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@@SvenErik_Lindstrom3 Yes Mahler did said that when he met Sibelius in 1907. They were discussing about the meaning of a symphony, and since Mahler's concept is different than Sibelius', he told Sibelius of that quote.
I made the mistake of thinking I could have this on in the background while I did chores about the house… when I got to the section about his 9th, and the prophetic three hammer blows, I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, stunned, eyes filled with tears. What a deeply moving story about a composer of whose works I’ve only had a small taste. The quality of this “Why Listen” series is outstanding - what a gift!
@@seanforgor While it is true that the hammer blows are in the 6th, the 9th repeats the 3 blows of fate in the first movement where each climax ends in an ever stronger catastrophe.
There’s not really and collection of words I could put together to describe this man. He unlocked the very deepest of emotions within himself and was somehow able to capture that in its purest form and portray in to us. We are lucky that in the span on the universe we were able to experience someone like him
There's not really a collection of words, because it doesn't make sense. His music isn't great, because his life wasn't great, so if your life isn't great there's a connection. My life is fine, so I don't enjoy or empathize with Mahler in the least.
@@PrinceValiance Mahler's life was great at times and not great at others. But during the periods of greatness he knew about the fragility and the finite nature of this greatness. That's the difference between him and you and that's why you are (still) unable to connect.
Honestly, the more I listen to his works, the more I go "You would have been a phenomenal scorer, Gustav. You would have loved movies-especially animated ones, where you can go beyond the realms of what is humanly possible and TRULY contain EVERYTHING." The film scorer before film scorers.
Mahler's music is so personal - it seats you in the intense perspective of one man's vision of life... and death. This video explores how his life and music are so intimately connected, and the meaning behind some of the extraordinary works he composed.
Thank you for this illuminating road map. I've made several attempts to listen deeply to Mahler in the past but I couldn't find my way within the dense, dark forest. Now I'm better prepared for the journey.
"If you ever get the change to hear [the eighth symphony] live, THEN GO!" Totally agree! I flew specifically to Switzerland in August 2016 to listen to Mahler's eighth performed by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. It was one of the best performances that I have ever attended live. I still remember it like yesterday (including fighting for a ticket on the online reservation system during a uni lecture...).
That concert must have been a lifetime experience.. lucerna orchestra, Muti and mahler's 8th just feels too much. I went to Monte Carlo plane round trip on the same day just to listen to Argerich's Ravel Piano concerto and still one of the best musical experiences in my life. The other one was experiencing Mahler's 2nd symphony live
How about the 10 minute Standing Ovation and then Abbado,s famous solo curtain call after the orchestra leaves the stage with remaining people going crazy cheering for him !!!!!
it was Riccardo Chailly, the famous Riccardo who is a great conductor and known for Mahler who conducted that performance and yes it's amazing - it's on DVD/Bluray but it's Chailly, not Muti. Chailly has recorded the 8th multiple times, all of them are great. There's a great one here on TH-cam
Changed my life. Your opening quote was a reply to Sibelius when they met in Helsinki in 1907: "Mahler and I spent much time in each other’s company. Mahler’s grave heart-trouble forced him to lead an ascetic life and he was not fond of dinners and banquets. Contact was established between us in some walks, during which we discussed all the great questions of music thoroughly. When our conversation touched the essence of symphony, I said that I admired its severity and style and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motifs. This was the experience I had come to in composing.Mahler’s opinion was just the reverse. ‘Nein, die Symphonie muss sein wie die Welt, Sie muss alles umfassen.' " Sibelius also changed my life.
@@jameswiglesworth5004 AS his biographer said-people may have written music AS beautiful as that movement but no one has yet written music more beautiful. A good performance of this movement makes a person forget his/her own name and where he/she is( eg Abbado Lucerne/ Tilson Thomas)
I agree! It was barely mentioned - the final movement of the 7th symphony is especially a great favorite of mine, of all Mahler's music... and I would recommend Abbado for it, I think Bernstein's version is a little slow.... but Those last few measures of the finale--- more cowbell!
Yes! Years ago I said to a musician in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra that I love the Seventh so much and he looked at me as if I was mad! I don't get it it's wonderful
@@charmoka Abbado's Mahler is horribly dull... Bernstein recorded it twice, the later one is probably the version you're talking about but his first recording is the better of the two.
I wish we could all tell Mahler what his legacy is like today. He used to be so troubled and frustrated over the lack of understanding and appreciation of his music. He never even got to hear his greatest works (Das Lied, the 9th and the 10th). But today he is one of the only composers people seriously compare to Beethoven. Excellent video but I wish more was said about the 10th. He did finish 90% of the actual notes, he just didn't finish orchestrating it.
If composition is about counting notes, I would surmise 90% of notes is orchestration. Second, much of the quality of the composed piece is in orchestration. You can try to play Mahler’s symphony on flute. I doubt you’ll get the same effect as one gets from orchestra performance.
@@pawelpap9 Sorry for over simplifying, I just didn't want to go into huge depth and said "notes". What I really mean is the structure is 100% complete and quite possibly the greatest he wrote. The harmony is 95% complete and some of the most inventive and abstract. The motivic variation is also around 95% complete. The whole Symphony makes sense as it is on paper, I play it on the piano regularly as Mahler himself did! Mahler loved to play his music on the piano. Yes it isn't the same as the orchestra but that says something. The orchestration is mostly finished for the first 3 movements and he wrote detailed information for movements 4 and 5 in order for them to be completed. There's a reason all the different "completions" sound roughly the same (at least the good ones do, there's some shoddy ones). I firmly believe Mahler's 10th Symphony is his own and more finished than people usually assume. It's probably my favourite along with Das Lied
@@dfkfgjfg Thanks for clarification. Now it makes sense. Still, there exist different “finished” versions and to my poorly trained ear they sound different by more than 5%, but it’s not really about counting.
@@pawelpap9 It depends what you care about when you listen to music. We all have different ears. The difference between the Wheeler version and Cooke version is not too much on paper but the sound is totally different because Wheeler almost refused to write in anything Mahler didn't so it's much "emptier" and doesn't sound like a Mahler Symphony. Barshai's version is the exact opposite. He orchestrates it like a Shostakovich Symphony and even changes a few chords in the scherzo he thinks Cooke predicted incorrectly. As different as they all are the heart of the music is still there for me. The "narrative" so to speak. I obviously wish we could have Mahler's own version but I just settle for playing at the piano to get the "purest" version possible. If you didn't know there's actually a piano roll recording of Mahler playing his own 5th and 4th symphonies (only one movement of each) and its very interesting seeing how he plays them and what he omits from the texture to make it playable
@@dfkfgjfg Now you made me curious and I will have to get the piano version and sink my teeth into it. I am curious how the monster chord is written. Doesn’t it span four octaves?
Mahler is simply the best. I love the quote: “There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.” His music has such a personal and direct sound, nothing else comes close
@@eduardoguerraavila8329 If a fertile creator such as J.S. Bach would have Mahler's tools (modern instruments, globality, the acceptance of new approaches(partially)), I'd say he'd still have been one of if not the most important figure in western music.
My God, man, you made me weep with this. Mahler has always been one of those composers who challenged the player in the best way possible. His life was tragic and like a true artist, he never got the respect he deserved when he was alive. When I played his Symphony 9, you could literally feel the sadness and melancholy of the Farewell and your recounting brought me right back there. As a clarinetist, I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to play his work. And I hope people continue to celebrate him. Brilliantly done on the biography.
Thank you for this. My introduction to Mahler was almost 50 years ago at the Edinburgh Festival. Bernstein conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Symphony Number 2 " Resurrection" with soloists Dame Janet Baker and Shiela Armstrong. I had no idea what I was about to hear, having heard none of his work before. I had never felt such emotion listening to a piece of music, the finale was an ethereal experience. There was absolute silence at the end and then the applause rang out like thunder. I can feel goosebumps even now when I think back on it. I've been hooked on Mahler's music ever since.
Ballantyne Moyes, as we say in horseracing, you certainly hit the trifecta 50 years ago. A knowing and charismatic conductor, two superb vocalists, and a work inexpressible in mere words. I envy you.
