Gustav Mahler was born to Jewish parents in Kalist, Bohemia. He
began piano lessons at the age of six, and gave his first public
recital four years later. He suffered a traumatic childhood at the
hands of a strict father, growing up to be a neurotic and
temperamental young man. In 1875 he entered the Vienna
Conservatoire, where he studied the piano, harmony, and
composition. He also developed what was to be a lifelong interest
in political and philosophical ideas, which led him to enrol at
the university in 1878. The same year he composed his first
substantial work, Das klagende Lied (The Song of Sorrow), a
cantata for tour voices, chorus, and orchestra to a text by the
composer himself.
Throughout his life, Mahler earned most of his income as a
conductor. In 1880 he was appointed to his first conducting post
in Upper Austria. During the next few years he moved around from
opera house to opera house, gaining vital experience of the
standard repertory. While he was at Kassel (1883—5) an unhappy
love affair provided the inspiration for his first masterpiece,
the song-cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Qesellen (Songs of a
Wayfarer). He moved to Prague in 1885, and after spells at
Leipzig, as second conductor to Artur Nikisch, and then Budapest lie went to Hamburg in 1891,
undertaking the heaviest schedule of his life - conducting as many
as 19 operas a month.
By 1894 Mahler had finished his gigantic Symphony No. 2
(Resurrection symphony) in five movements, which lasts for 80
minutes. He had encountered many problems during its gestation,
and for a long time he was unable to begin the last movement.
Then, early in 1894, Mahler attended the funeral of a friend. At
the climax of the service the choir intoned the Resurrection
ode by eighteenth-century German poet Friedrich Klopstock;
Mahler rushed home and immediately set to work using this as the
basis for the missing movement. As well as its choral finale, the
Resurrection symphony includes a setting for alto voice of
texts from a collection of folk poetry entitled Des Knaben
Wunderhorn, which Mahler returned to for his Third and Fourth symphonies.
By 1893 Mahler had established his lifelong pattern of
composing in the summer and conducting in the winter. In 1897 he
renounced his Jewish faith in order to gain the coveted post of
Director of the Vienna Court Opera. His achievements there marked
one of the most glorious decades in the Opera House's prestigious history. In 1898 he became
conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. He attracted large
audiences, but his authoritarian manner and unconventional musical
views antagonized players and administrators alike. In 1902 he
married Alma Schindler, with whom he had two daughters. The
marriage did not always run smoothly, as Mahler demanded that his
wite should arrange her life entirely around his. The problems
between them came to a head in 1910 when Alma's affair with the
architect Walter Gropnis led Mahler to consult Sigmund Freud.
During his time in Vienna, Mahler composed five symphonies
(Nos. 4—8) and a song cycle, Kindertotenlieder (Children's
Death Songs). The Sixth symphony in particular is
enormously powerful and includes three massive chords which
represent three hammerblows of fate, the last being fatal. The
music affected Mahler so profoundly at the first performance that
he was incapable of conducting properly and deleted the third
blow, fearful of its prophecy of death. The Eighth symphony
surpasses anything written before it in terms of the forces
required, using such a massive orchestra, choir, and cast of
soloists that it acquired the nickname "Symphony of a Thousand."
Despite these successes Mahler had to leave Vienna in the face
of an increasingly virulent anti-Semitic smear campaign initiated
by the press. He accepted an offer by the New York Metropolitan
Opera and left for the United States at the end of 1907. One of
his daughters died that year; and it was around this time that his
health began to suffer seriously, a result of the constant strain
he had imposed upon himself all his life. He returned to Europe
and died in 1911, leaving three unperformed masterpieces — the
Ninth symphony, a work clearly preoccupied with the shadow of
death; the beautiful symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde
(Song of the Earth); and an unfinished Tenth symphony.
Mahler's works fell from favour after his death, but his
symphonies, longer and more complex than anyone had dared to write
before, are now recognized as works of genius.
