Abstract
A discussion and reading of Mahler's Fifth Symphony in terms of its narrative play with musical topics conventionally considered to lie within or outside the traditions of the symphonic repertoire in the early twentieth century. The trajectory of the Symphony is such that the roles of unrefined folk or popular music and the techniques of 'art' music become blurred or even inverted. A socio-cultural interpretation of this narrative is offered relating to Mahler's own journey from the semi-rural Bohemian-Moravian lands to the imperial and the cosmopolitan.