@@johkkarkalis8860 Thank you, John. It has certainly remained a highlight of my concert going experience for many, many years - and I've now been to many, many concerts in my time (and hope to continue for some years yet :) )
Wow thank you for that description!! You were amongst the best of the best of the time,if not always? Bernstein!!! And Dame Janet Baker….I’m envious…and to have heard Symphony #2’Ressurection’ was the ultimate prize ♥️
Mahler was the composer that kick-started my inner voice as a composer. It's one of the biggest influences in my craft. Just breathtakingly amazing his music is. The bitter aftertaste you feel in the emotion of his music touches me everytime because during my genesis as a composer, I was also experiencing intense emotional peril, and philosophical reform because that's when I was also becoming an atheist. His music spoke to me and is now an integral part of my sonic pallette.
That is amazing. I find that many people who aren't even classical music (so-called) fans are riveted by his music, or perhaps the concept of his music. You are so right to speak of bitterness, I hear this especially in the klezmer episodes. The slow movements are beautiful beyond description, yet It is music that to me is also terrifying and profoundly lacking in consolation... it is like certain moments in Beethoven - the last movement of the 9th, the final string quartets - where a vast universe cracks open and reveals an icy and remote sublimity... Where can I hear your music? I would like to know more.
@@slowpainful I have only uploaded a few of my compositions here on TH-cam (alot of which were pieces by newbie me back in the day since I haven't composed much these days due to the hectic schedule in college. But yeah I might upload more of my compositions soon in my TH-cam channel. Stay tuned to that, I guess 😅 P.S. The piece "Apology in A minor" in my channel is what's obviously very influenced by Mahler 😅
In the 1980s I went to a performance of the 2nd Symphony at London's South Bank. It was conducted by Klaus Tennstedt. At the end I was unable to speak or think coherently. I am now 77 and have never before or since experienced such a churning of my soul. Who cares if he was a Jew or a Catholic? Such thinking is worthless piffle. Your video was a great tribute to a genius, sent to us for an all too fleeting moment. Thank you.
What a terrific video and tribute to Mahler's music and life. As an undergraduate I had the chance to experience Mahler's 2nd symphony as a member of the choir. I was not familiar with the music before this. I remember in rehearsal of the choral parts by themselves it all seemed so strange and disjointed. But then we had the first orchestra rehearsal and the music had context and was overwhelmingly beautiful and so powerful. Right at the end when the organ comes in with the giant E flat major chord as we sang "Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n" I was overcome with emotion. To this day when I hear the 2nd symphony it makes me openly weep with joyous emotion. Partly out of nostalgia and but mostly to the majesty and wonder of Mahler's music. Mahler changed my musical life and adds to my emotional life to this day.
Thank you for this excellent video! I have listened to Mahler since I was a child. My parents sought counseling for me, because of my obsession with Mahler and his music! I was a professional ballet dancer and have danced to Mahler, which was so powerful. I still love to listen to Mahler.
I am in awe! I rejoiced and i cried, and than again....Sir, i cannot thank you enough for your very intimate and passionate insight of Mahler's music and life! This kind of work should be mandatory in schools everywhere. One billion likes from me, thank you!
The first time I listened the first simphony I was flabbergasted by knowing this knew musical dimension. No composer prepared me for that level of intensity in a symphonic work.
Finally a video that does some justice to Gustav Mahler. In a short 20 minutes, you managed to give a meaningful sense of his life, personality and of course his music. Not a second wasted. This was a small tour de force.
Mahler is the first and really only composer I was consciously introduced to as an adult with no prior contact with his music as a kid or teen, and the only composer I actively remember hearing for the first time- that was the third symphony, and the last movement ("what love tells me") remains one of my favorite pieces of music ever written.
I've been listening to other classical composers since my high school years, but somehow missed Mahler, until I heard live radio broadcast of Mahler's 5th from Pasadena Symphony around 2005, in my 40s. The broadcast was marred by interference from a cordless phone in my house. I went to Tower Music store and bought a few CDs of Mahler's symphonies. That got me hooked. Then, a couple years later I heard a Bruckner's symphony for the first time. It was the 7th, at LA Philharmonic. That got me hooked on Bruckner, as well. You often hear connections and influences between Bruckner and Mahler. One good example is Mahler quoting 2nd movement of Bruckner's 4th in the finale of 6th symphony.
Me too. Remember first hearing him while I was at work with headphones on, I turned to the classical music station in the middle of his 1st symphony during the 2nd movement and there were these double basses descending chromatically downward towards a new key and I was like what the hell just happened. Stopped work and listen to the rest of it staring at the ceiling.
It is truly music you can get lost in... I can't always listen to Mahler, because I break down. It's too emotionally intense for me to handle sometimes. Maybe I should just listen...
The third was the last of his symphonies that I heard, but it quickly became my favorite, and it still is. It contains everything and is for me the ultimate symphony.
I just attended a performance of the no. 2 here in Cologne. I had never heard it before and it somehow has changed my life. I was with two friends who were equally overwhelmed. We were not ashamed and I never will be for feeling great emotion.
Gustav Mahler is without a doubt my favourite composer of all time! His music encompasses all of human emotions. The very ending of his 3rd Symphony is absolutely Heavenly!!!
Indeed, it is one of the most astonishing moments in music (and is generally referred to as the Mahler scream). Then of course there is the startling final movement with the repeated crash of the single drum. I saw a performance in The Netherlands (available here on TH-cam) where one of the violinists was actually in tears at the end, something I had never seen before in an orchestra. I think the Chorus Mysticus at the end of the 8th is just as moving and I hope to leave this world listening to it. Mahler has been with me since a teenager and 40 years later, his music remains a constant companion.
@@alanmundy1536 I have seen musicians cry also after a performance of the Resurrection in Montréal.The power of this music is infinite and will last forever
@@alanmundy1536 In my 3rd year studying musicology I was assigned to analyze the 1st part of the 9th symphony. I learned to hear it from the score... At the end (I think the solo clarinet) of the part I was literally weeping over the score for about 1/2 hour. It is touching enough when you listen to it from an orchestra. But listening it in your head is quite devastating!
@@dirtyharry1881 Thank you for sharing. For those who experience Mahler viscerally, it is difficult to explain it to others. Music expresses the ineffable and Mahler, for me is the summation of that. He forces us to confront ourselves despite ourselves and I will carry his music with him to the very day I die (hopefully leaving this world listening to either the 10th or the Chorus Mysticus).
I have heard all the symphonies live, over many years, and some of them many times, and also the full scores of all his symphonies, which I follow when listening to the music, for a better insight,and wonder how just how clever his scoring was, and in-depth knowledge he obviously had of the orchestra. The 1st is nature, and intrigues me, the 2nd is the one where I can come out of a performance, and can be an emotional wreck, goosebumps, tears,I don`t know what it is, but completely over-awed, and inspired, thats how it gets me. The 3rd, is the longest in the symphonic repertoire, the horns at the beginning are wonderful, a long first movement, but childrens voices, nature, a world we can conjure up peace and quiet, but has some big orchestral passages., The 4th is what I call "Mahler`s chilled out symphony", lightly orchestrated, a kind of peaceful vision of nature, and a childs vision, and innocence..The 6th, I find noisy, but with some wonderful melodies, and makes the hair stand up when a brief, but wonderful melody appears.. The 7th again to me is nature, and its sounds,complete with cowbells, and mandolins..The 8th powerful, in its number of performers, but hard work to listen to, but a live performance must not be missed, if only for the experience..as it is rarely performed. The 9th is emotional, personal for Mahler, with a bit of humour in the 3rd movement..and you are probably wondering why I have left the 5th till last?, well that is because it starts with a funeral march, and goes through a journey, and I can listen to the Adagietto without, always thinking of the Visconti film, but in the context of the work..I don`t know any composer who can write symphonies,, which are a portrait of his life in music..his song cycles, again Kindertotenlieder, his way of expressing of not only the death of many of his brothers and sisters, but his own children. yet the Das Knaben Wunderhorn, with humour..I have always been fascinated by Mahler for over 50 yrs, and continue to learn, and always look forward to attending a live performance, never knowing what level of emotion I will experience, but I love the colour, orchestration and sound world, that can only be Mahler. This video is a brilliant concise summing up of Mahlers world, thank you for posting..
It is no coincidence that I came to this video in these dense moments of my life, in the month of May a few days after my birth, listening to the symphony 2 resurrection gives me a little more light, a path to walk where everything sometimes seems being lost and silent, the fifth movement closes in such a strong and powerful way that it inflates and fills the soul as only music can....Thanks!
