Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" ~ III. Scherzo

Mahler's third movement is a Scherzo based on his own song "St. Anthony Preaches to the Fishes". It's a very sinuous and humorous sounding piece where Mahler tries to paint a musical image of the irony and fickleness of our everyday lives. It is a poetic metaphor where the people, like the fish, spend their everyday lives swimming aimlessly about, and while they may be temporarily moved by the Saint's words, they ultimately turn back to their vice filled lives. Mahler marked this movement in his score "with humor" for a sound of irony in the piece. Later on Mahler wrote in a letter to a friend about his music,

"St Anthony preaches to the fishes, and his words are translated in the tipsy sounding language of the clarinet... and they all come swimming up to him, a glittering shoal of them, eels, carp and pike with their pointed heads, I swear while I was composing, I really kept imaging that I saw them sticking their stiff immovable necks out of the water and gazing up at St. Anthony with their stupid faces, I had to laugh out loud... The Bohemian music of my childhood home has found it's way in many of my compositions, but especially in my "St. Anthony Preaches to the Fishes"."


Performed by Zubin Mehta; Vienna Philharmonic