Cocktail Party Fact: This is one of the very few symphonies that ends tragically in a minor key (unhappy endings are actually very rare), but the struggle to get there is so powerfully fun to listen to that it has also become one of Mahler’s most popular works in recent times. It’s also the first symphony ever written to use two very different instruments: the celesta and the sledge hammer.

Commitment Factor: 80 - 90 minutes

Vital Statistics: Late Romantic/Modern Period (1904). This is a four-movement symphony in tightly classical form, although everything is greatly enlarged. The movements share themes, rhythms, and more typically thematic and sound-types. For example, the first movement themes are distorted in the second movement scherzo (both share the xylophone). The pastoral interlude with tinkling cowbells from the first movement reappears in the third movement and finale–the tunes are different, but the sonic “environment” is the same.

What to Listen For: This symphony has a “motto”–a bright major chord that turns ominously minor, accompanied by a snare-drum roll and a timpani rhythm (dum, dum, dadum, dum, dum). These are the “fate” motives, and they reappear separately or together at various crucial moments. The essence of the piece is the idea of hope or victory constantly suppressed. Thus, the triumphal ending of the first movement is mercilessly parodied by the succeeding scherzo. The tranquil ending of the third movement leads immediately to the terrifying introduction to the finale. This vast movement is actually very simple in construction: it consists of several different attempts to reach a happy ending. Each time, something terrible happens–a hammer blow, or crash on the gong, and each time, the music winds up back at the beginning. At the very end, there is no escape, only “fate,” drumming into silence.