- Biography
- Symphony No. 1
- Resurrection Symphony
- Symphony No. 4
- Symphony No. 5
- Symphony of a Thousand
- Das Lied von der Erde
- Symphony No. 9
Biography
The son of an ambitious father who had made his way from humble origins, Gustav Mahler gave a piano recital at the age of ten which caused a sensation in the town of Iglau in Bohemia.
He was another child prodigy, and following this concert was sent off to the Conservatoire in Vienna to commence a formal training in music.
He was an outstanding student and received all kinds of prizes and awards; this naturally pleased his father very much indeed, for it was he who was the really ambitious driving force in the family.
Mahler’s childhood was marred by the unsettled relationship and constant rowing between his parents and this, in turn, later had a profound effect on his music.
We know that he was an extremely sensitive being and that his music is quite often autobiographical in nature.
Most of his works either portray various aspects of his character and feelings or are musical pictures of specific events in his life.
He was an intense and astutely aware person who appears very much to have been ‘an old soul’, showing a wisdom and clarity of vision that was truly exceptional.
His music very clearly depicts human emotions and the sounds of nature as well as reflecting his extraordinary awareness of death.
Mahler was regarded as being a bit of an oddball.
He was a strict vegan and only consumed water, fruit and spinach! This was naturally quite unusual for someone at the end of the nineteenth century and people that came into contact with him were always taken aback at his rather peculiar habits and eccentricities.
Although he was extremely successful as a student, when Mahler failed to win the coveted Beethoven Prize (and consequently the cash that went with it) he decided to concentrate on a career as a conductor, feeling that there was more chance of commercial success in that direction.
All the while, however, he continued to compose, and public performances of his works were held in high regard.
He soon became a much sought-after composer and quite quickly graduated to writing for the full symphony orchestra.
His First Symphony, written in 1888 when he was just twenty-eight years old, is a classic masterpiece that now has a firmy place in the repertoire of every major symphony orchestra around the world.
Mahler’s talent as a conductor was unquestioned and he was always in demand.
Tchaikovsky once wrote of him that he was ‘undoubtedly a genius and a man of extraordinary ability’.
Brahms, too, was unfailing in his praise of Mahler, and he is quoted as saying: ‘To hear the true Don Giovanni – go to Budapest’.
This is where Mahler was the resident conductor, and he was receiving rave reviews for all his performances of the Mozart, Puccini and Verdi operas.
Mahler also conducted the first performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
It seems that there was only one person of note who was not an admirer of Mahler in any way, shape or form, and this was the famous conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow.
Von Bülow was both a close friend and a professional colleague of Brahms and Wagner, but dismissed Mahler’s offerings in one classic sentence: ‘If this is still music, I know nothing of music’, and he was to be the bane of Mahler’s life for some time.
When von Bülow died in 1894 Mahler received a new creative lease of life and a greater freedom to express himself and have his works performed.
Whilst composing Mahler required absolute silence and even went to the lengths of writing in solitude at a hut near Steinbach, where he would insist on the cows being stripped of their bells, farmers curtailing their activities and animals either being cooped up or sent far away so as not disturb him.
The hut by the lakeside in Steinbach and his summer house in Toblach were ideal settings for one so sensitive and inspired to create works that have such a natural and spiritual quality to them.
Mahler fell in love with a girl called Alma Maria Schindler, the step-daughter of the artist Carl Moll, and married her in 1902.
This was not an easy relationship by any means, as Mahler was a man of extraordinary habit and had something of a dictatorial nature.
He made his wife, also a highly talented musician, give up composition and he demanded total freedom for himself so that Alma should serve his every need.
It was this obsessive pursuit for excellence that was the hallmark of his life – always seeking the truth and demanding the very best from everyone around him.
He left Vienna in 1907 after a ten-year reign at the Opera House.
This was also the year in which his eldest daughter died and that Mahler was found to have a chronic heart condition, reputedly a hereditary problem from which his mother had also suffered and died.
Whilst staying in Schluderbach he became fascinated by a collection of Chinese poems and these inspired him to write the wonderful song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde, which some say is his finest creation.
His last few years were shadowed by an awareness of impending death, and having been taken seriously ill in New York in 1911 he moved back to Paris, where he died later that year.
