With the opening of the second movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, we’re immediately in the realm of what Carlos Kalmar calls “the leather pants!” or lederhosen. Why? Because as the tempo indication at the beginning of the movement says, “in a comfortable ländler tempo” – a ländler being a rustic country dance common to Austria and Germany, whose male protagonists might often be seen in the folk garb of leather shorts, or lederhosen.
