Mahler described his monumental Symphony No. 3 as “Summer’s Midday Dream”. Completed in 1896 and an hour and a half long, the symphony consists of six movements arranged in two parts.

The first movement takes up the entire first part, which is a kind of overture of symphonic proportions. The second part comprises the other five movements. Mahler defined the programme of the symphony as follows: the half-hour first movement is titled “Pan Awakes, Summer Marches In”; the second, Ländler-style movement, is about “What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me”; the third movement interrupts the folk-dance idyll and the post-horn signal evokes feelings of nostalgia; the fourth movement, “What Man Tells Me”, is a solemn, subtly lyrical movement for alto solo with a delicately orchestrated accompaniment, and is a setting of Nietsche’s poem “Midnight Song”; “What the Angels Tell Me” (movement 5) is expressed with alternating chorale-like rigour and an expressive voice, with a refreshing bell imitation from the children’s choir. In the final movement, (divine) love addresses the creator. Even the severest critics of Mahler’s music appreciated its sweeping, trance-like tone. In an effective, summarising gesture it rounds off the pantheistic confession eulogising Life.