Im in my second semester of university, and our orchestra is playing Mahler 2. And my goodness. My trumpet professor told me that preparing this piece will send me into the deepest part of my soul, and this has been incredibly true. The more I learn about who Gustav Mahler was, and the message he engraved in his piece(s), the more I realize I relate to him and his philosophies being expressed in his pieces. My goodness. Society today seems to rarely touch the surface of the human soul. I want to remember Mahler, and composers from the past, and encourage the musicians and composers of today to take this art into the future
There’s been many times I’ve been down and I would put on the CSOs performance of the 5th in 1971 and the first minutes of the first movement never fails to lift my spirits ups.
Thank you for this video. Personally, I cannot imagine my life without Mahler's music. People who understand his work do not need to explain anything else.
When my uncle died in July 2019, the first words to come to my mind were: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." After that, I heard, "Symphony No 2, by Gustav Mahler, The Resurrection." I left the café where I was, I went home and put Mahler's 2nd and opened a book. My uncle was a romantic, raised in the Catholic Church's classic education, and, in the final months of his life, he returned to God. I believe that is how he would wanted me to mourn him.
Thats a beautiful story, thank you for sharing. If he was a romantic, there probably couldn’t be a better piece to remember him and his conversion than the 2nd. May God bless him and your family
@@mutex1024 Ahh. Now that comment is true to the spirit of Mahler . . . It's possible Mr. Kelley has a better understanding of Mahler's true convictions than anyone on this thread.
For many, many years now, I have made it a tradition to listen the the 3rd Symphony on the day of the Vernal Equinox as a recognition of the first day of Spring. The first movement alone is an epic battle of the seasons of Nature and the inevitable victory of Spring over Winter; of Life over Death.
@@Helz777 yes I have the program somewhere. It definitely was amazing especially when the Virgin Mary soared into view. (Actually she just walked along a balcony high up, followed by a spotlight, but I have a good imagination).
If it was in 2011 at the First Night of the Proms, I might have been there with you, standing in the pit, as close as I could get to the front. That was my first ever live professional concert of *any* classical music. I'd never heard of Mahler, but my English teacher said I had to go. I never looked back.
To me the best Mahler # 8 is the one from the Proms 2002, where Simon Rattle conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. It is admirable how the young musicians immersed themselves in the work during the summer camp and the dedication with which they give their best: their "Herzblut" (heart and soul).
Mahler has given me such joy. Not happiness but an expression of love for life in all its ways. This essay brought tears to my eyes as you went thru his music. Ever time that voice cries out "Arise" at the end of the 2nd I feel transported to another place. My fav is the final movement of the 10th symphony for which Mahler had extensive notes that Cooke was able to bring to life. In my imagination I see him boarding the boat to cross the sea, in resignation but with a heart content.
My mother purchased a hifi stereo in 1964 when I was 10. It came with a free record. One side was bits of classical music that included the Finale of Mahler’s First Symphony. I played it over and over. It both shocked me with its intensity and touched me deeply, and still does. Grateful.
Mahler is my most loved composer , symphony 2 is my favorite. Your video is so important and so emotional, I think Mahler would like how you tell his story.
I was able to performance Mahler's 2nd symphony with orchestra and a choir and I'm not kidding if I say that at the end my hands were shaking and my heart was beating fast, of the pure emotion and powerful energy that was running through my body. I've never felt so connected to humanity as I felt in that moment.
Just listening to the lyrics of the second symphony made me shed tears. I cannot wait to listen to Mahler's works in real life. P.S. I hope to listen to Alma's compositions as well!
Mahler's second symphony "Resurrection " had a profound effect on me in my 30s. It drove me to tears the first time I heard it on the local classical music radio station. The performance was by the Chicago Symphony conducted by George Solti. I purchased the stereo record of this performance. I must heard it dozens of times and I weep every time I hear it. I have since become a devotee of Mahler's music. Thank you for this essay on a remarkable composer.
Thank you for a wonderful essay! I 'discovered' Gustav Mahler in my early twenties. In 1971 I was priviledged to be present at a performance of Mahler's second symphony at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Otto Klemperer, a friend of Mahler, conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. It was an unforgetable evening; since a fall in 1951, Klemperer conducted seated at his desk and for a few minutes during the symphony lowered his head and baton and seemed to be taking a rest. At the end of the huge fifth movement there seemed to be a collective intake of breath from the audience - it seemed ages before the applause started. We all knew we were present at an historical musical occasion - Otto Klemperer retired a few months later and died in 1973.
" Mahler's quartet in A minor - the perfect example of less is more! " As exemplified by John Cage : 4′ 33″ - th-cam.com/video/JTEFKFiXSx4/w-d-xo.html ; maybe Mahler should have strived for even less - just as Maestro Cage did .
@@jimhill4725 Cage was an idiot in case you didn't know. "Less is more" has absolutely nothing to do with 4' 33" because it's not only "less", it's literally NOTHING. Any comparison of Cage to Mahler in any way is an idiotic statement.
Holy cow, you should win an award for this video. It is particularly meaningful to me because my own (Jewish) family escaped Europe and made it to America, to New York, at the same time Mahler and his family did. And I am a musician and songwriter so I have a special appreciation for Mahler's glorious music. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm going to make a donation to your Patreon.
thank you for your simple language. With my poor knowledge of English, everything was clear to me! I was so touched by your story. Now you understand how to describe in words exactly what you feel when you listen to the sixth symphony. (Sorry if I wrote something wrong, I trusted Google translator)
I rarely have visceral reactions but the opening of the 10th symphony made me both hot and cold, going from 0 to 100 instantly. Insanely powerful stuff. Your video is also densely packed with info, not a single sentence is superfluous or filler. Time flew by. Top notch presentation, both visually and through audio. Thank you very much for making this.
Wow, I just clicked on your video out of fun. And now I am here, on the verge of crying, because something is deeply resonaring inside me. Thank you so much!
Mahler is, no doubt, my favorite composer. His music has truly and literally changed my life. I cannot even begin to explain. I wish you would've mentioned briefly the 1st movement of the 3rd symphony when explaining that symphony. That alone is an absolute masterpiece and could've been its own symphony.
The first symphony I ever had the chance to play was Mahler's first. I never really understood it, until that moment when the lights went down on the stage and that single, seven octave A drew up a scene of Midnight in the forest, Unseen creatures stirring, and almost the sort of feeling you get when thinking about what your life was like in the womb, before you were born. At the end, I felt as if Earth's gravity had doubled in the first movement, halved in the second, tripled in the third, and by the fourth, the sun had gone out and been reignited. Truly an experience you can never understand just listening to recordings, or even seeing it live. Mahler gives his performers an experience that no other composer has been able to write down.
He was undeniably a great composer. He bore his soul for all to see, and more accurately, feel. His music reaches levels of sensitive perfection that is like the finest crystal from which to quinch the soul's thirst.
Greatly structured, very informative, video, hope this turns more people towards the all-encompassing music of Mahler! The famous Bruckner specialist Celibidache once said that 'Bruckner can't be understood, only experienced', I think the same goes for Mahler. I don't think I'll ever forget my first time hearing the second symphony live, it truly is something else. For starters, my tip is to first listen the fourth symphony, it's his shortest, probably most 'classical', symphony and thus his most accessible one. Still my favourite as well.
I heard the 2nd on Easter Sunday in Carnegie Hall, New York City. Until I heard Elgar’s glorious Dream of Gerontius at the NY Philharmonic some 22 years later I had never had such a transformative experience,
Wow, after having watched this video that I had placed on my watch list for six months, has now reinvigorated me to listen to his symphonies again with greater purpose.
I am a young classical musician who is highly passionate about everything that's tied with music (just for context). And Mahler for me is something incomprehensibly beautiful yet so transcendent... I don't think I'll ever understand and feel his symphonies as deep as it needs. Listening to this music you are left speechless... I was so lucky to hear his "Titan" in concert hall and it was the first time I had ever listened to Mahler. And nothing can compare to what I felt then... Literally NOTHING (except, maybe, listening to the other Mahler's symphonies lol). Moreover, I was 15 then and I knew the context of Titan, and, being young and feeling same things that possible "character" of the symphony felt (Mahler said that it didn't have some programm, but the bond with Mahler's fav book "Titan" by Jean Paul was confirmed), I maybe was close to grasping it. I wish one day I will be able to conduct one of this masterpieces.... It's my biggest dream. His music is priceless. It's one of the world's wonders.
