Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler (b. 1861) had to wait for posterity to vindicate his compositional skills. During his life he was known principally as a superb conductor who wrote idiosyncratic symphonies on a vast scale. He held a number of influential positions in Germany, Vienna and America and was instrumental in raising performance standards to hitherto unimagined levels. Mahler suffered a turbulent personal life and died in 1911 from a streptococcal infection at the age of 50.

Mahler was chiefly influenced by the music of Wagner, Bruckner and the music making of his Jewish background. Aside from their length his symphonies are known for their innovatory style of orchestration which mixed high art with the popular music of the cafes and streets. Many have seen the fatalism and brooding on death in his work as a premonition of the horrors of the twentieth century but there is much in Mahler which is also life-affirming.

Key Works: Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2 'Resurrection', Symphony No. 3, Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 6, Symphony No. 8 'Symphony of a Thousand', Symphony No. 9, Das Lied von der Erde, Das klagende Lied; Das Knabern Wunderhorn

Key Artists: Janet Baker, Leonard Bernstein, Kathleen Ferrier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Simon Rattle, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, George Szell, Bruno Walter

Influenced by: Anton Bruckner, Richard Wagner
Influenced: Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovich, Britten etc.