Music

Gustav Mahler

1860–1911 · Austrian (born in Bohemia)

Late Romantic

Mahler was the leading conductor of his generation and one of the great symphonists, stretching the form to vast scale — "a symphony must be like the world; it must embrace everything". His nine completed symphonies and song cycles bridge late Romanticism and modernism, and were championed after his death by Bernstein and others.

How to spot them

▸Enormous orchestras and long symphonies mixing the sublime with folk tunes, marches, bird calls and cowbells
▸Songs and voices within symphonies; searing climaxes and hushed, yearning slow movements
▸Clue patterns: Vienna Court Opera, Alma Mahler, the 'Resurrection', Death in Venice, 'Frère Jacques' in a minor key

Key works — listen

Symphony No. 1 in D major (1887–1888)

Once called 'Titan'; slow movement turns 'Frère Jacques' into a minor-key funeral march

Recording: hr-Sinfonieorchester · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection" (1888–1894)

Ends with chorus and soloists setting Klopstock's resurrection hymn

Recording: Barbara Schubert, the DuPage Symphony Orchestra · CC0, Wikimedia Commons

Symphony No. 5 (1901–1902)

Opens with a trumpet funeral march; its Adagietto for strings and harp featured in Visconti's Death in Venice

Recording: Peabody Symphony Orchestra · CC0, Wikimedia Commons

Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major "Symphony of a Thousand" (1906)

Choral symphony setting 'Veni, Creator Spiritus' and the end of Goethe's Faust

Das Lied von der Erde (1908–1909)

'The Song of the Earth' — symphonic song cycle on Chinese poems

Kindertotenlieder (1901–1904)

'Songs on the Death of Children', setting poems by Friedrich Rückert

Quick-fire facts

•He was born in Kaliště, Bohemia, and described himself as 'thrice homeless': a Bohemian in Austria, an Austrian among Germans, and a Jew throughout the world.
•He was director of the Vienna Court Opera from 1897 to 1907, converting to Catholicism shortly before his appointment.
•He married Alma Schindler in 1902; she later married Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel.
•The Symphony No. 8 premiere in Munich in 1910 involved over a thousand performers.
•Das Lied von der Erde uses German versions of Chinese poems from Hans Bethge's anthology Die chinesische Flöte.
•His Symphony No. 10 was left unfinished; Deryck Cooke's performing version is the best known completion.
•He conducted in New York at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic in his final years.

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Mahler, Gustav
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Gustav Mahler
Wikipedia — Gustav Mahler