Gustav Mahler: 150th Birthday Feature: July 7, 2010

Gustav Mahler was born on July 7, 1860 in the village of Kalischt in eastern Bohemia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a humble Jewish family – his father was an innkeeper and his mother the daughter of a provincial soap manufacturer. Mahler once commented famously that he was three times homeless: “a Bohemian amongst Austrians, an Austrian amongst Germans, and a Jew throughout the world.” While still an infant, his family moved to the larger town of Iglau, in Moravia, where the local music scene – folk and dance music, marching bands, etc. – would leave their mark on the young composer. He displayed musical talent early, and began performing from age 10. With the support of his parents, Gustav entered the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied piano and composition, and may have had his first attempts at conducting, with the student orchestra. There he befriended Hugo Wolf, attended lectures from Anton Bruckner, and – as so many of his generation – fell under the musical spell of Richard Wagner. Upon graduating in 1878, he entered Vienna University, where he spent a year studying philosophy and literature – which likewise proved influential on his musical persona.

In the years after graduation, Mahler assumed a series of conducting posts – primarily for opera companies in small towns (Bad Hall, Laibach, Olmütz, and Kassel); composition thus became a secondary consideration, though on at least one occasion, in 1884, he programmed his own incidental music (for Joseph Viktor von Scheffel’s play, Der Trompeter von Säkkingen). A key inspiration for later compositional activity was his discovery around this time of the German folk-poem collection, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘The Youth’s Magic Horn’) – which would leave its mark on several Mahler songs and symphonies. During the 1880s, while building his career as an opera conductor, Mahler also composed a few other works ­ – including several songs for voice and piano, and the song cycle, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (‘Songs of a Wayfarer’; 1883-85, originally with piano accompaniment, orchestrated 1891-95). Some of this early music was later incorporated into his First Symphony – which was premiered, to critical rebuke, in Budapest in 1889; as well as the Second Symphony (1888-96).

“Mahler turned me on to classical music. After a concert of the First Symphony at the Proms when I was about 15 years old, I was entirely changed. I think I nearly wore out my LP of Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The music has a combined power, honesty, fragility and spirituality rarely found in other scores and his emotional soundscape captures the heady and swirling days of the shifting centuries. Mahler is one of the greatest portals into the raw, transformative effect of large scale classical music.”
– Graham Parker, Executive Director, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; incoming Vice President, WQXR radio (New York)

By the early 1890s, Mahler had achieved sufficient success as a conductor – with posts in the opera houses of Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, and Hamburg – to be able to limit his summer activities to composition. In 1893, he purchased a small home in the upper Austrian resort of Steinbach, on the banks of Lake Attersee – his “komponierhäuschen” (composition hut) – where he quickly produced several songs based on the Wunderhorn collection, as well as his Second and Third Symphonies (1894-96), which themselves are derived in part from various Wunderhorn settings. The premiere of the Second Symphony, in Berlin in late-1895, may also be considered his first critical and popular success. Composing took an extended hiatus in 1897-98, during which time Mahler was appointed to his two most high profile conducting posts – with the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper, now the Staatsoper) and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Starting in 1899, however, Mahler was able to resume composing, and entered his most creative period. He quickly wrote his final song settings of the Wunderhorn collection, as well as his Fourth Symphony (1899-1900). After the turn of the century, Mahler wrote his Rückert Lieder (1901-04), the orchestral song cycle Kindertotenlieder (‘Songs on the Death of Children’, 1901-04), and his Fifth (1901-02), Sixth (1903-04), Seventh (1904-05), and Eighth (1906-07) Symphonies – all written at a new summer “composing hut” in Maiernigg in Carinthia. Each of these works was able to be premiered by Mahler himself, and received generally mixed responses from the audience and critics. It was also in these years, that Mahler met and married Alma Schindler (in 1902), in what was a passionate though often challenging relationship – where, for example, Alma was forced to abandon her own compositional aspirations, by virtue of her husband’s dictum that there be only once composer in the household. These productive years came to a tragic end when, in the summer of 1907, Mahler’s own daughter, Maria, died of scarlet fever – a sad irony given the song cycle, Kindertotenlieder, the composer had written a few years earlier.

“Mahler’s music has had a profound impact on my life personally and as an artist. Mahler told us that all of life should be a symphony, and his art subsequently reflects all of the trivia and tragedy in life simultaneously.  His creative works and musical genius prepare as well as cajole, and force his listener to understand the time he is living in, regardless of the century.  When people ask which of his works are my favorite, I respond by saying ‘whichever work I am listening to now!’  Mahler’s music emerged from the Romantic age and carried us into music’s modern era.  His was an extraordinary sensibility that has enriched all music lovers immeasurably.”
– Thomas Hampson, baritone

By virtue of the challenges he faced from his Viennese opponents – largely due to his Jewish roots – Mahler resigned his conducting posts in that city in 1907, and took a position as music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York as well as with the newly constituted New York Philharmonic, though he continued to spend his summers in Austria, now at a home in the forests of Tyrol. During the summers of 1907-10, Mahler wrote the orchestral song cycle Das Lied von der Erde (‘The Song of the Earth’, 1908-09), his Ninth Symphony (1908-09), and the Adagio from his incomplete Tenth Symphony – his last composition. During a trip to Berlin in September 1910, Mahler conducted the premiere of his Eighth Symphony (‘Symphony of a Thousand’), yielding the most successful reception of his music during his lifetime – though it would also be the last premiere Mahler would experience. Having faced a series of health problems from at least 1907, when he was a diagnosed with a defective heart, things deteriorated from mid-1910 and Mahler died on May 18, 1911. Among those in attendance at his funeral was Arnold Schoenberg, perhaps Mahler’s most ardent musical disciple.

During his lifetime, Mahler was best known as a conductor, and must be regarded as a principal figure in the evolution of this art form; among his students were some of the towering figures of the 20^th century, including Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. Mahler conducted numerous historic performances of operas by Wagner, Bizet, Weber, Mascagni, Smetana, and Tchaikovsky, as well as by Mozart and Beethoven – and in many cases his performances initiated or greatly assisted in the subsequent popularity of these works. At the same time, he was often fiercely attacked for his autocratic style and unyielding rehearsal demands – leading to frequent feuds with singers, musicians, and administrators. Given his life-long involvement with opera performance and production, it is somewhat surprising that except for an early attempt that was soon abandoned (Rübezahl, 1879), Mahler was never himself driven to compose an opera.

“Here’s to another century and a half!”
– Marin Alsop, conductor

Of course, it is Mahler’s identity as a composer, rather than as a conductor, that is most celebrated today. To be sure, his music has been the object of varying critiques over the decades – with his symphonies criticized early on for their exaggerated lengths and orchestral eccentricities; during his lifetime, only the Second and Eighth Symphonies achieved much success. Following his death, things were not much better – for example, his works were banned as “degenerate” in Germany and Austria during the Nazi era. Things started to change after 1960, however, when several conductors – most notably Leonard Bernstein (who reported claimed to have single-handedly rescued Mahler from oblivion), Leopold Stokowski, Dimitri Mitropoulos, and John Barbirolli began to champion his music. Since then, a sort of “Mahler-mania” has swept the musical world, with his works performed and recorded to such an extent that some complain of a certain “glut” or over-exposure. In any event, Mahler’s own prediction that “my day will come” has certainly come true, and we at Classical Archives are delighted to help commemorate his brilliant musical legacy. Happy Birthday, Gustav Mahler!

Nolan Gasser, Artistic Director