“O Mensch!  O Mensch!  Gib Acht! gib Acht! 
     Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?"[198]

[Footnote 198: 

    O Man!  O Man!  Have care!  Have care! 
    What says dark midnight?

The fifth part is a gay and stirring chorus founded on a popular legend.

In the Fourth Symphony in G major, the last part alone is sung, and is of an almost humorous character, being a sort of childish description of the joys of Paradise.

In spite of appearances, Mahler refuses to connect these choral symphonies with programme-music.  Without doubt he is right, if he means that his music has its own value outside any sort of programme; but there is no doubt that it is always the expression of a definite Stimmung, of a conscious mood; and the fact is, whether he likes it or not, that Stimmung gives an interest to his music far beyond that of the music itself.  His personality seems to me far more interesting than his art.

This is often the case with artists in Germany; Hugo Wolf is another example of it.  Mahler’s case is really rather curious.  When one studies his works one feels convinced that he is one of those rare types in modern Germany—­an egoist who feels with sincerity.  Perhaps his emotions and his ideas do not succeed in expressing themselves in a really sincere and personal way; for they reach us through a cloud of reminiscences and an atmosphere of classicism.  I cannot help thinking that Mahler’s position as director of the Opera, and his consequent saturation in the music that his calling condemns him to study, is the cause of this.  There is nothing more fatal to a creative spirit than too much reading, above all when it does not read of its own free will, but is forced to absorb an excessive amount of nourishment, the larger part of which is indigestible.  In vain may Mahler try to defend the sanctuary of his mind; it is violated by foreign ideas coming from all parts, and instead of being able to drive them away, his conscience, as conductor of the orchestra, obliges him to receive them and almost embrace them.  With his feverish activity, and burdened as he is with heavy tasks, he works unceasingly and has no time to dream.  Mahler will only be Mahler when he is able to leave his administrative work, shut up his scores, retire within himself, and wait patiently until he has become himself again—­if it is not too late.

His Fifth Symphony, which he conducted at Strasburg, convinced me, more than all his other works, of the urgent necessity of adopting this course.  In this composition he has not allowed himself the use of the choruses, which were one of the chief attractions of his preceding symphonies.  He wished to prove that he could write pure music, and to make his claim surer he refused to have any explanation of his composition published in the concert programme, as the other composers in the festival had done; he wished it, therefore, to be judged from a strictly musical point of view.  It was a dangerous ordeal for him.