Gustav Mahler's music embraces the infinite, and each page of any of his scores drips with detail that can only be unlocked into insight through patient inquisition. You cannot 'multi-task' to Mahler, it is not 'background' music, it is not 'entertaining' and will not encourage escapism, instead, Mahler will coax your soul to the surface, connect your heart with real feelings, flood your mind with conflicting impressions and memories wring out the dishonesty of your 'false self.' To really listen to Mahler is to be challenged, shaken, rinsed, dried and reborn to the reality of being a humble, conscious, human being.
when i listen to you it's impossible to not listen to Mahler's work, and are right this music is incredible, i never heard it before so well ... thank you
I recommend to everyone who hasn’t yet, to listen to the 10th symphony reconstruction to the end and do it with a open heart and mind. Some of you who might not have known that this exists will find Gustav there again, waiting like an old friend, to tell you how the story really ends…it's an end very different from the ninth's.
I love that Eliahu Inbal rendition with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, it is either Absurd or a work of total utter genius, and I cannot decide which, maybe both.
If you have a chance, I highly recommend reading Mahler’s family letters (there’s a published and English-translated version). Astonishing to see Mahler’s own personality showing extremely vividly though his words (he’s unsurprisingly vocal about everything!), and really helped me get a better sense of the music.
It was his Sixth that pulled me into the world of Mahler. Specifically the 1967 recording by John Barbirolli with the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Devastating. I'd never heard music that portrayed the conflicts and torments of human psychology with such honesty, fierceness, and vulnerability. It's so much more than that. Words can only begin to barely attempt to describe. It's like a person taking their own two hands and ripping their own chest open as wide as possible. That he could write that and also his Eighth. What a profoundly multi-dimentional mind and soul. The Ninth, however, speaking of psychology expressed through music. I can't even go into it but to say I had a profound revelation in a live performance one time - the final movement. Tears were flowing out of my eyes at what Mahler was saying directly to me. So much personal yet universal generosity.
I recently compared Mahler's first symphony to Lo-Fi ( bare with me), specifically that passage you mention where we hear the street bands of his childhood, distorted and interrupted. It's that melancholic feeling that a lot of Lo-Fi trends try to emulate today; hearing your childhood cartoons through a distorted radio or TV. Mahler definitely did it best, and holds a special place in my heart for it. Great video!
I was privileged enough at 20 years old to see Bernard Haitink conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler's 9th Symphony in the Salzburg Festspielhaus, and I truly believe that was the epitome of music. I have never been the same since.
Mahler was a genius almost unparalleled. I wish the narration in the video wasn't so intense; I couldn't get past a few mins in, but I'm glad so many others liked it.
Mahler's 2nd recorded by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons is one of my favourite recordings of any genre. Mind blowing! Great content as always Oscar
reporting back six hours later: no words in any language can accurately describe that music, but I'll try my best. Overwhelming. unexpected sounds, like the lowest notes of the organ so low that you cant hear it, you instead feel the air rumbling in front of you, and distant brass and percussion specifically placed offstage. themes from the first movement that return in the last. rich voices of the choristers. Life and death. live now. rise again.
So I suddenly had the notion to finally go through and listen to all of Mahler's symphonies. Figured Bernstien would be a good place to start. On Spotify. I guess the internet was spying on me again cuz this video came up. Fantastic! I've listened to the 1st 2 so far and I now have the inspiration to soldier on through the rest. Thanks!
Mahler composes; The musicians are his hands conducting, and we dear listener are the instruments upon which all that plays out in emotional chords, where waves of frisson dance through our bodies as though they were catgut. When I first heard Mahler - almost 30 years ago - I was completely blown away. I heard the third symphony, and that last movement collapsed duality into unity and unity into silence. I called his music then, and now, musical LSD. It is state altering on an essential and deeply resonant level. It is musical alchemy, and a rich apotheosis which blends pain and joy, suffering and exhaltation, the abyss and the all. In it, the universe unfolds and enfolds. It BREATHES. When I hear Mahler, I am silent, say for what he plays upon and through me. That I know love, I mean KNOW love ... is because this master composer tunes and plays me perfectly. Thank-you Maestro Gustav Mahler.
I’ve been lucky enough to see the Resurrection Symphony performed by both the Houston and San Antonio Symphonies. Both performances were extremely moving. The piece was really my first stepping stone into the world of orchestral literature!
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I'm not ashamed to admit that the second symphony moved me to tears the first time I listened to it.
One should sooner be ashamed if it did not.
the 6th.
A lot of Mahler has that effect on me, sometimes I can guess it's Mahler by the way it makes me feel, even if I've never heard it before.
I will use this comment to confess the same, tears and joy with the second symphony, I just finished it a few minutes ago
@@zacharyferreira2469 Yeah, my favorite.
what a beautiful video essay
@Timmy Tran that’s sacrilegious
@Timmy Tran fair enough
@Timmy Tran I kinda agree. I'm open to the idea of mahler being a good composer, but I refuse to put him at Bach/Beethoven tier
I agree
Your music is more epic
Please keep the "why listen to ..." series coming. Its some of the best content on yt
Yesssss!!!
one of my favourites
I agreeee
Agreed - he needs to do every composer!
I agree
Mahler saved me when life was too dark, his works made me way stronger... He is my favorite composer.
I would agree to name Mahler the composer of life :D
He gave me a reason to live. Especially the 2nd Symphony.
Fascinating. I believe favorite music is healing for everybody. It's been proven in many University studies as well.
"A symphony must be like the world. It embraces everything" - Gustav Mahler
Hello from Helsinki! I think he said that to Sibelius while visiting him.
@@SvenErik_Lindstrom3 Yes Mahler did said that when he met Sibelius in 1907. They were discussing about the meaning of a symphony, and since Mahler's concept is different than Sibelius', he told Sibelius of that quote.
More like a person - someone has to learn how to embrace everything
@@jaroddavid5933 I think the original is that it must embrace everything. But a person can do whatever it damn pleases. Free will and all that.
Very stupid statement, almost as stupid and overrated as his musac.
I made the mistake of thinking I could have this on in the background while I did chores about the house… when I got to the section about his 9th, and the prophetic three hammer blows, I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, stunned, eyes filled with tears. What a deeply moving story about a composer of whose works I’ve only had a small taste. The quality of this “Why Listen” series is outstanding - what a gift!
The hammer is in the 6th. But yes....
The three hammer blows is in his 6th symphony
@@seanforgor While it is true that the hammer blows are in the 6th, the 9th repeats the 3 blows of fate in the first movement where each climax ends in an ever stronger catastrophe.
There’s not really and collection of words I could put together to describe this man. He unlocked the very deepest of emotions within himself and was somehow able to capture that in its purest form and portray in to us. We are lucky that in the span on the universe we were able to experience someone like him
There's not really a collection of words, because it doesn't make sense. His music isn't great, because his life wasn't great, so if your life isn't great there's a connection. My life is fine, so I don't enjoy or empathize with Mahler in the least.
@@PrinceValiance Mahler's life was great at times and not great at others. But during the periods of greatness he knew about the fragility and the finite nature of this greatness. That's the difference between him and you and that's why you are (still) unable to connect.
Exactly so! He changed my life 62 years ago on hearing his music for the first time.
@@PrinceValiance I don't even like mahler, but that's one of the worst takes I've ever read.
@@SR009s
Good. Must mean it means something.
if debussy's music is like an impressionist musical painting, Mahler's music is like a musical movie that can only be seen by your heart
perfectly said.
Mahler the Director
Debussy the Painter
Chopin the Poet
Beethoven the Actor
Anyone have any more?
beautifully said
Honestly, the more I listen to his works, the more I go "You would have been a phenomenal scorer, Gustav. You would have loved movies-especially animated ones, where you can go beyond the realms of what is humanly possible and TRULY contain EVERYTHING." The film scorer before film scorers.
@@PastPerspectives11 … Stravinsky and Prokofiev? I don’t want to attempt it. Somebody help me out.
Mahler's music is so personal - it seats you in the intense perspective of one man's vision of life... and death. This video explores how his life and music are so intimately connected, and the meaning behind some of the extraordinary works he composed.
Another excelent video, thank you.
Thank you for this illuminating road map. I've made several attempts to listen deeply to Mahler in the past but I couldn't find my way within the dense, dark forest. Now I'm better prepared for the journey.
. . . btw, I watched this twice in a row & saved it so I can watch it again.
