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.

Though I wished very much to admire the work of a composer whom I held
in such esteem, I felt it did not come out very well from the test. To
begin with, this symphony is excessively long--it lasts an hour and a
half--though there is no apparent justification for its proportions. It
aims at being colossal, and mainly achieves emptiness. The _motifs_ are
more than familiar. After a funeral march of commonplace character and
boisterous movement, where Beethoven seems to be taking lessons from
Mendelssohn, there comes a scherzo, or rather a Viennese waltz, where
Chabrier gives old Bach a helping hand. The adagietto has a rather sweet
sentimentality. The rondo at the end is presented rather like an idea of
Franck's, and is the best part of the composition; it is carried out in
a spirit of mad intoxication and a chorale rises up from it wit