Composer Gustav Mahler was born this date in 1860.
Oh no, you’re not going to write about that incredibly depressing guy who wrote about dead kids, are you? Well, yeah, but give him a chance. There’s a lot more to him than songs about death. He wrote about all aspects of life, the happy as well as sorrowful, and death is a part of life.
As with most people, Mahler experienced his share of love and his share of loss. And, being incredibly talented, he expressed his feelings through his music, touching people deeply. Growing up in Christian Bohemia, but being Jewish and speaking German, Mahler felt out of step from the beginning. He had to battle antisemitism almost his whole career, even having to “convert” to Catholicism to get the post of director of the Vienna Hofoper. He primarily made his reputation as a conductor, working all over Germany and Austria, and even conducting the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic. During summers, the off-season, he did most of his composing.
Most of his composing was confined to songs and symphonies. While conducting hundreds of operas in his career, the only opera he co-wrote was Die drei Pintos (the three pintos). This was an unfinished opera by Carl Maria von Weber and Mahler completed the sketches and orchestration.
Many of his compositions incorporated folk songs he heard in the streets as a child. He also discovered the German folk poems Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) and spent a dozen years setting these to music. The knock against him being depressing came from the symphonies and the song cycle Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the death of children). The poems are by Friedrich Rueckert, not Mahler.
However, depressing is in the eye of the beholder, and I find most of his music uplifting. The example I’ve chosen for your listening pleasure is the Finale of the 8th Symphony. Although this was billed as “the Symphony of a Thousand,” Mahler never approved of this title, but the orchestra and chorus is quite large. The work is split into two parts. The text of the first is the 9th century hymn veni creator spiritus and the second is the last part of Goethe’s poem Faust. The theme is redemption through love. The bit you’ll hear starts out so quietly you can barely hear it, but ends on a triumphal note that makes you think you’re walking through the Gate of Heaven. Nothing depressing about this.
Oh, and the performance is Sir Simon Rattle with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Yep, those are kids in that orchestra making that glorious sound. Enjoy!
P.S. forgive the ads and the subtitles.
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