It’s a passage of just over a minute, beginning at 17:50 of this Claudio Abbado performance of Mahler’s 5th symphony, and about four minutes into the second movement. It’s as if the world stops, ponders, and reflects. Then re-emerges, confidant.
The volume of this video is subdued; the passage is also at
beginning at about 4:08.
This came to mind by my listening to Leonard Rosenman’s score to the film Fantastic Voyage, which I reviewed this week at Black Gate. The four note motif of that score, about 1:10 into this YouTube suite, evoked the opening notes of this Mahler passage.
