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| Birth Name(s) : Gustav Mahler |
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Full Gustav Mahler Biography
Mahler was best known during his own lifetime as one of the leading orchestral and operatic conductors of the day. He has since come to be acknowledged as among the most important late-romantic composers, although during his lifetime his music was never fully accepted by the musical establishment. Mahler composed primarily symphonies and songs; however, his approach to genre often blurred the lines between orchestral Lied, symphony, and symphonic poem.
He was deeply spiritual and described his music in terms of nature very often. This resulted in his music being viewed as extremely emotional for a long time after his death. In addition to restlessly searching for ways of extending symphonic expression, he was also an ardent craftsman, which shows both in his meticulous working methods and careful planning, and in his studies of previous composers.
Mahler's harmonic writing was at times highly innovative, stretching the limits of conventional tonality. Still, tonality, as an expressive and constructional principle, was clearly of great importance to Mahler. This is shown most clearly by his approach to the issue of so-called 'progressive tonality'. While his First Symphony is clearly a D major work, his Second 'progresses' from a C minor first movement to an E-flat major conclusion; his Third moves from a first movement which begins in D minor and ends in F major to a finale which ends in D major – while his Fourth dies away in a serene E major that seemingly has no awareness of its distance from the work's basic G major. The Fifth moves from a C-sharp minor funeral march, through a desperately conflict-ridden A minor movement, a vigorous dance movement in D major, and a lyrical F major 'Adagietto', to a triumphant finale in D major – while the Sixth, very much by contrast, starts in A minor, ends in A minor, and juxtaposes a slow movement in E-flat major with a scherzo in A minor. The Seventh is tonally highly 'progressive', with a first movement that moves from a (possible) B minor start to an E major conclusion, and a finale that defines a celebratory C major. In the Eighth Symphony, the composer's expressive intentions led him to construct a work that both starts and ends in E-flat – whereas the 'valedictory' Ninth moves from a D major first movement to a D-flat major finale. The Tenth, insofar as we can be sure that Mahler's ultimate tonal intentions are discernible, was to start and end in F-sharp major.
The symphonies of the 'second period', Nos. 5 to 7, manifest an increased severity of expression and reveal a growing interest in non-standard instrumentation (a whip in the Symphony No. 5; cowbells, 'deep bells' and a 'hammer' in the Symphony No. 6; and cowbells, cornet, 'tenor horn', mandolin and guitar in the Symphony No. 7), although non-standard instruments are present in earlier symphonies, like a post horn in the Symphony No. 3. Though the symphonies in this group have no vocal component, the world of Mahlerian song is hinted at in the first movement of the Symphony No. 5 and the slow movement of the Symphony No. 6, where phrases from one of the Kindertotenlieder are briefly heard, and in No.5's finale, which incorporates material from the 1896 Wunderhorn song 'Lob des hohen Verstandes'.
Few composers are felt to have freely intermixed their work so completely as Mahler; the impression is only strengthened by the musical connections that can be heard to exist between symphonies and symphonies and symphonies and songs, seeming to bind them together into a larger 'narrative'. For example, Material heard in No. 3 recurs in the finale of No. 4; an idea from the first movement of No. 4 is heard to open No. 5; and a 'tragic' harmonic gesture that is repeatedly heard in No. 6 (a major chord declining into a minor) makes a striking reappearance in No. 7. Furthermore, a theme heard in No. 1 is restated in the first movement of No. 9, the last complete work he wrote.
For Alban Berg, younger still, Mahler was a musical influence rather than a personal one (the tragic Symphony No. 6 was "the only Sixth, despite the Pastoral"), and Mahlerian elements can be heard in many of his works. For example, the two hammer blows (three in the original edition) in the finale of the Mahler Sixth find their echo in Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces, which features seven hammer blows in its final movement as well as thematic material of a decisively Mahlerian cut.
On 9 November 1905 Mahler recorded four of his own compositions for the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano:
- "Ging heut' morgen übers Feld", from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (piano accompaniment only).
- "Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald", from Lieder aus "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (piano accompaniment only).
- "Das himmlische Leben", Wunderhorn setting used as fourth movement of Symphony No. 4 (piano accompaniment only).
- First movement (Trauermarsch) from Symphony No. 5 (in arrangement for solo piano). |
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