Mahler and the LSO

Gustav Mahler’s sense of being an outsider, coupled with a penetrating, restless intelligence, made him an acutely selfconscious searcher after truth. For Mahler the purpose of art was, in Shakespeare’s famous phrase, to ‘hold the mirror up to nature’ in all its bewildering richness. The symphony, he told Jean Sibelius, ‘must be like the world. It must embrace everything’. Mahler’s symphonies can seem almost over-full of intense emotions and ideas: love and hate, joy in life and terror of death, the beauty of nature, innocence and bitter experiences. Similar themes can also be found in his marvellous songs and song cycles, though there, the intensity is, if anything, still more sharply focused.

Mahler was born the second of 14 children. His parents were apparently ill-matched (Mahler remembered violent scenes), and young Gustav grew up dreamy and introspective, seeking comfort in nature rather than human company. Death was a presence from early on: six of Mahler’s siblings died in infancy. This no doubt partly explains the obsession with mortality in Mahler’s music. Few of his major works do not feature a funeral march: in fact, his first composition (at age ten) was a Funeral March with Polka – exactly the kind of extreme juxtaposition one finds in his mature works. For most of his life, Mahler supported himself by conducting, but this was no mere means to an end. Indeed, his evident talent and energetic, disciplined commitment led to successive appointments in Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, Hamburg and, climactically, in 1897, at the Vienna Court Opera. In the midst of this hugely demanding schedule, Mahler composed whenever he could, usually during his summer holidays. The rate at which he composed during these brief periods – when most of his massive symphonies were written – is astonishing. His workload in no way decreased after his marriage to the charismatic and intelligent Alma Schindler in 1902.

Nevertheless, many today have good cause to be grateful to Mahler for his single-minded devotion to his art. Mahler can take us to the edge of the abyss, then sing us the sweetest songs of consolation. If we allow ourselves to make this journey with him, we may find that we too are the better for it.

By Stephen Johnson