Gustav Mahler – Biography of Gustav Mahler

by
Gustav Mahler He was born on July 7, 1860 in Kalischt, (Bohemia – present-day Czech Republic), the son of Bernhard and Marie. He moved with his family to Iglau, where he spent a rather sad childhood, marked by the death of several brothers. In 1875 he entered – with the help of his father, a former violinist – to the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied for three years: there he was appreciated for his ability as a musician, although causing some resentment for his bad character; He managed, however, to befriend the Rosado brothers, Hans Rott, Hugo Lobo and the violinist Krizianovskij.

In 1876 his first composition, a “piano quartet“In A minor, created for the conservatory. From his early days, his youth, actually, there isn’t much, the”Das Lied Klagende“(” Song of Lament “) from 1880, when he conducted the Bad Hall orchestra and started the five”Lieder aus und GESAENGE Jugendzeit der“(” Songs of Youth “).

He continued his career as a director touring Central Europe: in 1881 Ljubljana, Olomouc in 1882 and in 1883 Vienna and Kassel. The following year he composed the “Songs of a Wayfarer“; in 1885 he was conductor in Prague. After working in Budapest, in 1887 he replaced Arthur Nikisch in the Wagnerian cycle” The Ring of the Nibelung “, achieving considerable success that allowed him to be famous and recognized, not only for the public, but also even among critics.

However, just as his career as a conductor seemed on track, his composer phase was more hesitant: in this period it ended “Die Drei Pintos“, theatrical work by Carl Maria von Weber, arousing mixed criticism and appreciation, then he composed”The Titan“, first symphony in D major on the homonymous novel by Jean Paul, which was received rather indifferently by critics (to the point that Mahler, intervened to modify it on several occasions). In particular, the first performance on the stages in Budapest, an almost total disaster was revealed: for this reason, the author decided to reduce the movements from five to four, erasing the andante “Blumine“.

Between 1893 and 1896 he attended the city of Steinbach am Attersee, located in Upper Austria, where he worked on the revision of the first symphony and there he created his second symphony. And, thanks to the latter, also known as “Resurrection“, success began to arrive: it is divided into five movements, and is characterized by the presence of a choir and two female solo voices. Also in these years, in addition to designing the Third Symphony (which was first run in 1902), wrote almost the entire cycle of “The Magic Horn of Youth“, whose songs were inspired by a famous cycle of poems edited by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim.

In 1897, Gustav Mahler – with only thirty-seven years – he was appointed director of the Opera of the Royal Imperial Court: in charge of the execution of the most important music of the Austrian Empire. To accept the position, the composer converted from Judaism (which he had never practiced) to Catholicism (Austro-Hungarian law at the time prevented the award of imperial offices to people of Jewish religion). The conversion, however, was carried out only for work reasons, MahlerAlthough reluctantly agreeing to be baptized, he never attended church or confessed.

In 1900 he completed the Fourth Symphony in G major, made up of four beats: an allegro, a scherzo, an andante and a conclusive “lied” (song). Having conducted versions of Robert Schumann’s Second Symphony and Fourth Symphony, Gustav Mahler he renewed the repertoire of the Vienna Opera, improving the quality of the music and focusing on the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Christoph Willibald Gluck. At that time, he came into contact with the painter Alfred Roller, with whom he collaborated for the staging of “Tristán e Isolde” and “Fidelio”, but also with Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.
By working at the State Opera for nine months out of the year, he was forced to limit his work as a composer; During the summer months, at Lake Woerthersee, he composed the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth symphonies, also the last Lieder for “Des Knaben Wunderhorn“(” Der Tamboursg’sell “), the”Kindertotenilieder“(” Songs for dead children “) and”Rueckert Lieder“, inspired by poems by Friedrich Rueckert.

At the beginning of 1900 he moved to Maiternigg, and married Alma Schindler in 1902, stepdaughter of the painter Carl Moll, twenty years his junior. Alma, composer and musician, would give him two daughters: Maria Anna, who died of diphtheria when she was only four years old, and Anna, who would become a sculptor. Mahler from 1908 on, he devoted himself to composition in Alta Val Pusteria, near Dobbiaco: here he creates “Das Lied von der Erde” and the Ninth Symphony.

Two years later he discovered a betrayal of his wife, and went for advice with Sigmund Freud, however, the two met only once, an encounter that lasted several hours, during which the psychologist suggested that Mahler he suffered from the Virgin Mary complex (an idea based on the fact that the composer called his wife by the mother’s name). These were the last years of Gustav Mahler, who since 1907 suffered from a very delicate heart disease: endocarditis, having to undergo complicated medical treatments: endocarditis was considered at that time a malignant and incurable disease by many specialists in cardiology.

On May 18, 1911, he had just returned from the United States (where he had gone to live for a few months and where he enjoyed considerable success as a conductor), when he died in Vienna, at the Loew Sanitarium. He therefore left incomplete, the Tenth Symphony, of which only the initial adage in F sharp major had ended and a scherzo, a “purgatory”, another scherzo (“Der Teufel tanzt es mit mir”) and the ending were missing.