July 7 2010 marks 150 years since the birth of Gustav Mahler, one of the most performed and recorded classical composers of all time.
Mahler was a conductor before he was a composer; one reason why he was not as prolific as some of his contemporaries. He focused on symphonies and song – but the sophistication and beauty of his work within these two styles of composition elevate them high within the canon.
Mahler composed ten symphonies over the course of a career in which he was often persecuted for being Jewish. He was born in Bohemia then studied in Vienna, before taking posts there and in Leipzig, where his early works were composed.
Mahler’s First Symphony debuted in Budapest in 1889. It shares thematic and emotional ties with his first song cycle, Songs of a Wayfarer (Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen) which had preceded it. This symphony introduced the ‘Mahlerism’ of a stark juxtaposition of styles; in this case, a variation on the children’s song Frère Jacques introducing a movement dominated by a funeral march.
Mahler had begun his Second Symphony, known as ‘Resurrection’ a year earlier, in 1888. It was completed in 1894, and enjoyed great success, becoming one of his most loved. The grand scope of the symphony reveals Mahler’s ambition to capture the whole of human existence within his composition.
The Third fully revealed the emerging pattern for a bigger, more bombastic offering each time. It comprises six movements, against a traditional symphony’s four. Much of Mahler’s symphonic output features elements of song, and the fourth movement in this symphony contains lyrics from Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
The first four of Mahler’s symphonies all drew inspiration from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘the Youth’s Magic Horn’), a collection of German folk poetry. The Fourth is the last in that Wunderhorn cycle, contending as it does with existential questions and heaven as envisaged by a child.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony contains perhaps his most recognised and performed piece of music: the fourth movement, the Adagietto. The symphony was written between 1901 and 1902, during which time Mahler was courting his wife-to-be Alma. They remained married until his death, despite a tempestuous relationship.
Mahler’s Sixth is the darkest and most troubled of his works. It contains Kindertotenlieder, songs on the death of children, and culminates in a finale in which the protagonist ‘is assaulted by three hammer-blows of fate, the last of which fells him as a tree is felled’. Mahler wrote this description of his symphony before the death of his daughter and his heart disease was diagnosed – events he believed he had somehow been prescient of.
The Seventh Symphony proves more contentious for aficionados; it appears to have not been written sequentially like Mahler’s other symphonies, and it raises eyebrows with dark and troubled sections leading to an optimistic and almost jaunty finale. Nevertheless, it has proved very popular with music academics and Mahler proponents, leading to a large variety of recordings of it.
Mahler himself considered his Eighth Symphony, ‘The Symphony Of A Thousand’, to be his ‘greatest work’, and indeed, not only is it the composition requiring the largest number of musicians and vocal contributors, but it was the piece that brought Mahler the most success within his lifetime and remains today one of his most beloved compositions.
His Ninth was the last that he completed. Like the three that pre-empted it, there are thematic allusions to his own impending death and the echoes of finality he read into that. Musicologist Deryck Cooke called Mahler’s ninth a ‘dark night of the soul’; but it is a night followed by inevitable day and a refusal to succumb to despair is evident in the final movement.
Mahler’s Tenth Symphony was unfinished at the time of his death, in 1910.
Mahler’s 150th birthday is being celebrated across the world. A celebratory concert is being held in Kalište, Mahler’s birthplace, featuring the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
The Theater Museum in Vienna is staging an exhibition of Mahler’s life as well as hosting a series of concerts. The baritone Thomas Hampson has created a year-long season of performances celebrating Mahler, taking him around the world, working with, amongst others, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, for whom Mahler acted as principal conductor.
The First Night of the BBC Proms on July 16 will feature The Symphony Of A Thousand, Mahler’s Eighth.