German composer in the late nineteenth-century faced the difficulties of developing their extremely brief and original idea(Grundgestalt), and the treatment of the musical idea or thematic affected the whole structure of a piece. In this regards, the real sequential technique of Wagner and the developing variation of Brahms are the most distinctive principles of the process of music idea in this period. The compositional technique of their contemporary, Gustav Mahler, on the other hand, has been always treated as isolated and considered as having no specific and coherent principle of thematic technique in his music. Actually even his sonata movements, despite being based on the traditional formal scheme, shows great difference with Brahms. Then, what elements did he use in his composition and what should be examined besides the technique of Brahms and Wagner to analyze his music? In this paper, the first sonata movement of Mahler's 7th Symphony has been examined focusing on his principle of presentation and process of the initial musical idea and its influence on the structural form of the piece in organic sense. The two characteristics in Mahler are found in this study: the one is monotonal aspect throughout the movement and the other is liquidation technique presenting the initial musical idea. The introduction to the movement provides the process of growing of the main and subordinate themes out of a seed, the initial musical idea, and show themes are related in a tonality as well. Liquidation technique can be explained by Brahmsian developing variation in a highly extened form, so that the motivic transformation is more varied and further, other themes or ideas are derived from it. In the liquidation, since the harmony strives away from the tonic, tonal extention can naturally occurs. These compositional techniques in Mahler are also clearly supported by his sketches of this movement, which was examined by Stephen Hefling. Monotonality is the pre-stage of pantonality or atonality, since the monotonality concept has enormous freedom in modulation or transposition in a piece. And liquidation technique offers the freedom by transforming and developing musical idea. Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that the principles in Mahler's composition are entirely in organic sense and should definitely influenced on Schoenbergian musical language.

본 논문은 말러의 음악에서 자주 사용되는 음악적 이디엄들을 찾아 18세기 토픽 분류의 범주 안에서 그의 고유한 토픽으로 분류하였다. 이 작업은 그가 오랫동안 작곡의 소재로 사 용하였던 《소년의 이상한 뿔피리》(Des Knaben Wunderhorn) 가곡을 기초로 하여 이루어 졌다. 그리고 이 토픽들이 가사 없는 교향곡에 인용되거나 재사용되었을 때 어떠한 의미를 가지며, 이전 음악에서 토픽이 갖는 관습적 수사적 의미를 어떻게 변형시키는지 알아보았다. 따라서 이 연구의 범위는 그의 《이상한 뿔피리》 가곡과 비슷한 시기에 작곡되고 또 이 가 곡들이 직접 인용되고, 기악화 된 초기 교향곡 2-4번에 국한시켰다. 이 연구는 말러가 이 토 픽들이 교향곡에 재사용하는 의미를 제공하여 토픽이 전후맥락이나 사용하는 방법에 따라 얼마나 다양하게 적용되고 해석될 수 있는지를 보여주는 말러 토픽의 다중성에 대하여 논하 는데 그 의미를 둔다.