Mahler specified that there should be no memorial to him and that he should be allowed to pass over quietly to a new life.
In his last few days he is reputed to have said: ‘Tomorrow we shall run faster, stretch out our arms and one fine morning . . .’, thus confirming his firm religious belief that death is most certainly not the end.
His wife beautifully encapsulated her last thoughts in the following: ‘I can never forget his dying hours and the greatness of his face as death drew nearer. His battle for eternal values, his elevation above trivial things and his unflinching devotion to truth are an example of the saintly life.’
Whilst listening to the works of Mahler, an insight into the life and spirit of the man himself helps to give a far greater appreciation of the music.
Listen to any of the symphonies and particularly the highly emotive song ‘Abschied’ (Farewell) from Das Lied von der Erde, of which Mahler genuinely asked, ‘Can this be endured. Will people not kill themselves afterwards . . .?’
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 1 in D: Stürmisch bewegt
1876, Symphonies, Orchestral
To his contemporaries, the new world of Mahler’s symphonies was often frightening and powerful. Even Mahler was occasionally overwhelmed by his own inspirations, with a sort of ‘panic terror’ being a recurrent theme. It was often said that he was merely a lightning rod for emotional thunderbolts that would strike him.
His first symphony was written when he was a twenty-nine year old director of the Budapest Philharmonic, and is indicative of the power and vibrancy that would follow in subsequent works. This five-movement symphony is more often referred to as a symphonic poem in two parts and was described by Mahler as follows:
Part I: ‘From the Days of Youth’
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‘Spring Without End’ – depicting the awakening of nature from its long winter sleep.
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‘A Collection of Flowers’
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‘Under Full Sail’
Part II: ‘A Human Comedy’
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‘Stranded!’ – From an Austrian book of fairy tales. Forest animals accompany the dead hunter’s coffin to the grave; hares carry the little banner, before them march a band of Bohemian musicians, accompanied by numerous other beasts in a funeral procession of farcical poses. The music is intended to express alternating moods of ironical frivolity and uncanny gloom.
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’ From the Inferno’ – An Allegro furioso which expresses the sudden despairing outcry of a wounded heart.
This first movement seems to steal its main themes from the folk songs with which Mahler grew up, as well as the ones he later wrote himself, whilst the second is a slow, naive exercise based on a poem called ‘The Trumpeter of Sackingen’. It starts with a serenading trumpet that sets the main theme. Part I is then rounded off by a sedate, waltz-like conclusion.
The second part of the work opens with the strange fourth movement described as a bizarre funeral procession. The main theme is a minor version of the traditional nursery tune ‘Frère Jacques’, which could well be mocking the dead hunter. The finale crashes through to a heroic end.
Resurrection Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (‘Resurrection’)
1888, Symphonies, Orchestral
Mahler’s Second Symphony is famous for its powerful ending, which begins with a wild outburst from the full orchestra that subsequently dies away to silence. Then, from a great distance, a solemn fanfare can be heard, where Mahler asks for the use of:
’. . . as many horns as possible placed very far away, to play very loudly.’
Mahler later wrote that this was supposed to represent:
‘the end of all living things . . . The Last Judgement is announced and the ultimate terror of this Day of Days has arrived.’
It is a powerful work and typically Romantic.
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 4 in G Major: Bedachtig
1892, Symphonies, Orchestral
Mahler’s Fourth Symphony is seen as one of his most modest and intriguing works. It uses as its inspirational source the composer’s own deeply felt love for the simplicity of German folk art. Taking a poem from a folk collection called ‘The Boy’s Magic Horn’, Mahler was inspired to write a song called ‘All Heavenly Joys are Ours’, which is performed at the end of the fourth (and last) movement. As a result, the first three movements are used to anticipate the major themes of the fourth and to prepare the listener effectively for it. The symphony was first performed in Munich in 1902.
The first movement opens with a striking rhythm of staccato flutes and sleigh-bells, which are also prominent in the final movement. This melody is soon taken up by French horns, woodwinds and lower strings, the whole being rounded off by a return to the original chirpy theme.
