The tune 'Brother John ' or 'Bruder Martin' to Mahler's recognition is used in the third movement titled 'Funeral March in the Manner of Callot ' to create a sense of irony. The inspiration for this section was a woodprint from a book of fairy tales. The print depicts forest animals serving as pallbearers at a hunter's forest funeral. The question is not so much 'Are you sleeping (forever) ' as it is 'Are we mourning or celebrating ' The animals appear unsure whether to focus on the end of the hunter or the end of the hunt. Mahler sets the tune in a minor key to stress this irony as the music moves between merriness and brooding. The tune appears as a canon or round.