Make videos on Indian classical music 🙏
6:45 - promgrammatic
"If you ever get the change to hear [the eighth symphony] live, THEN GO!"
Totally agree! I flew specifically to Switzerland in August 2016 to listen to Mahler's eighth performed by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. It was one of the best performances that I have ever attended live. I still remember it like yesterday (including fighting for a ticket on the online reservation system during a uni lecture...).
That concert must have been a lifetime experience.. lucerna orchestra, Muti and mahler's 8th just feels too much. I went to Monte Carlo plane round trip on the same day just to listen to Argerich's Ravel Piano concerto and still one of the best musical experiences in my life. The other one was experiencing Mahler's 2nd symphony live
Worthless lecture that was
How about the 10 minute Standing Ovation and then Abbado,s famous solo curtain call after the orchestra leaves the stage with remaining people going crazy cheering for him !!!!!
I got to sing in the Blossom Festival Chorus for Mahler's 8th a few decades ago. One of the highlight experiences of my life.
it was Riccardo Chailly, the famous Riccardo who is a great conductor and known for Mahler who conducted that performance and yes it's amazing - it's on DVD/Bluray but it's Chailly, not Muti. Chailly has recorded the 8th multiple times, all of them are great. There's a great one here on TH-cam
Changed my life. Your opening quote was a reply to Sibelius when they met in Helsinki in 1907: "Mahler and I spent much time in each other’s company. Mahler’s grave heart-trouble forced him to lead an ascetic life and he was not fond of dinners and banquets. Contact was established between us in some walks, during which we discussed all the great questions of music thoroughly. When our conversation touched the essence of symphony, I said that I admired its severity and style and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motifs. This was the experience I had come to in composing.Mahler’s opinion was just the reverse. ‘Nein, die Symphonie muss sein wie die Welt, Sie muss alles umfassen.' " Sibelius also changed my life.
And I love Sibelius! We can have both!
@@bilahn1198 Indeed.
I didn't know they had met. How much I would have paid to have a detailed account of their conversations.
Like Richard Strauss , they all three met at same destination from total different direction
Very interesting. I like Sibelius too. His tunes are very lively. One of my favorites is the Kullervo, Op. 7: III. Kullervo And His Sister.
I have discovered Mahler a few months ago and I can not stop listenning again and again, no one other classical musics touches me as his.
Mahlers 9th symphony is one of the only pieces of music to bring me to tears.
For me it's his second ....
I feel sorry that so few pieces of music move you to tears
@@NagasakiBladers No reason to be
agree the finale is the greatest piece of music ever written
@@jameswiglesworth5004 AS his biographer said-people may have written music AS beautiful as that movement but no one has yet written music more beautiful. A good performance of this movement makes a person forget his/her own name and where he/she is( eg Abbado Lucerne/ Tilson Thomas)
Symphony 7 is so underrated. It deserves more than a quick notice. It is as brilliant as the other eight.
I agree! It was barely mentioned - the final movement of the 7th symphony is especially a great favorite of mine, of all Mahler's music... and I would recommend Abbado for it, I think Bernstein's version is a little slow.... but Those last few measures of the finale--- more cowbell!
@charmoka it's got great music, but it's not truly as coherent as many of the other symphonies
Yes! Years ago I said to a musician in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra that I love the Seventh so much and he looked at me as if I was mad! I don't get it it's wonderful
@@charmoka Abbado's Mahler is horribly dull... Bernstein recorded it twice, the later one is probably the version you're talking about but his first recording is the better of the two.
#7 is my favourite. I am surprised it was dismissed.
I wish we could all tell Mahler what his legacy is like today. He used to be so troubled and frustrated over the lack of understanding and appreciation of his music. He never even got to hear his greatest works (Das Lied, the 9th and the 10th). But today he is one of the only composers people seriously compare to Beethoven. Excellent video but I wish more was said about the 10th. He did finish 90% of the actual notes, he just didn't finish orchestrating it.
If composition is about counting notes, I would surmise 90% of notes is orchestration. Second, much of the quality of the composed piece is in orchestration. You can try to play Mahler’s symphony on flute. I doubt you’ll get the same effect as one gets from orchestra performance.
@@pawelpap9 Sorry for over simplifying, I just didn't want to go into huge depth and said "notes". What I really mean is the structure is 100% complete and quite possibly the greatest he wrote. The harmony is 95% complete and some of the most inventive and abstract. The motivic variation is also around 95% complete. The whole Symphony makes sense as it is on paper, I play it on the piano regularly as Mahler himself did! Mahler loved to play his music on the piano. Yes it isn't the same as the orchestra but that says something. The orchestration is mostly finished for the first 3 movements and he wrote detailed information for movements 4 and 5 in order for them to be completed. There's a reason all the different "completions" sound roughly the same (at least the good ones do, there's some shoddy ones). I firmly believe Mahler's 10th Symphony is his own and more finished than people usually assume. It's probably my favourite along with Das Lied
@@dfkfgjfg Thanks for clarification. Now it makes sense. Still, there exist different “finished” versions and to my poorly trained ear they sound different by more than 5%, but it’s not really about counting.
@@pawelpap9 It depends what you care about when you listen to music. We all have different ears. The difference between the Wheeler version and Cooke version is not too much on paper but the sound is totally different because Wheeler almost refused to write in anything Mahler didn't so it's much "emptier" and doesn't sound like a Mahler Symphony. Barshai's version is the exact opposite. He orchestrates it like a Shostakovich Symphony and even changes a few chords in the scherzo he thinks Cooke predicted incorrectly. As different as they all are the heart of the music is still there for me. The "narrative" so to speak. I obviously wish we could have Mahler's own version but I just settle for playing at the piano to get the "purest" version possible. If you didn't know there's actually a piano roll recording of Mahler playing his own 5th and 4th symphonies (only one movement of each) and its very interesting seeing how he plays them and what he omits from the texture to make it playable
@@dfkfgjfg Now you made me curious and I will have to get the piano version and sink my teeth into it. I am curious how the monster chord is written. Doesn’t it span four octaves?
Let's just pause and appreciate how beautiful the prose of the narration is.
Mahler is simply the best. I love the quote: “There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.” His music has such a personal and direct sound, nothing else comes close
What does that quote mean, I wonder? Maybe that a Mahler eighth note would take about half an hour longer than normal? lol
@@slowpainful probably referring to the orchestration.
Better than Bach or Beethoven? 🤔
@@eduardoguerraavila8329 for me absolutely. Although Bach Beethoven and Brahms are close behind
@@eduardoguerraavila8329 If a fertile creator such as J.S. Bach would have Mahler's tools (modern instruments, globality, the acceptance of new approaches(partially)), I'd say he'd still have been one of if not the most important figure in western music.
My God, man, you made me weep with this. Mahler has always been one of those composers who challenged the player in the best way possible. His life was tragic and like a true artist, he never got the respect he deserved when he was alive. When I played his Symphony 9, you could literally feel the sadness and melancholy of the Farewell and your recounting brought me right back there. As a clarinetist, I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to play his work. And I hope people continue to celebrate him. Brilliantly done on the biography.
This video is incredibly well articulated and put together. Had goosebumps all over the video. You deserve much more credit than what you receive
What a gift Mahler left for us. Long live Mahler!
Thank you for this. My introduction to Mahler was almost 50 years ago at the Edinburgh Festival. Bernstein conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Symphony Number 2 " Resurrection" with soloists Dame Janet Baker and Shiela Armstrong. I had no idea what I was about to hear, having heard none of his work before. I had never felt such emotion listening to a piece of music, the finale was an ethereal experience. There was absolute silence at the end and then the applause rang out like thunder. I can feel goosebumps even now when I think back on it. I've been hooked on Mahler's music ever since.
Ballantyne Moyes, as we say in horseracing, you certainly hit the trifecta 50 years ago.
A knowing and charismatic conductor, two superb vocalists, and a work inexpressible in mere words.
I envy you.
Bernstein + Mahler = 👼🏼 💀🧨🤍🙏🏼❤️🔥
@@johkkarkalis8860 Thank you, John. It has certainly remained a highlight of my concert going experience for many, many years - and I've now been to many, many concerts in my time (and hope to continue for some years yet :) )
Wow thank you for that description!! You were amongst the best of the best of the time,if not always? Bernstein!!! And Dame Janet Baker….I’m envious…and to have heard Symphony #2’Ressurection’ was the ultimate prize ♥️
Right place, right time. Lucky was you.
