Editing Gustav Mahler (section)

====Apprentice composer====
[[File:Gustav-Mahler-Kohut.jpg|thumb|upright|alt= Young dark-haired man wearing a loose necktie with a white shirt and a dark jacket|Mahler in 1892]]
[[File:Gustav Mahler Symphony no. 1 2nd movement excerpt.mp3|thumb|Symphony no. 1, second movement (excerpt)]]
In the early years of Mahler's conducting career, composing was a spare time activity. Between his Laibach and Olmütz appointments he worked on settings of verses by [[Richard Leander]] and [[Tirso de Molina]], later collected as Volume&nbsp;I of {{lang|de|Lieder und Gesänge}} ("Songs and Airs").<ref name=Cooke27>Cooke, pp. 27–30</ref> Mahler's first orchestral song cycle, {{lang|de|Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen}}, composed at Kassel, was based on his own verses, although the first poem, "{{Lang|de|Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht|italic=no}}" ("When my love becomes a bride") closely follows the text of a {{lang|de|Wunderhorn}} poem.<ref name="Blaukopf, pp. 61–62" /> The melodies for the second and fourth songs of the cycle were incorporated into the First Symphony, which Mahler finished in 1888, at the height of his relationship with Marion von Weber. The intensity of Mahler's feelings is reflected in the music, which originally was written as a five-movement symphonic poem with a descriptive programme. One of these movements, the "Blumine", later discarded, was based on a passage from his earlier work {{lang|de|Der Trompeter von Säckingen}}.<ref name=Franklin4 /><ref name=Carr44 /> After completing the symphony, Mahler composed a 20-minute symphonic poem, {{lang|de|Totenfeier}} "Funeral Rites", which later became the first movement of his [[Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)|Second Symphony]].<ref>Carr, pp. 48–49</ref>

There has been frequent speculation about lost or destroyed works from Mahler's early years.<ref name=Franklin10>Franklin, (10. {{lang|de|Das klagende Lied}}, early songs, First symphony).</ref> The Dutch conductor [[Willem Mengelberg]] believed that the First Symphony was too mature to be a first symphonic work, and must have had predecessors. In 1938, Mengelberg revealed the existence of the so-called "Dresden archive", a series of manuscripts in the possession of the widowed Marion von Weber.<ref name=MII51>Mitchell, Vol&nbsp;II, pp. 51–53</ref> According to the Mahler historian [[Donald Mitchell (writer)|Donald Mitchell]], it was highly likely that important Mahler manuscripts of early symphonic works had been held in Dresden;<ref name=MII51 /> this archive, if it existed, was almost certainly destroyed in the [[bombing of Dresden in World War II|bombing of Dresden]] in 1945.<ref name=Carr44 />