Young At Heart

The idea of a symphonic movement based on his song "The Heavenly Life" stuck to Mahler like glue for nearly a decade. In 1892 Mahler had written his song "The Heavenly Life," based on folk poetry from the collection "The Youth's Magic Horn," but the song was not published with the rest of his "Magic Horn" settings. At first, Mahler planned to use it as the finale to his third symphony. This idea was ultimately discarded, in favor of the now-familiar orchestral Adagio movement which ends the Third, but not before he had written musical and poetic connections into the fifth movement, "Three Angels Sang," which we just heard. Another "Magic Horn" poem, This song shares musical material, and just as in "The Heavenly Life" presents a childlike, even naïvely simple vision of heaven. The older song finally got its due in 1901, however, as Mahler used it as the finale of his Symphony No. 4.