Why Listen to Mahler?

gustav mahler wrote some of the most intense powerful and large-scale symphonies in all of music history [Music] this moment from his second symphony is like experiencing the big bang an explosion of incredible force that gives birth to a spring of new musical life it's as though dawn is rising on a new world of musical thought it was mala himself who said a symphony must be like the world it must embrace everything and if anyone could write a symphony of planetary proportions it was gustav mahler throughout his career mala pushed all kinds of musical qualities to

their max emotional expression the length of his works the massive size of his orchestras the sheer loudness and quietness of his music his use of tonality and dissonance his motivitism all these musical qualities were pushed towards their absolute limits and yet that's only a small part of the whole story so i want to tell you why you should listen to gustav mahler and how his music could change your life let's start at the beginning the first symphony begins with the orchestra holding the note a over a range seven octaves deep it creates this bottomless well

of sound from which emerges birdsong and distant fanfares and then finally the dawn of spring mala was born in 1860 in chechya to a jewish family he actually enjoyed great success in life not as a composer but as a conductor he was arguably one of the most prolific conductors of his time and enjoyed a career of relative super stardom holding major conducting posts in prague leipzig budapest hamburg vienna and in the final years of his life new york city it was maybe through his conducting that he learnt to write for orchestra with this fresh modern

sound that we already hear in his first symphony here is the dawn of something new a sonic soundscape which would have a huge influence over future composers and yet his childhood was not so glittering he was the second of 14 children but eight of his siblings died in childhood he grew up in a house rife with domestic abuse one story documented by sigmund freud tells of how mala unable to stand his parents violence arguments ran out into the streets where he was confronted by noisy street groups military bands and performers playing silly nursery songs overwhelmed

by the clashing of music and his high emotions he fainted in the streets we can often hear this psychological trauma in his music how moments of high emotional intensity are suddenly interrupted by grotesque or vulgar outbursts of brass bands or street songs even in his first symphony we can hear his inner conflict the adult reflecting on his childhood we hear an emotional strain of street song suddenly cut off by jewish kletzma music and all of this underpinned by a grotesque minor key version of a well-known nursery rhyme but the extraordinary thing about mahler's early symphonies

is how they are not only music they manage to express some kind of world philosophy some way of looking at or experiencing the world his second symphony is known as the resurrection symphony this is one of his most popular works and it often has a profound effect on people who listen to it i've actually devoted a whole podcast episode to diving deep into this symphony and i also talk about it in my free program on where to start with classical music if there's one piece of mahler you should definitely experience in your lifetime it should

be this one and that's the thing this music is meant to be experienced not just overheard mala takes us on a journey from death in the first movement through to resurrection in the finale the finale alone is devastatingly powerful after some of the largest scale orchestral writing to have ever been composed we hear the entry of a chorus at first very hushed with the words rise again yes you will rise again what you have longed for is yours and it goes on oh believe you are not born in vain you have not lived and suffered

for nothing what has come into being must go what is gone will rise again with wings that i have gained i shall rise over the course of 15 amazing minutes the music and text increase in intensity until the final astonishing climax this is not simply a religious symphony in fact mala was a lifelong agnostic this is a philosophical work a way of experiencing the world and it does need to be experienced for its incredible force of musical power if for nothing else the third symphony presents another philosophy where mala explores the hierarchy of existence the

world humankind and eternal love the order of movements lays out this hierarchy from what the flowers in the meadow tell me to what the animals in the forest tell me then what mankind tells me what the angels tell me and finally perhaps most importantly for marla's philosophy what love tells me this symphony ends here not with a bang but with a beautiful emotionally rich slow movement an opportunity for deeper reflection into the nature of humankind and love in 1895 mahler's brother otto committed suicide an event which is said to have greatly affected gustav's art and

outlook on life his fourth symphony while smaller in scale continues marla's meditations on life after death the final movement titled the heavenly life explores a child's perspective on how heaven should be however there seems to be some naive irony in this music we hear the child describe heaven but we never quite feel that we belong within it these first four symphonies are all programmatic they all explore narratives or clear philosophical ideas but although they are now loved by modern audiences most of marla's music was not taken seriously in his lifetime he wasn't recognized as a

