Following the earlier volumes in the Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure series, Mahler's Fourth Symphony is a study of the origins of the work as well as a thorough examination of Mahler's compositional process. The source of the Fourth Symphony was the song Das himmlische Leben, which Mahler completed in 1892 and later wished to include in a large-scale work. Originally part of a collection of settings from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the song became, for a time, part of the Third Symphony (1896). Eventually Mahler made Das himmlische Leben the source and goal of the Fourth Symphony, which he completed in 1901. In this book, James Zychowicz explores how Mahler's compositional process for the Fourth, from the early movement plans to preliminary sketches, short score, draft score, and fair copy. At each stage of the process, Mahler added details, decided on textures, and explored tonalities until he arrived at the finished score. This is the first comprehensive study of Mahler's compositional method, concerning a pivotal work in his oeuvre. The Fourth Symphony looks back toward the earlier Wunderhorn period and simultaneously forward to the less programmatic style of his middle symphonies.

The author's second book on the life and work of Gustav Mahler focuses principally on Mahler's first settings of Wunderhorn texts, volumes I and II of the Lieder und Gesaenge; his first song-cycle, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; and the later orchestral settings of Wunderhorn poems. The central section of the book explores the extraordinary and often eccentric chronology of the First, Second and Third Symphonies' composition, an often minute exploration which reveals the interpenetration of song and symphony in this period of Mahler's art, emphasizes the significance for these works of imagery drawn from the Wunderhorn anthology, and calls attention to the ambiguous position occupied by much of Mahler's music at this time, suspended as it was between the rival claims - and forms - of symphony and symphonic poem. The final section of the book not only looks at the Fourth Symphony as the final, perhaps most perfect, flowering of Mahler's Wunderhorn symphonies, but also investigates such fascinating topics as the relationship between Mahler and Berlioz, and the influence of Bach on Mahler's later masterpieces. This new edition of the book offers an entirely new preface, in which Mitchell gives a unique account of the influence of politics, nationalism and fascism on the reception and rejection of Mahler's music, after the composer's death until the Mahler Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. It also includes extensive corrigenda and amplifying addenda, making it clear that the Wunderhorn influence persisted beyond the end of the period during which the Wunderhorn anthology was a constant source of inspiration. It is completed by an international bibliography which documents chronologically the reception and study of his music both in the past, and the prodigiously different circumstances of the present.