the BSO]
did Op. 135 or 131 with the full BSO strings--not an uncommon thing in the
inter-war period and earlier but unusual in the early 1960s.  -Toscanini
did an assortment of Beethoven quartet movements, as I recall-and the
impetus for Bernstein's Op. 131 was Mitropoulos-he may have used M's
material, in fact as a basis.

My point was more that perhaps there was a sort of common musical language,
rhetoric and layout for the choral/orchestral "ballad" genre [of which
virtually no others are known to me except Hugo Wolf's "Der Feuerritter"]
into which both Mahler and Schumann might have dipped.

Cheers--Joel