Mahler was the composer that kick-started my inner voice as a composer. It's one of the biggest influences in my craft. Just breathtakingly amazing his music is. The bitter aftertaste you feel in the emotion of his music touches me everytime because during my genesis as a composer, I was also experiencing intense emotional peril, and philosophical reform because that's when I was also becoming an atheist. His music spoke to me and is now an integral part of my sonic pallette.
That is amazing. I find that many people who aren't even classical music (so-called) fans are riveted by his music, or perhaps the concept of his music. You are so right to speak of bitterness, I hear this especially in the klezmer episodes. The slow movements are beautiful beyond description, yet It is music that to me is also terrifying and profoundly lacking in consolation... it is like certain moments in Beethoven - the last movement of the 9th, the final string quartets - where a vast universe cracks open and reveals an icy and remote sublimity... Where can I hear your music? I would like to know more.
@@slowpainful I have only uploaded a few of my compositions here on TH-cam (alot of which were pieces by newbie me back in the day since I haven't composed much these days due to the hectic schedule in college. But yeah I might upload more of my compositions soon in my TH-cam channel. Stay tuned to that, I guess 😅
P.S. The piece "Apology in A minor" in my channel is what's obviously very influenced by Mahler 😅
I see Mahler as the exact moment in history when the music becomes a powerful force of nature.
beethovens 9th? or 6th? or 4th? i mean any beethoven symphony?
Personally, I find Baroque music a powerful force of nature
became*
In the 1980s I went to a performance of the 2nd Symphony at London's South Bank. It was conducted by Klaus Tennstedt. At the end I was unable to speak or think coherently. I am now 77 and have never before or since experienced such a churning of my soul. Who cares if he was a Jew or a Catholic? Such thinking is worthless piffle. Your video was a great tribute to a genius, sent to us for an all too fleeting moment. Thank you.
What a terrific video and tribute to Mahler's music and life. As an undergraduate I had the chance to experience Mahler's 2nd symphony as a member of the choir. I was not familiar with the music before this. I remember in rehearsal of the choral parts by themselves it all seemed so strange and disjointed. But then we had the first orchestra rehearsal and the music had context and was overwhelmingly beautiful and so powerful. Right at the end when the organ comes in with the giant E flat major chord as we sang "Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n" I was overcome with emotion. To this day when I hear the 2nd symphony it makes me openly weep with joyous emotion. Partly out of nostalgia and but mostly to the majesty and wonder of Mahler's music. Mahler changed my musical life and adds to my emotional life to this day.
You cannot cry watching a video.... Nevermind...
What a beautiful illustration of Mahlers life - thank you!
Thank you for this excellent video! I have listened to Mahler since I was a child. My parents sought counseling for me, because of my obsession with Mahler and his music! I was a professional ballet dancer and have danced to Mahler, which was so powerful. I still love to listen to Mahler.
I had a thought that first and second movements of Mahler's Ninth can totally be turned into a ballet. Not sure about the other two.
“My parents sought counseling for me, because of my obsession with Mahler.” I think I am in love
I went to see Mahler's Symphony no. 2 last year without knowing anything about him. I was absolutely blown away by the power of his music.
I am in awe! I rejoiced and i cried, and than again....Sir, i cannot thank you enough for your very intimate and passionate insight of Mahler's music and life! This kind of work should be mandatory in schools everywhere. One billion likes from me, thank you!
The first time I listened the first simphony I was flabbergasted by knowing this knew musical dimension. No composer prepared me for that level of intensity in a symphonic work.
Finally a video that does some justice to Gustav Mahler. In a short 20 minutes, you managed to give a meaningful sense of his life, personality and of course his music. Not a second wasted. This was a small tour de force.
I'm literally in tears at the end of this. thank you for this video, it demystified so much around Mahler for me
Mahler is the first and really only composer I was consciously introduced to as an adult with no prior contact with his music as a kid or teen, and the only composer I actively remember hearing for the first time- that was the third symphony, and the last movement ("what love tells me") remains one of my favorite pieces of music ever written.
The third symphony is my favourite among favourites of his !
I've been listening to other classical composers since my high school years, but somehow missed Mahler, until I heard live radio broadcast of Mahler's 5th from Pasadena Symphony around 2005, in my 40s. The broadcast was marred by interference from a cordless phone in my house. I went to Tower Music store and bought a few CDs of Mahler's symphonies. That got me hooked.
Then, a couple years later I heard a Bruckner's symphony for the first time. It was the 7th, at LA Philharmonic. That got me hooked on Bruckner, as well.
You often hear connections and influences between Bruckner and Mahler. One good example is Mahler quoting 2nd movement of Bruckner's 4th in the finale of 6th symphony.
Me too. Remember first hearing him while I was at work with headphones on, I turned to the classical music station in the middle of his 1st symphony during the 2nd movement and there were these double basses descending chromatically downward towards a new key and I was like what the hell just happened. Stopped work and listen to the rest of it staring at the ceiling.
It is truly music you can get lost in... I can't always listen to Mahler, because I break down. It's too emotionally intense for me to handle sometimes. Maybe I should just listen...
The third was the last of his symphonies that I heard, but it quickly became my favorite, and it still is. It contains everything and is for me the ultimate symphony.
I just attended a performance of the no. 2 here in Cologne. I had never heard it before and it somehow has changed my life. I was with two friends who were equally overwhelmed.
We were not ashamed and I never will be for feeling great emotion.
He’s been my musical hero my entire life.
Gustav Mahler is without a doubt my favourite composer of all time! His music encompasses all of human emotions. The very ending of his 3rd Symphony is absolutely Heavenly!!!
Remember the first time i heard the «white hot pain» chord from the 10th. I froze to my chair in terror
Me too, I was playing in our first rehearsal of the 9th, and when the trumpet sounded that high note, I felt terror stricken.
Indeed, it is one of the most astonishing moments in music (and is generally referred to as the Mahler scream). Then of course there is the startling final movement with the repeated crash of the single drum. I saw a performance in The Netherlands (available here on TH-cam) where one of the violinists was actually in tears at the end, something I had never seen before in an orchestra. I think the Chorus Mysticus at the end of the 8th is just as moving and I hope to leave this world listening to it. Mahler has been with me since a teenager and 40 years later, his music remains a constant companion.
@@alanmundy1536 I have seen musicians cry also after a performance of the Resurrection in Montréal.The power of this music is infinite and will last forever
@@alanmundy1536 In my 3rd year studying musicology I was assigned to analyze the 1st part of the 9th symphony. I learned to hear it from the score...
At the end (I think the solo clarinet) of the part I was literally weeping over the score for about 1/2 hour.
It is touching enough when you listen to it from an orchestra. But listening it in your head is quite devastating!
@@dirtyharry1881 Thank you for sharing. For those who experience Mahler viscerally, it is difficult to explain it to others. Music expresses the ineffable and Mahler, for me is the summation of that. He forces us to confront ourselves despite ourselves and I will carry his music with him to the very day I die (hopefully leaving this world listening to either the 10th or the Chorus Mysticus).
Mahler’s music resonates with me as his experience relates to my perception of my life so far.
I literally cried. This video is so full of emotions I cant describe
I have heard all the symphonies live, over many years, and some of them many times, and also the full scores of all his symphonies, which I follow when listening to the music, for a better insight,and wonder how just how clever his scoring was, and in-depth knowledge he obviously had of the orchestra. The 1st is nature, and intrigues me, the 2nd is the one where I can come out of a performance, and can be an emotional wreck, goosebumps, tears,I don`t know what it is, but completely over-awed, and inspired, thats how it gets me. The 3rd, is the longest in the symphonic repertoire, the horns at the beginning are wonderful, a long first movement, but childrens voices, nature, a world we can conjure up peace and quiet, but has some big orchestral passages., The 4th is what I call "Mahler`s chilled out symphony", lightly orchestrated, a kind of peaceful vision of nature, and a childs vision, and innocence..The 6th, I find noisy, but with some wonderful melodies, and makes the hair stand up when a brief, but wonderful melody appears.. The 7th again to me is nature, and its sounds,complete with cowbells, and mandolins..The 8th powerful, in its number of performers, but hard work to listen to, but a live performance must not be missed, if only for the experience..as it is rarely performed. The 9th is emotional, personal for Mahler, with a bit of humour in the 3rd movement..and you are probably wondering why I have left the 5th till last?, well that is because it starts with a funeral march, and goes through a journey, and I can listen to the Adagietto without, always thinking of the Visconti film, but in the context of the work..I don`t know any composer who can write symphonies,, which are a portrait of his life in music..his song cycles, again Kindertotenlieder, his way of expressing of not only the death of many of his brothers and sisters, but his own children. yet the Das Knaben Wunderhorn, with humour..I have always been fascinated by Mahler for over 50 yrs, and continue to learn, and always look forward to attending a live performance, never knowing what level of emotion I will experience, but I love the colour, orchestration and sound world, that can only be Mahler. This video is a brilliant concise summing up of Mahlers world, thank you for posting..
