Titan's Progress, which is Hermann Pallhuber's first work for the British style brass band, contains references to the music of Gustav Mahler. Motifs from Mahler's First Symphony are employed throughout and especially the principal theme of the finale. Pallhuber's music is programmatic and uses the content of the novel and its hero Albano's evolution for its underlying structure. The stylistic variety of the work (including the Chorale, an impudent Landler, a dancing Farandole, and a climactic Fugue) are Mahleresque in their influences.

Titan was a novel by the German author Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, who later known as Jean Paul, and was considered the author's main work. At almost 900 pages in length, it tells the story of the transition of its hero, Albano de Cesara, from a passionate youth to a mature man. Jean Paul was one of Gustav Mahler's favorite authors and the latter gave the original five-movement version of his first symphony the subtitle The Titan -- in deference to Jean Paul's novel.