successful composer with mostly disastrous premieres and poor reviews his music was often mocked criticized and belittled by audience members other composers and the press his conducting career was also berated partly because of his jewish background the anti-semitic press would constantly harass him and make fun of him with cartoons mocking his looks and gestures this cultural anti-semitism was such a problem that marla eventually converted to catholicism in 1897 in order to secure a top job in vienna which he simply wouldn't have been allowed to take on as a jew even there after conversion anti-semitism followed him

the mayor of vienna even said i myself decide who is a jew and who isn't and so marla's life was filled with these inner conflicts conflicts which you can absolutely hear in his music if you listen closely was he a conductor or a composer jewish or catholic a progressive or a nostalgic a city dweller or a country lover in spite of these challenges there was a light of happiness around the corner in 1901 gustav met alma schindler who was herself a talented musician and budding composer he quickly fell in love with her and they engaged

in a rapid courtship and if i'm focusing a lot on mala's biography it's because so much of marla's music is so personal so introspective that understanding his life seems essential if we want to understand his music after meeting elmer marla soon composed his famous adagietto which was later included in his fifth symphony he is said to have sent it to alma as a letter of love no words just music which he knew she would understand scored for just harp and strings this music is famously beautiful and yet it is not the same kind of love

as his third symphony there is something sad something vulnerable something deeply mature in this music a kind of subdued but deep-welling emotion which is impossible to describe and yet so perfectly captured by mala which is perhaps why it's become one of his most popular movements gustav and alma married shortly afterwards in 1902 but mala insisted that there could only be one composer in the household and that her role would be to support him although alma obliged this demand set the foundations for a difficult relationship the summer of 1903 was a happy one spent in their

lakeside cottage at the vertices gustav alma and their first daughter maria alma writes he often played with the child dragging her all over taking her in his arms dancing and singing he was so young back then and so unencumbered and yet marlo would spend his mornings in his composing hut working on two dark projects the first was his kinder totten leader songs on the death of children settings of poetry by friedrich rukhert alma writes i cannot understand how one can sing about the death of children if half an hour before one has hugged and kissed

those who are cheerful and healthy for heaven's sake don't tempt fate the other project was his sixth symphony which malay himself called the tragic symphony he would play this music to alma on the piano in the third movement he describes the arrhythmic playing of two children staggering through the sand horrible these children's voices become more and more tragic and at the end there is one little voice whimpering and then in the final movement of the tragic symphony we hear the downfall of the hero signified by the giant strikes of a hammer as marla says this

hero receives three blows from fate the third of which fells him like a tree after showing the music to alma she says we both cried we felt so deeply what this music meant well that symphony wouldn't be performed for another few years and actually these next few years were some of marla's happiest in 1904 gustav and alma did have a second child anamala and that same year he wrote his strange seventh symphony and then in 1906 gustav had an extraordinary summer of productivity every summer he would go to his lake cottage for a few months

and focus purely on composing but this summer he had a stroke of intense inspiration a vision that struck me by lightning i only had to write it down as if it had been dictated to me within only a few weeks marla composed one of the largest scale symphonies that has ever been written his eighth symphony this is a symphony for orchestra organ double chorus children's chorus eight vocal soloists plus a series of eclectic instruments it quickly became known as the symphony of a thousand and that is no exaggeration the munich premiere needed 858 singers and

