Mahler: Symphony nÂº 6 - Dima Slobodeniouk

Gustav Mahler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav Mahler (7 July 1860 â€“ 18 May 1911) was an Austrian late-Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered and championed by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.

Born in humble circumstances, Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878, he held a succession of conducting posts of rising importance in the opera houses of Europe, culminating in his appointment in 1897 as director of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). During his ten years in Vienna, Mahlerâ€”who had converted to Catholicism to secure the postâ€”experienced regular opposition and hostility from the anti-Semitic press. Nevertheless, his innovative productions and insistence on the highest performance standards ensured his reputation as one of the greatest of opera conductors, particularly as an interpreter of the stage works of Wagner, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky . Late in his life he was briefly director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

Mahler's Å“uvre is relatively small; for much of his life composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Aside from early works such as a movement from a piano quartet composed when he was a student in Vienna, Mahler's works are designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. Most of his twelve symphonic scores are very large-scale works, often employing vocal soloists and choruses in addition to augmented orchestral forces. These works were often controversial when first performed, and several were slow to receive critical and popular approval; exceptions included his Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 3, and the triumphant premiere of his Eighth Symphony in 1910. Some of Mahler's immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School, notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Institute was established in 1955 to honour the composer's life and work.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler

Symphony No. 6 (Mahler)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler is an Austrian symphony in four movements, composed between 1903 and 1904 (rev. 1906; scoring repeatedly revised). Mahler conducted the work's first performance in Essen on May 27, 1906. Sometimes referred to by the nickname Tragische ("Tragic"), Mahler composed the symphony at what was apparently an exceptionally happy time in his life, as he had married Alma Schindler in 1902, and during the course of the work's composition his second daughter was born. This contrasts with the tragic, even nihilistic, ending of No. 6. Both Alban Berg and Anton Webern praised the work when they first heard it. Berg expressed his opinion of the stature of this symphony in a 1908 letter to Webern as follows: Es gibt doch nur eine VI. trotz der Pastorale. (There is only one Sixth, except for the Pastoral.)[1]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._6_(Mahler)

ping

Mahler is a "B" composer, very good, but NO "A" composer like Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mendlesohn, Chopin, Verdi, Rachmaninoff, Wagner, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_composers_by_era

Check it out. Mahler didn't make any of those lists.
There is ONE symphony conductor who plays Mahler ALL the time. His reason for doing so make no sense. That's all I'll say.

“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_composers_by_era";

“Check it out. Mahler didn’t make any of those lists.”

He is listed as a Romantic just after Puccini in the Overview list.

With Mahler we see the culmination of the Romantic era. I adore his music, especially the 5th Symphony.
He can be melancholic, bombastic, sarcastic or sublimely tender; the 5th is a journey into the extremes of emotion. From no other symphony have I received so much, each listening a discovery of something new, something deeper.