Gustav Mahler was an Austrian composer and conductor.
Background
Ethnicity:
The Mahler family belonged to a German-speaking Jewish minority among Bohemians.
Gustav Mahler was born on July 7, 1860, in Kaliště, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), the second of fourteen children of Bernhard Baruch Mahler and Marie Mahler Herrmann.
When he was a few months old, his family moved to the larger town of Jihlava (Iglau), where the father kept a distillery and bar. Here Gustav acquired his first musical impressions. Loitering in the neighborhood of the military barracks, he learned many marches, which he would play on the accordion. At the age of 4 he could sing about 200 folk songs, which he learned from the family maid.
Education
At the age of 15 the boy was taken to the Vienna Conservatory (now University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna), where he studied from 1875 to 1878. Though Mahler's studies at the Conservatory got off to a slow start, the final year fetched him many composition awards. In 1878, Mahler graduated from the conservatory, but failed to earn the silver medal, bestowed for outstanding achievements. Mahler then joined the Vienna University and pursued his interest in literature and Philosophy. He left the university in 1879.
After the university, Mahler made some earnings as a piano teacher and in 1880, finished his dramatic cantata Das klagende Lied (The Song of Lamentation). Mahler developed a keen interest in German philosophy. One of his friends Siegfried Lipiner introduced him to the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustav Fechner and Hermann Lotze. The influence of these philosophers persisted which was evident in Mahler’s music long after his student days were over.
Mahler took his first professional conducting job in a small wooden theatre in the spa town of Bad Hall, south of Linz during the summers of 1880 at the behest of Julius Epstein, who promised to work Gustav’s way up. At Landestheater in Laibach (modern day Ljubljana, Slovenia) in 1881, Mahler associated himself with a resourceful company which was on its course to attempt ambitious works. Mahler got the first opportunity to conduct his first full-scale opera, Verdi's Il trovatore, which was among his 50 such works, which he presented during his time in Laibach. However, after the completion of his six-month term, Mahler returned to Vienna where at the Vienna Carltheater, he worked as part-time chorus-master.
Later in January 1883, Mahler was appointed as the conductor at a run-down theatre in Olmütz (present-day Olomouc, Czech Republic). Even though Mahler didn’t share very amicable relations with the members of the orchestra, yet he was successful in bringing up five new operas to the theatre, one of which was Bizet's Carmen. Soon Mahler received warm and enthusiastic reviews from the critic, which until then had been hostile. After a week's trial at the Royal Theatre in the Hessian town of Kassel, Mahler was appointed from August 1883 as the Musical and Choral Director of the theater.
At the theater Mahler conducted his most preferent opera, Weber's Der Freischütz. On June 23, 1884, Gustav conducted his own incidental music to Joseph Victor von Scheffel's play Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (The Trumpeter of Säkkingen), which was the first professional public performance of his own work. Then Mahler wrote a series of love poems, which eventually became the text of his song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer).
In July, he resigned from the position and was offerd the position of an assistant conductor at the Neues Deutsches Theater (New German Theatre) in Prague. Mahler left Prague in April 1886 for Leipzig, where he was offered a position at the Neues Stadttheater. However, the position accompanied a bitter rivalry with his senior colleague Arthur Nikisch, primarily over the share of conducting duties for the theatre's new production of Wagner's Ring cycle. But later, in January 1887, due to Nikisch's illness, Mahler took charge of the whole cycle and experienced an exceptional public success. In spite of this, his relationship with his orchestra remained resentful, who deplored his tyrannical ways and heavy rehearsal schedules.
In Leipzig, Mahler met Carl von Weber and agreed to work on a performing version of Carl Maria von Weber's unfinished opera Die drei Pintos (The Three Pintos). Mahler added some composition of his own and the work was premiered, in January 1888 at the Stadttheater. This work was immensely successful which brought both critical acclaim and financial rewards.
Mahler was appointed the director of the Royal Hungarian Opera in Budapest from October 1888. In May 1891, he resigned from his Budapest post as he was offered the position of the chief conductor at Hamburg Stadttheater. While at Stadttheater, Mahler introduced several new operas, such as Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Verdi's Falstaff and works by Smetana. However soon he was compelled to resign from his post with the subscription concerts in the wake of financial failures and an ill-received interpretation of his re-scored Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Since 1895 Mahler had been trying to attain the directorship of the Vienna Hofoper. However the appointment of a Jew to this position was barred which he overcame by converting to Roman Catholicism in February 1897. A couple of months later Mahler was appointed to the Hofoper, provisionally as a staff conductor with the title of Kapellmeister.
Though in Vienna Gustav experienced several theatrical triumphs yet his days in Vienna years were full of hardships. His conflicts with the singers and the house administration persisted throughout his tenure. Mahler was immensely successful in raising the standards, yet his tyrannical style was resented by both orchestra members and singers. In December 1903, Mahler rejected the demands of the stagehands suspecting that the extremists were manipulating his staff. However, the anti-Semitic elements in Viennese society launched a press campaign in 1907, which was intended to drive Gustav out. On November 24, after conducting the Hofoper orchestra in a farewell concert performance of his Second Symphony, Mahler left Vienna for New York in early December.
His final seasons as a conductor were spent in New York City, where he was very successful at the Metropolitan Opera and the Philharmonic. He knew that, because of a serious heart condition, he might die soon. In this knowledge, he composed his last and greatest works. Das Lied von der Erde (1907 - 1908; The Song of the Earth) is a six-movement symphony with alto and tenor soloists; the texts are from a collection of translated Chinese poetry, Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute) by Hans Bethge. The dominating theme is the transitoriness of human existence in the face of eternity.
Musically and spiritually, Mahler's last two numbered symphonies are closely related to Das Lied. The Ninth was completed in 1910. Mahler never finished the Tenth, but in recent years several attempts have been made to bring his manuscript into performable condition.
Mahler conducted his last concert in New York on February 21, 1911, and collapsed immediately thereafter from a severe streptococcal infection. Taken back to Europe, he seemed to recover briefly, but the infection could not be cured. On May 18 he died in Vienna.
Quotations:
"A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything."
"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music."
"The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes."
"Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos."
Interests
Music & Bands
Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann
Connections
On March 9, 1902, Gustav Mahler married Alma Schindler. The couple had two daughters: Maria Anna and Anna.
In the summer of 1907 Mahler took his family to Maiernigg. Soon after their arrival both daughters fell ill with scarlet fever and diphtheria. Anna recovered, but after a fortnight's struggle Maria died on July 12.