171 instrumentalists as mala describes it imagine that the universe begins to sound and ring out these are no longer human voices but rather planets and suns that are circling the music is filled to the brim with incredible counterpoints massive climaxes beautiful melodies and prayers of love it is by far mala's most joyful symphony and it's also another philosophical one it's split into two movements the first is set to a latin prayer veni creator spiritus and the second movement is set to the closing scenes of goethe's faust where faust is redeemed through love and through this

idea of the eternal womanhood what links this prayer and this text the idea of a rejoicing kind of love a love that can redeem mankind it really is an extraordinary happy work which plays out on a universally large scale if you ever get the chance to hear this live then go the eights would also turn out to be marla's most successful work at least in his lifetime but fate has a cruel sense of humor in the same year that he wrote his eighth the tragic sixth symphony finally received its premiere that solemn work with its

wailing children and three blows of fate and this first performance affected mala like none other after conducting the performance he was left totally shocked sobbing ringing his hands and not in control of himself no work according to alma had touched him so much at the first hearing and then as if by prophetic fate within one single summer mala suffered three hammer blows to his own life in the summer of 1907 he was driven out of his dream job in vienna due to a hate campaign against him shortly afterwards his two daughters became seriously ill with

scarlet fever and diphtheria after battling with this for two weeks maria his eldest daughter died from her sickness marla's dark songs were coming true and then almost immediately after this mala discovered that his heart was defective with a condition that alma called a virtual death sentence the final hammer blow which would fail mahler like a tree this was a sea change in mala's life the beginning of the end mala began to work on a ninth symphony except superstition had now crept into his life in a very real way he started to believe in what he

called the curse of the ninth he noticed that many of the greatest symphonists since beethoven had never made it past their ninth symphony beethoven schubert brookner vorjak all had died after their ninth symphonies and so instead of writing a real ninth symphony gustav tried to trick fate by creating a ghost symphony a symphonic song cycle set to texts based on ancient chinese poetry called das leed fonder erda the song of the earth even here though marla's thoughts were clearly troubled he set songs such as the drinking song of earth's sorrow the solitary one in autumn

and the final song dear abshid the farewell we can see how gustav might have resonated with this text fortune was not kind to me in this world where do i go i go i wander in the mountains i seek peace for my lonely heart marla spent these late years wandering himself with disparate conducting work between europe and the united states and in this period of wondering he finally set to work on his real ninth symphony this ninth has become recognized as a farewell to all that he had loved and a farewell to the world it's

a farewell to his own life but also to music the first movement starts with a strange rhythm the palpitations of a faltering heart and then a tender melody leonard bernstein calls this movement a farewell to tonality a reluctant letting go of the old austrian way of music and when you listen to this symphony it's almost as if marlon knew that this was the end of the line not only the end of his own life but that he was the last of a germanic symphonic lineage one that had begun with haydn and mozart it was the

end of the romantics and it was also the end of austria or at least austria as he knew it within a few years europe would pass a point of no return and the world that mahler knew would die with it the final movement of the ninth is particularly personal as bernstein says marla ties things up not in a pretty bow but in a fearful knot made out of his own nerves and sinews we hear prayers corals hymn tunes and folk songs the music rises in intense prayer hoping desperately but this prayer is given no answer

instead these desperate pleas are followed by moments of quiet zen-like acceptance one lone man staring into the void of his own mortality mala reaches out again with desperate intensity but the music fails it fades away at a terrifyingly slow pace dying slowly into nothingness and then silence it is finished as bernstein says never has music come so close to death and yet marla still had some strength left in spite of his weakening heart he continued to conduct concerts in europe and new york although his first season with the new york philharmonic was a financial failure

and then just before the premiere of his eighth symphony the one great symphonic success of his lifetime marla discovered that his wife alma was having an affair with a young architect walter gropius mahler was devastated but he continued to work now on a tenth symphony another intensely personal work the first movement culminates in these chords of white hot pain and across the manuscript he wrote the words you alone know what it means farewell farewell farewell to live for you to die for you almshi mala was unable to complete that symphony for him the curse of

the ninth was real a barrier beyond which he could not pass without losing his life he died in may 1911 in vienna from a disease related to his heart while his music enjoyed some performances after his death it was banned during the nazi era and fell into relative neglect it's thanks to the efforts of conductors such as bernstein barbaroli and stakovsky that we are more familiar with marla today and that he now regularly fills concert halls as marla said would that i could perform my symphonies for the first time 50 years after my death perhaps

then they would be popular and beloved this is yet another malerian prophecy that thankfully has come true [Music] you