Once dismissed as “a brutal din”, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 is now acknowledged as a monumental, groundbreaking work that expanded the symphonic genre. Clive Paget explains what made it so audacious in its day and talks with Kahchun Wong who is about to conduct it for Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Kahchun Wong. Photo © Carlin Ma

With its merry cuckoos and stomping dance music, the animals’ funeral procession and a vast, triumphant finale, Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony is box office gold. If the whooping horn section stands for the concluding fanfares, as often happens, it’s guaranteed to bring the house down. That wasn’t always the case, however. Written between 1887 and 1888 to a preconceived program the composer later suppressed, critics were baffled...