Overture Magazine: 2016-2017 Season September - October 2016 | Page 49

program notes {
gestures of folk dance turn menacing and
nightmarish. Mocking ghoulish laughter
erupts throughout the orchestra. The
scherzo music alternates with a quaint and
unthreatening trio section, which Mahler
labeled “Altväterisch” (“old-fashioned”),
and recalls again the world of Haydn and
Mozart. In the background, the majorminor Fate chords haunt the music.

An eerie introduction sends
the violins aloft in a yearning
phrase that will return at
critical moments
throughout the finale.
Movement three