Gustav Mahler's career reflects the artistic ambivalence of the end of the nineteenth century. As a conductor, Mahler's aim was to preserve the tradition of composers of the past, and he was a tireless champion of Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner. In his "composition, on the other hand, he embodied many of the new ideas of modernism and fostered the music of his more radical contemporaries, such as Arnold Schoenberg. In the end, his music was overshadowed by these new currents, but has been revived and reevaluated in the last three decades. Mahler's music reflects the same ambiguities as his life. He was intensely tied to the past in many ways, following in the footsteps of the great Austrian symphonists. At the same time, he expanded the forms he inherited to a point that it seemed impossible to go beyond. His works are enormous, both in size and in forces. His late symphonies are often more than ninety minutes in length, ... Read >

Gustav Mahler's career reflects the artistic ambivalence of the end of the nineteenth century. As a conductor, Mahler's aim was to preserve the tradition of composers of the past, and he was a tireless champion of Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner. In his "composition, on the other hand, he embodied many of the new ideas of modernism and fostered the music of his more radical contemporaries, such as Arnold Schoenberg. In the end, his music was overshadowed by these new currents, but has been revived and reevaluated in the last three decades. Mahler's music reflects the same ambiguities as his life. He was intensely tied to the past in many ways, following in the footsteps of the great Austrian symphonists. At the same time, he expanded the forms he inherited to a point that it seemed impossible to go beyond. His works are enormous, both in size and in forces. His late symphonies are often more than ninety minutes in length, and call for huge instrumental (and often choral) forces. His Symphony No.8 (called the "Symphony of a Thousand") for example, calls for five vocal soloists, a boy choir and an adult choir, along with a gigantic orchestra. He also departed from tradition in his use of tonality. His larger works often ended in a different tonality than they began in, weakening the structural role of tonality at the same time that Schoenberg and his contemporaries were moving toward a purely atonal style. The final element we can note in Mahler's music is its wit, often tinged with irony and parody. This often occurs by means of the juxtaposition of incongruous elements to create a jarring, often seemingly banal mix." www.essentialsofmusic.com Show Less <