The second movement starts as a leisurely folksy scherzo that soon takes on a more eerie mood, which Mahler once described as ‘Death leading the music’. He went on to say that:
‘The ‘scherzo’ is so uncanny, almost sinister, that your hair may stand on end . . . ‘
The third, slow movement (Poco adagio) was inspired by reclining stone figures in a church graveyard, the image of which, Mahler uses to anticipate the main theme of the finale. The fourth movement is intended to convey a heavenly scene of pure, eternal blue which is assisted by a solo clarinet phrase that matches the first vocal line. The poem is then performed, punctuated with occasional refrains from the orchestra, echoing the original, light passage from the first movement.
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor: Trauermarsch
1902, Symphonies, Orchestral
When Mahler conducted the first performance of his Fifth Symphony in Cologne in 1904, it ended up being described as ‘the giant symphony’. Mahler’s use of a gigantic orchestra for subtle chamber music effects, coupled with his tendency to amplify certain sections of his music radically, make ‘giant’ an understandable description. Although Mahler had completed this work in the summer of 1902, his perfectionist nature forced him to revise the music constantly, practically up to the year of his death (1911). In a letter to a friend, Mahler wrote:
‘The Fifth is now finished. I have been forced to reorchestrate it completely. I fail to comprehend how at that time [1902] I could have blundered so, like a green-horn. Obviously, the routine I had acquired in my first four symphonies completely deserted me. It is as if my totally new musical message demanded a new technique.’
What makes this work particularly interesting is that, although it is in five movements, it is clearly divided into three parts. The work opens with a solo trumpet slowly introducing one of the main ‘Funeral March’ themes, soon to be joined by the full orchestra. As the movement dies on a solo flute, we enter the stormier second movement, which draws on themes from the opening section.
Part II is made up of a scherzo that is effectively a waltz with a rich variety of themes, including a striking horn. Part III contains the two final movements, the first (or fourth) being slow and yearning, contrasted against a fresh and lively Rondo finale with a bouncy cello theme being picked up by the violins, violas and basses which builds eventually to a stately hymn of triumph.
Symphony of a Thousand
Symphony No. 8 in E Flat Major (‘Symphony of a Thousand’)
1906, Symphonies, Orchestral
In August 1906 Mahler wrote to a friend, saying:
‘I have just finished my Eighth! It is the biggest thing I have done so far . . . I cannot describe it in words. Imagine that the whole universe begins to vibrate and resound. These are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving.’
The first half of the symphony is based on the ancient Latin hymn ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ and the second half on the concluding scene of Goethe’s ‘Faust’.
The symphony earned its nickname ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ due to the vast number of performers required for its delivery, which involve an extended orchestra and numerous choirs. At the first performance, slightly over one thousand poeple were used.
Das Lied von der Erde
1908, Orchestral
This was written towards the end of Mahler’s career and is possibly one of his greatest works – if not the greatest. Though the work is technically a symphony, Mahler refused to give it a numerical title because he had a superstition that a composer should not exceed Beethoven’s total of nine symphonies. Instead of giving it a number, he called it ‘The Song of the Earth’ and subtitled it ‘A Symphony for Tenor, Contralto and Orchestra’.
The work was composed during the summer of 1908, after Mahler had been told by his doctors that, if he did not give up the physical exertions of conducting, he would not have long to live. Being the man he was, however, he completely ignored this advice and, on top of his duties as conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, he accepted the position of full-time conductor of the New York Philharmonic. He then conducted forty-six Philharmonic concerts, diving into his work with a determination that some referred to as verging on the suicidal.
The Song of the Earth is based on a poem called ‘The Chinese Flute’ by the German poet Hans Bethge. Mahler was fascinated by the tragic moods occasioned by leaving people and parting in general. In setting the poem to music, he sought to emphasise the nostalgic mood in which even visions of youth and love only sharpen the pain of eternal farewell. The symphonic cycle ends with a sevenfold echo of the word ‘forever’ (‘ewig’ in German), whilst the opening movement is dominated by the line ‘Dark is life, is death.’
Symphony No. 9
Symphony No. 9 in D Major
1910, Symphonies, Orchestral
This, Mahler’s last completed symphony, was composed in 1910 during his first season as conductor for the New York Philharmonic. A year later he was dead, and this work reflects the complex emotions of an artist who is fully aware that he has only a little time to live.