Give Mahler a cheery nursery-rhyme ditty and he’ll turn it into the bleakest of gallows marches. Don’t believe us? Have a listen to the opening of the third movement of the First Symphony.

In 1897, after months of intrigue and negotiation, during which Mahler ... Symphony (as in almost all his works), there were memories of past grief, irony and self-doubt. In the scherzo movements ...