It is no coincidence that I came to this video in these dense moments of my life, in the month of May a few days after my birth, listening to the symphony 2 resurrection gives me a little more light, a path to walk where everything sometimes seems being lost and silent, the fifth movement closes in such a strong and powerful way that it inflates and fills the soul as only music can....Thanks!
Im in my second semester of university, and our orchestra is playing Mahler 2. And my goodness. My trumpet professor told me that preparing this piece will send me into the deepest part of my soul, and this has been incredibly true. The more I learn about who Gustav Mahler was, and the message he engraved in his piece(s), the more I realize I relate to him and his philosophies being expressed in his pieces. My goodness. Society today seems to rarely touch the surface of the human soul. I want to remember Mahler, and composers from the past, and encourage the musicians and composers of today to take this art into the future
I hope to listen to Gustav Mahler. This pandemic has helped me reconnect even more with the very music genre I have always loved as a kid.
There’s been many times I’ve been down and I would put on the CSOs performance of the 5th in 1971 and the first minutes of the first movement never fails to lift my spirits ups.
Thank you for this video. Personally, I cannot imagine my life without Mahler's music. People who understand his work do not need to explain anything else.
Mahler marked the beginning of a new me.
That’s awesome
When my uncle died in July 2019, the first words to come to my mind were: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." After that, I heard, "Symphony No 2, by Gustav Mahler, The Resurrection."
I left the café where I was, I went home and put Mahler's 2nd and opened a book. My uncle was a romantic, raised in the Catholic Church's classic education, and, in the final months of his life, he returned to God. I believe that is how he would wanted me to mourn him.
It's pathetic that you believe this Christian fairy tale.
Thats a beautiful story, thank you for sharing. If he was a romantic, there probably couldn’t be a better piece to remember him and his conversion than the 2nd. May God bless him and your family
@@mutex1024 Ahh. Now that comment is true to the spirit of Mahler . . . It's possible Mr. Kelley has a better understanding of Mahler's true convictions than anyone on this thread.
@@mutex1024 you wouldn’t understand with that pathetic attitude
For many, many years now, I have made it a tradition to listen the the 3rd Symphony on the day of the Vernal Equinox as a recognition of the first day of Spring. The first movement alone is an epic battle of the seasons of Nature and the inevitable victory of Spring over Winter; of Life over Death.
The big bang of mahler 2 felt like entering a portal in another dimension
Mahler has been my top favorite composer for a long time. Thanks for distilling the background to his music here.
I heard the eighth symphony live at the royal albert hall. We estimated that there were, in fact, about one thousand performers. It was awesome.
Bet you wished you could have taken pictures or video. Still have the program? That would have been an amazing performance!
@@Helz777 yes I have the program somewhere. It definitely was amazing especially when the Virgin Mary soared into view. (Actually she just walked along a balcony high up, followed by a spotlight, but I have a good imagination).
@@beaker2257 yes, Mahler does stir the imagination!
If it was in 2011 at the First Night of the Proms, I might have been there with you, standing in the pit, as close as I could get to the front. That was my first ever live professional concert of *any* classical music. I'd never heard of Mahler, but my English teacher said I had to go. I never looked back.
To me the best Mahler # 8 is the one from the Proms 2002, where Simon Rattle conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. It is admirable how the young musicians immersed themselves in the work during the summer camp and the dedication with which they give their best: their "Herzblut" (heart and soul).
Mahler has given me such joy. Not happiness but an expression of love for life in all its ways. This essay brought tears to my eyes as you went thru his music. Ever time that voice cries out "Arise" at the end of the 2nd I feel transported to another place. My fav is the final movement of the 10th symphony for which Mahler had extensive notes that Cooke was able to bring to life. In my imagination I see him boarding the boat to cross the sea, in resignation but with a heart content.
And he looks back with a gentle radiant smile that says, "I loved ... totally, and how beautiful it is; How absolutely beautiful."
My mother purchased a hifi stereo in 1964 when I was 10. It came with a free record. One side was bits of classical music that included the Finale of Mahler’s First Symphony. I played it over and over. It both shocked me with its intensity and touched me deeply, and still does. Grateful.
Mahler is my most loved composer , symphony 2 is my favorite. Your video is so important and so emotional, I think Mahler would like how you tell his story.
I was able to performance Mahler's 2nd symphony with orchestra and a choir and I'm not kidding if I say that at the end my hands were shaking and my heart was beating fast, of the pure emotion and powerful energy that was running through my body. I've never felt so connected to humanity as I felt in that moment.
Just listening to the lyrics of the second symphony made me shed tears. I cannot wait to listen to Mahler's works in real life.
P.S. I hope to listen to Alma's compositions as well!
Mahler's second symphony "Resurrection " had a profound effect on me in my 30s. It drove me to tears the first time I heard it on the local classical music radio station. The performance was by the Chicago Symphony conducted by George Solti. I purchased the stereo record of this performance. I
must heard it dozens of times and I weep every time I hear it. I have since become a devotee of Mahler's music. Thank you for this essay on a remarkable composer.
The Solti recording of Mahler 2 is one of my favorite symphonies of all time
Thank you for a wonderful essay! I 'discovered' Gustav Mahler in my early twenties. In 1971 I was priviledged to be present at a performance of Mahler's second symphony at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Otto Klemperer, a friend of Mahler, conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. It was an unforgetable evening; since a fall in 1951, Klemperer conducted seated at his desk and for a few minutes during the symphony lowered his head and baton and seemed to be taking a rest. At the end of the huge fifth movement there seemed to be a collective intake of breath from the audience - it seemed ages before the applause started. We all knew we were present at an historical musical occasion - Otto Klemperer retired a few months later and died in 1973.
Mahler's quartet in A minor - the perfect example of less is more!
" Mahler's quartet in A minor - the perfect example of less is more! "
As exemplified by
John Cage : 4′ 33″ - th-cam.com/video/JTEFKFiXSx4/w-d-xo.html ;
maybe Mahler should have strived for even less - just as Maestro Cage did .
I believe he wrote it at 16.
Shutter island made me discover that piece. And what a masterwork was that
@@lolilollolilol7773 i am 16 and i play dominoes with my cousins.
@@jimhill4725 Cage was an idiot in case you didn't know. "Less is more" has absolutely nothing to do with 4' 33" because it's not only "less", it's literally NOTHING. Any comparison of Cage to Mahler in any way is an idiotic statement.
I ALMOST CRIED WHILE WATCHING!! THANK YOU FOR THIS GOOD CONTENT!!
Holy cow, you should win an award for this video. It is particularly meaningful to me because my own (Jewish) family escaped Europe and made it to America, to New York, at the same time Mahler and his family did. And I am a musician and songwriter so I have a special appreciation for Mahler's glorious music. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm going to make a donation to your Patreon.
I am so glad you and your family made it to America.Thank you for sharing this. Long live Mahler 🎹🤍
thank you for your simple language. With my poor knowledge of English, everything was clear to me!
I was so touched by your story. Now you understand how to describe in words exactly what you feel when you listen to the sixth symphony. (Sorry if I wrote something wrong, I trusted Google translator)
I rarely have visceral reactions but the opening of the 10th symphony made me both hot and cold, going from 0 to 100 instantly. Insanely powerful stuff.
Your video is also densely packed with info, not a single sentence is superfluous or filler. Time flew by. Top notch presentation, both visually and through audio.
Thank you very much for making this.
Wow, I just clicked on your video out of fun. And now I am here, on the verge of crying, because something is deeply resonaring inside me. Thank you so much!
Mahler is, no doubt, my favorite composer. His music has truly and literally changed my life. I cannot even begin to explain. I wish you would've mentioned briefly the 1st movement of the 3rd symphony when explaining that symphony. That alone is an absolute masterpiece and could've been its own symphony.
