First performance on November 20, 1889 in Budapest conducted by Gustav Mahler

1. Langsam. Schleppend. Im Anfang sehr gemächlich.
2. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell.
3. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen.
4. Stürmisch bewegt.

The exact time when Mahler composed the First Symphony is not known. According to the recollections of those who directly knew him, Mahler composed four symphonies in his youth, including works submitted while he was still a student at the Vienna Conservatoire. However, these early works are no longer existant, having been either destroyed by Mahler himself or lost in the course of two world wars. Years later, Mahler numbered this work his Symphony No. 1. Close friends testified that the work was commenced in 1885 but it is probable that the bulk of the symphony has been composed in 1888 only.

It seems that from the beginning Mahler desired to become a composer but after leaving the Conservatoire in 1880 he had to earn his life as a conductor; one by one he got short-term contracts in Bad Hall, Laibach (Ljubljana), Olmütz (Olomouc) and with the Italian Opera of Vienna. During this period, he believed not having the necessary time to compose any significant works. In 1880 he composed Das klagende Lied, in 1884 the Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen. In 1886 he had a contract in Leipzig where the descendants of Carl Maria von Weber asked him to complete Weber's uncompleted opera Die drei Pintos (The Three Pintos). He finished the work in October 1887 and the successful first performance took place on January 20, 1888.

Obviously he was encouraged by this public appreciation so he devoted his time to compose an orchestral work which at first did not seem to be intended as a symphony; he completed it by end of March 1888 with at that time still five movements. In autumn, he found an employment in Budapest where he completed the orchestration, and the following year Mahler himself - like almost with all his following works - conducted the first performance of that work as a "Symphonic Poem"; the audience and the critics took the music rather coolly and without any understanding.

As he always did with his following compositions too, Mahler already started during the rehearsals and performances to revise it; the original second movement, Blumine, from a collection of essays by Jean Paul [Richter] (1763-1825) called Herbst-Blumine (Little flower of autumn, 1810), was eventually completely deleted still before publishing the symphony (it was discovered in London in 1959 only).

The title of the whole symphony also comes from a book by Jean Paul, the novel Titan. Mahler imagined a strong and heroic man, his life and grieves, his struggle and defeat against fate. Originally performed as a symphonic poem without programme, Mahler later on gave some written explanations, and it was in 1896 in Berlin that the composition had been performed for the first time as a programmatic Symphony No. 1 conducted by Mahler when he had already completed the Second Symphony and while he was working on the Third Symphony. It does not seem unlikely that Mahler being a young and unknown composer did not for the time being dare to name his work a symphony because of its very individual and daring style and form.

The first movement begins with a long introduction. The strings play an a almost in harmonics, amidst which natural sounds including the sound of military music from afar can be heard in succession. The music is thus generated out of nothingness - like nature in the morning awakes from the darkness of night - and glides over into the atmosphere of a dawn, of a spring's awakening, of man's youth.
The main section of this movement is essentially a paraphrase of the song Ging heut' morgen über's Feld of the cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; it emphasizes the atmosphere of the whole movement: a cheerful, positive attitude full of joy in view of the world's and nature's beauty.
This movement, without an independent second subject and not originally subjected to development, is by no means a conventional sonata form movement, although it is based on sonata form. In the section corresponding to what should be the development section, we hear if anything the presentation and development of new themes and motifs. The recapitulation is a composite including material to all extents and purposes presented after the exposition, and itself has the character of a coda. In those days, this music surely had the effect of a counterpoint to the heavy and melancholy music of the ending romantic.

The second movement is a strong and traditional scherzo based on rather rough folk waltzes ("Ländler") with a gracious waltz trio. One could easily be seduced to compare it to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony (Pastorale); the awakening of cheerful sentiments is followed by rural dance festivities turning eventually into the atmosphere of thunderstorm in the third movement.

The third movement is the real highlight of the symphony: Based on a well known folk song, a funeral march in an eerie and gloomy atmosphere is presented in d minor with a bass solo accompanied by timpani and repeated by an unexpected sequence of instruments (bassoon, celli, tuba); but only a few bars later, a parodic oboe and flute play counterpoint melodies and change the atmosphere in a sarcastic and grotesque manner; surpassed only by the clarinet in e flat (Mit Parodie - with parody). But suddenly, the gloomy atmosphere vanishes and a sunbeam appears, lovely harp sounds leading over to the middle part where an intimate and tender air is heard: It's the fourth song of the cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, supported above all by the strings and raised by lovely emerging phrases of the woodwinds. Some people may see here the image of death as a place of refuge and calm. But as surprisingly as it had started, it's over again, the timpani takes us back to the gloomy atmosphere of the beginning broken by the clarinet in e flat (keck, cheeky). At first it seems that by the help of another paraphrase of Die zwei blauen Augen (Those two blue eyes), the imminent misfortune can be averted, but the movement ends in that gloomy atmosphere.

Now follows the fourth movement, "the sudden burst of desperation of a deeply wounded heart", a wild outburst of the entire orchestra. The music seems to triumph over the wordly ordeals and burdens, to escape hell, to strive for paradise (dall'inferno al paradiso) lead by melancholy and longing strings, but reservations and gloomy thoughts emerge again and again without being solved. Painfully, the hero is abandoned to the grief of world and death in a dreadful struggle. Trumpets and horns already seem to announce his victory, but one more time we have to pass the theme anticipated in the first movement: a longing desire back to worldly life, a memory of youth threateningly repressed. Eventually, the trumpets start the redeeming triumph in D major; it's the triumph in death, but with the first movement of the Second Symphony, the feeling of triumph dies in a funeral march.