Composer · Late Romantic
Gustav Mahler
1860–1911 · Austrian
Gustav Mahler was born on July 7, 1860, in the Bohemian village of Kaliště (now in the Czech Republic), the second of fourteen children in a Jewish family. Death was a constant presence in his childhood: many of his siblings died in infancy. This early acquaintance with mortality would permeate his music throughout his life.
Mahler’s prodigious musical talent emerged early: at four he discovered his grandparents’ piano and took to it at once. At fifteen he entered the Vienna Conservatory, and he later turned to conducting to earn his living, reserving composition for summer holidays. His conducting career was meteoric: by 1897, at age thirty-seven, he had become artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera, where his innovative productions and exacting standards made him one of the most celebrated opera conductors of his era.
As a composer, Mahler worked on a monumental scale. His nine completed symphonies (plus an unfinished tenth) and five song cycles represent a titanic achievement, bridging nineteenth-century Romanticism and twentieth-century modernism. Yet during his lifetime, his conducting reputation far outstripped his recognition as a composer. It was only after his death in 1911, and particularly after 1945, that Mahler’s compositions gained the worldwide acclaim they enjoy today.
Works
- Das Lied von der Erde: Der Einsame im Herbst 1
- Symphony No. 1 in D major 1
- Symphony No. 2 in C minor (‘Resurrection’) 3
- Symphony No. 3 in D minor 3
- Symphony No. 4 in G major 2
- Symphony No. 5 2
- Symphony No. 7 in E minor 3
- Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major 1
- Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major “Symphony of a Thousand” 1
- Symphony No. 9 in D major 2
Performed at
Upcoming
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Season Opening: Pappano’s Mahler 2 and Fujikura’s Amber Alchemy Fujikura · Mahler
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Mäkelä’s Mahler Seventh Mahler
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Iván Fischer conducts Mahler’s Fifth Symphony Haydn · Mahler
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An Argument at the Piano and a Child’s Heaven Prokofiev · Mahler
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Markus Poschner and Christian Gerhaher: Mahler, Diepenbrock and Schubert’s Great C major Mahler · Diepenbrock · Schubert
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Mäkelä Conducts Verklärte Nacht and Mahler’s Seventh Schoenberg · Mahler
Past guides
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Resurrection Mahler
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Pappano: Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Mahler’s Fifth Elgar · Mahler
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Rattle: Gerhard, Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Mahler’s Fourth Gerhard · Strauss · Mahler
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Symphony of a Thousand Mahler
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What the World Tells Me Mahler
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The Long Farewell Mahler
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A Last Concerto and a First Symphony Bartók · Mahler
Sources 2
- Gustav Mahler, Wikipedia
- Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3 in D minor (programme note by Susanne Stähr), Berliner Philharmoniker