The first symphony I ever had the chance to play was Mahler's first. I never really understood it, until that moment when the lights went down on the stage and that single, seven octave A drew up a scene of Midnight in the forest, Unseen creatures stirring, and almost the sort of feeling you get when thinking about what your life was like in the womb, before you were born. At the end, I felt as if Earth's gravity had doubled in the first movement, halved in the second, tripled in the third, and by the fourth, the sun had gone out and been reignited. Truly an experience you can never understand just listening to recordings, or even seeing it live. Mahler gives his performers an experience that no other composer has been able to write down.
Listening to Mahler is one thing but playing Mahler is life changing.
He was undeniably a great composer. He bore his soul for all to see, and more accurately, feel. His music reaches levels of sensitive perfection that is like the finest crystal from which to quinch the soul's thirst.
Absolutely epic. There will never be anyone like Mahler.
Love them all 🎶✨
Mahler my favourite composer 💕
Greatly structured, very informative, video, hope this turns more people towards the all-encompassing music of Mahler! The famous Bruckner specialist Celibidache once said that 'Bruckner can't be understood, only experienced', I think the same goes for Mahler. I don't think I'll ever forget my first time hearing the second symphony live, it truly is something else.
For starters, my tip is to first listen the fourth symphony, it's his shortest, probably most 'classical', symphony and thus his most accessible one. Still my favourite as well.
I heard the 2nd on Easter Sunday in Carnegie Hall, New York City. Until I heard Elgar’s glorious Dream of Gerontius at the NY Philharmonic some 22 years later I had never had such a transformative experience,
for someone who already enjoys film music, the sixth is another option to start with
Wow, after having watched this video that I had placed on my watch list for six months, has now reinvigorated me to listen to his symphonies again with greater purpose.
I am a young classical musician who is highly passionate about everything that's tied with music (just for context). And Mahler for me is something incomprehensibly beautiful yet so transcendent... I don't think I'll ever understand and feel his symphonies as deep as it needs. Listening to this music you are left speechless... I was so lucky to hear his "Titan" in concert hall and it was the first time I had ever listened to Mahler. And nothing can compare to what I felt then... Literally NOTHING (except, maybe, listening to the other Mahler's symphonies lol). Moreover, I was 15 then and I knew the context of Titan, and, being young and feeling same things that possible "character" of the symphony felt (Mahler said that it didn't have some programm, but the bond with Mahler's fav book "Titan" by Jean Paul was confirmed), I maybe was close to grasping it. I wish one day I will be able to conduct one of this masterpieces.... It's my biggest dream. His music is priceless. It's one of the world's wonders.
You are in love with WÈSTERN music
Gustav Mahler's music embraces the infinite, and each page of any of his scores drips with detail that can only be unlocked into insight
through patient inquisition. You cannot 'multi-task' to Mahler, it is not 'background' music, it is not 'entertaining' and will not encourage
escapism, instead, Mahler will coax your soul to the surface, connect your heart with real feelings, flood your mind with conflicting impressions and memories wring out the dishonesty of your 'false self.' To really listen to Mahler is to be challenged, shaken, rinsed, dried and reborn to the reality of being a humble, conscious, human being.
you're criminally underrated, this channel is awesome, you can really tell how much you love the things that you speak about. new subscriber
when i listen to you it's impossible to not listen to Mahler's work, and are right this music is incredible, i never heard it before so well ... thank you
I recommend to everyone who hasn’t yet, to listen to the 10th symphony reconstruction to the end and do it with a open heart and mind. Some of you who might not have known that this exists will find Gustav there again, waiting like an old friend, to tell you how the story really ends…it's an end very different from the ninth's.
Yes, Derek Cook's admirable orchestration made a really great work out of it.
I love that Eliahu Inbal rendition with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, it is either Absurd or a work of total utter genius, and I cannot decide which, maybe both.
I'm still in the process of discovering classical music and this is one of the most interesting biographical videos I've come across. Great work!
If you have a chance, I highly recommend reading Mahler’s family letters (there’s a published and English-translated version). Astonishing to see Mahler’s own personality showing extremely vividly though his words (he’s unsurprisingly vocal about everything!), and really helped me get a better sense of the music.
It was his Sixth that pulled me into the world of Mahler. Specifically the 1967 recording by John Barbirolli with the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Devastating. I'd never heard music that portrayed the conflicts and torments of human psychology with such honesty, fierceness, and vulnerability. It's so much more than that. Words can only begin to barely attempt to describe. It's like a person taking their own two hands and ripping their own chest open as wide as possible. That he could write that and also his Eighth. What a profoundly multi-dimentional mind and soul.
The Ninth, however, speaking of psychology expressed through music. I can't even go into it but to say I had a profound revelation in a live performance one time - the final movement. Tears were flowing out of my eyes at what Mahler was saying directly to me. So much personal yet universal generosity.
You did such an incredible job putting this video together, I am speechless!
I have now experienced Symphony no. 2 in person
It has left me shaken in a way I have not felt in a long time
Beautiful
I recently compared Mahler's first symphony to Lo-Fi ( bare with me), specifically that passage you mention where we hear the street bands of his childhood, distorted and interrupted. It's that melancholic feeling that a lot of Lo-Fi trends try to emulate today; hearing your childhood cartoons through a distorted radio or TV. Mahler definitely did it best, and holds a special place in my heart for it. Great video!
I was privileged enough at 20 years old to see Bernard Haitink conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler's 9th Symphony in the Salzburg Festspielhaus, and I truly believe that was the epitome of music. I have never been the same since.
I saw the title, and I'm like, "WHY NOT LISTEN TO MAHLER?" Heck, I have my 5 year old listen to him (one massive movement at a time)!
Just like my father did it with me 40 years ago. An everlasting gift.
Mahler was a genius almost unparalleled. I wish the narration in the video wasn't so intense; I couldn't get past a few mins in, but I'm glad so many others liked it.
Mahler's 2nd recorded by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons is one of my favourite recordings of any genre. Mind blowing! Great content as always Oscar
A treasure.
A gem.
Must listen, hear, internalize.
i'm going to watch the second symphony tonight... I will report back on it later :)
reporting back six hours later: no words in any language can accurately describe that music, but I'll try my best. Overwhelming. unexpected sounds, like the lowest notes of the organ so low that you cant hear it, you instead feel the air rumbling in front of you, and distant brass and percussion specifically placed offstage. themes from the first movement that return in the last. rich voices of the choristers. Life and death. live now. rise again.
Mahler is a composer that I find very difficult to replay into my head but he is really great !!!
Greatest Composer of All Time!
Mahler’s symphonies always arouse deep emotions in me.
Is it just me or am I the only one who always gets chills from listening to Mahlers music?
Me too
Me too 🤍 Especially during the "white hot pain" described in this video. Mahler is a gem 💎
So I suddenly had the notion to finally go through and listen to all of Mahler's symphonies. Figured Bernstien would be a good place to start. On Spotify. I guess the internet was spying on me again cuz this video came up. Fantastic! I've listened to the 1st 2 so far and I now have the inspiration to soldier on through the rest. Thanks!
A sensational biography of one of earth's greatest artists.
Thanks for the video Oscar, I'm always loving these.
The Emperor has no clothes.
@@PrinceValiance
And you have no brain? Why are you even here?
Mahler composes; The musicians are his hands conducting, and we dear listener are the instruments upon which all that plays out in emotional chords, where waves of frisson dance through our bodies as though they were catgut. When I first heard Mahler - almost 30 years ago - I was completely blown away. I heard the third symphony, and that last movement collapsed duality into unity and unity into silence. I called his music then, and now, musical LSD. It is state altering on an essential and deeply resonant level. It is musical alchemy, and a rich apotheosis which blends pain and joy, suffering and exhaltation, the abyss and the all. In it, the universe unfolds and enfolds. It BREATHES.
When I hear Mahler, I am silent, say for what he plays upon and through me.
That I know love, I mean KNOW love ... is because this master composer tunes and plays me perfectly.
Thank-you Maestro Gustav Mahler.
Thank you for your brilliant synopsis ! Mahler is beyond doubt , my favourite composer . He speaks to me !
This should be a mandatory introduction to Mahler. Absolutely beautiful and deeply insightful. Thank you so much.
I’ve been lucky enough to see the Resurrection Symphony performed by both the Houston and San Antonio Symphonies. Both performances were extremely moving. The piece was really my first stepping stone into the world of orchestral literature!