In 1960 Leonard Bernstein said he doubted anyone in his Carnegie Hall audience had ever heard of Gustav Mahler. Bernstein would go on to be a leading advocate for Mahler’s music in North America. He would record two complete cycles of Mahler’s symphonies and would be a tireless proponent for scheduling performances of his music by symphony orchestras.
As of January 2018 there are 1237 recordings available of Mahler’s music. This number is especially remarkable given that his output consists of just 10 symphonies, 45 songs, and a couple of other compositions.
This class will explore Mahler’s life and music. Perhaps more than any other prominent composer Mahler’s music is, in a sense, autobiographical. He once said, “My whole life is contained in my two symphonies. In them I have set down my experience and suffering, truth and poetry in words. To anyone who knows how to listen my whole life will become clear.”
Mahler’s music is not literally autobiographical, but it is true to say that almost everything he wrote was directly inspired by important emotionally wrenching events of his life.
Mahler’s life (1860-1911) covered a period where the old order of European stability established by the Congress of Vienna was breaking down. One of Bernstein’s favorite contentions was that Mahler was one of the composers, artists, and writers of that era who foresaw the violent and tragic turn that events would take in the twentieth century.
One of the reasons his music speaks so eloquently to us today is the sense we have that he somehow knew what was coming and was writing music in response to events yet to come.
